🏥 How the WPA Transformed Public Health & Medical Care During the Great Depression

📌 This 1938 WPA report details the expansion of free medical clinics, school lunch programs, malaria control, and sanitation projects. Learn how WPA health services saved millions of lives and transformed public health.

Collage of the Many Types of WPA Health Services Projects Include Visiting Nurses (Louisiana), Children's Clinic (Pennsylvania), Visiting Nurse Service (Louisiana), Dental Clinic (Louisiana), Housekeeping Aides (Massachusetts), School Lunches (District Of Columbia), Tuberculosis Preventorium (Arizona), Preparing School Lunch (District Of Columbia). Inventory: An Appraisal of Results of the Works Progress Administration, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1938. GGA Image ID # 1520454f5d

🏥 WPA Health Services - 1938

How the WPA Expanded Public Health & Medical Care During the Great Depression

📖 The 1938 WPA health services report reveals an incredible effort to provide medical care, nutrition, and public health improvements to millions of struggling Americans. The program tackled malaria control, school lunches, sanitation, and healthcare access—critical needs during the Great Depression.

For teachers, students, genealogists, and historians, this document provides:

✔️ Insights into public health before modern healthcare systems.

✔️ Evidence of how New Deal programs transformed medical access.

✔️ Details on WPA-employed doctors, nurses, and public health workers.

✔️ Information on how WPA projects improved sanitation and disease prevention.

📌 This report showcases the WPA’s lifesaving contributions to public health, making it an essential historical resource!

Through a wide variety of WPA health projects, millions of needy men, women and children are able to obtain both preventive and curative medical assistance, ranging from personal care to broad public health work such as malaria control.

Subject Matter Index Page to WPA Health Projects Representing 3 Percent of Total Program. Inventory: An Appraisal of Results of the Works Progress Administration, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1938. GGA Image ID # 15209d01cc

Aside from the actual hospital construction listed previously, the broad public-health pro- gram of the WPA falls in three major types: Professional medical, dental, and nursing care: non-medical activities to preserve health, such as school lunches and household aides; and preventive campaigns such as the drive against malaria in the South by means of swamp drainage.

Doctors, dentists, and nurses, when taken from the relief rolls and given WPA jobs, found local officials eager to establish projects which would employ them at their professions in the service of the millions of unemployed who could not pay for medical care. Such projects, always operated under the supervision of local public health authorities, performed these services on an impressive scale.

Nearly 2,000 medical clinics and dental clinics have been conducted or assisted by WPA workers at which almost 1,000,000 persons have received free treatments. Medical examinations have been given by WPA doctors outside of clinics to over 1,300,000 persons who had no money to pay for them. Well over a million of them were children.

WPA nurses have made 213,450 group inspections and examined over 2,000,000 persons, in addition to which they have made over 2,450,000 visits to the homes of the needy. A total of 3,053 such nurses have assisted in the clinic program, while nursing aid was given at 638,972 immunizations.

The WPA's school-lunch program is not so much a professional as a practical health serv- ice, though dieticians have been employed in it where they were found on relief rolls. It was begun because, at the same time that many hungry children were thronging the public schools, there were also many needy women seeking WPA jobs whose only previous experience had been as housewives.

These women were, however, well qualified to prepare and serve hot, nourishing noon lunches to school children. Local communities, organizations of parents, and even the more fortunate children were glad to supply foodstuffs. In some places, any child was free to bring whatever his home larder afforded. Under this plan, over 129,000,000 hot lunches have been served—enough to provide every elementary school child in the Nation with lunches for a month.

In many homes, when sickness, injury, or other misfortune overtakes the housewife, there is no money to hire someone to help—someone to hold the home together. Yet there were available on the WPA rolls thousands of women whose only training had been homemaking.

Local agencies have utilized their services under the supervision of home economists or nurses and sent them out to meet acute human needs. The WPA calls such women "housekeeping aides." They have aided 663,513 families in distress and made a total of 4,020,548 visits to families facing serious emergencies.

One of the important construction campaigns in the interest of public health has been the construction by WPA workers of 865,955 sanitary toilets to replace unsanitary ones. Many entire communities have welcomed such facilities to help rid themselves of filth-born disease.

Another has been the drainage of 1,097,001 acres of mosquito-breeding swamps, mostly in 16 southern States, to combat malaria. A small army of WPA workers has accomplished this under the direction of the United States Public Health Service, by digging almost 6,000 miles of ditches and spraying over 1,200,000 gallons of oil.

Of this activity Surgeon General Thomas Parran has said: "WPA malaria control activities in the South affect the lives of 15,000,000 people. Their ultimate value will many times exceed the total of all relief expenditures in that area. It is not too much to say that the progress of malaria control has been advanced 30 years beyond the point it would have been without the WPA program."

Another Collage of the Many Types of WPA Health Services Projects that Include Bus Service for Cripples (New Jersey), Therapeutic Bath (New Jersey), Malaria Mosquito Control (Arkansas), Drainage for Mosquito Control (Tennessee), Health Clinic (Pennsylvania), Rat Control (Louisiana), Blood Test (Kentucky), Community Sanitation (Alabama), Laboratory Tests (New York). Inventory: An Appraisal of Results of the Works Progress Administration, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1938. GGA Image ID # 15208fe86c

ADDENDA

Under the CWA and FERA programs which preceded the WPA, the principal health contributions were large-scale drainage of malaria swamps and construction of sanitary toilets. More than half a million such toilets were built previous to the WPA, making a total for the three programs of 1,440,000.

CWA and FERA workers also ditched and drained over 250,000 acres of mosquito swamps, according to the Public Health Service, so that the three programs eliminated almost 2 million acres of malaria swamps.

"Health," in Inventory: An Appraisal of Results of the Works Progress Administration, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1938, pp. 41-44.

Why This Document is Important

📜 Relevance for Different Audiences

✔ For Historians & Public Health Researchers

🔹 Documents federal intervention in healthcare before Medicare/Medicaid.

🔹 Explores the relationship between poverty and public health.

🔹 Reveals how WPA projects improved community sanitation and disease control.

✔ For Genealogists & Family Historians

🔹 Ancestors may have worked as WPA doctors, nurses, or public health workers.

🔹 Family members may have received WPA-provided medical care, vaccinations, or school meals.

🔹 Medical clinics and health initiatives could have impacted relatives in rural and impoverished communities.

✔ For Teachers & Students

🔹 Provides case studies on early public health efforts in America.

🔹 Illustrates how WPA programs addressed health inequities and medical access.

🔹 Connects the Great Depression to modern public health policies.

📌 This report provides a comprehensive look at public health initiatives before the modern welfare state.

👩‍⚕️ Free Clinics, Nursing Care, & Medical Access

✔ Why This is Fascinating:

🔹 Nearly 1,000,000 people received free medical or dental treatments.

🔹 WPA nurses conducted over 2.4 million home visits to care for the sick.

🔹 Over 2 million schoolchildren received health screenings and immunizations.

🔹 Thousands of doctors, nurses, and dentists were given WPA jobs, helping them stay in their professions during the Depression.

✔ Key Takeaway:

The WPA provided medical access for the poorest Americans, many of whom had never seen a doctor before.

📌 This section highlights how the WPA filled critical gaps in healthcare access during an economic crisis.

🥗 School Lunch Program: Feeding Hungry Children

✔ Why This is Fascinating:

🔹 129,000,000 free school lunches were served—a massive nationwide effort!

🔹 Many WPA workers were unemployed housewives with cooking skills.

🔹 Parents, teachers, and communities provided food, while the WPA provided labor.

🔹 Children who would have gone hungry now received daily meals at school.

✔ Key Takeaway:

The WPA helped prevent childhood malnutrition by ensuring millions of students had at least one hot meal per day.

📌 This section connects economic hardship to childhood health and nutrition—a major public health issue then and now.

🚽 Sanitation & Disease Prevention

✔ Why This is Fascinating:

🔹 865,955 sanitary toilets were built to replace unsanitary outhouses.

🔹 Public health officials supported these efforts to stop disease outbreaks.

🔹 Entire communities eliminated typhoid, dysentery, and other diseases by improving sanitation.

🔹 This was one of the largest public sanitation projects in U.S. history!

✔ Key Takeaway:

The WPA modernized sanitation in rural and impoverished communities, reducing preventable diseases.

📌 This section highlights how WPA projects directly improved community health and hygiene.

🦟 Malaria & Mosquito Control

✔ Why This is Fascinating:

🔹 The WPA drained over 1,000,000 acres of mosquito-infested swamps.

🔹 Over 6,000 miles of ditches were dug, preventing standing water.

🔹 1.2 million gallons of oil were sprayed to kill mosquito larvae.

🔹 Surgeon General Thomas Parran credited the WPA with advancing malaria control by 30 years!

✔ Key Takeaway:

The WPA’s malaria program helped 15 million people in the South, preventing disease outbreaks.

📌 This section connects WPA projects to major medical breakthroughs in disease prevention.

🏡 Housekeeping Aides: Supporting Families in Crisis

✔ Why This is Fascinating:

🔹 4,020,548 home visits were made to families in distress.

🔹 The WPA provided emergency home care when mothers fell ill or were hospitalized.

🔹 Many WPA “housekeeping aides” were formerly unemployed women trained in home management.

✔ Key Takeaway:

The WPA helped families stay together during times of medical and financial crisis.

📌 This section highlights the social services aspect of WPA health initiatives—often overlooked in history.

🖼 Noteworthy Images & Their Significance

🖼 🏥 "Collage of WPA Health Services Projects"

🔹 Displays school lunch programs, medical clinics, visiting nurses, and dental programs.

🔹 Highlights how WPA projects targeted health issues for children and families.

🖼 📊 "WPA Subject Matter Index - Health Services"

🔹 Reveals that health services made up 3% of WPA projects, demonstrating significant federal investment in public health.

🖼 🦟 "Malaria Control & Sanitation Efforts"

🔹 Shows mosquito control, swamp drainage, and sanitation improvements.

🔹 Illustrates how WPA projects helped eliminate preventable diseases.

📌 These images provide a powerful visual representation of the WPA’s impact on public health.

Bias & Perspective Considerations

✔ Pro-WPA Narrative:

🔹 The report emphasizes successes but does not discuss limitations, such as:

🔹 Did WPA clinics have enough doctors and resources?

🔹 Were these services equally accessible to all racial and ethnic groups?

🔹 Did local governments continue health initiatives after WPA funding ended?

✔ Limited Discussion of Funding & Long-Term Impact

🔹 The document does not explore whether states expanded public health services after the WPA.

✔ Lack of Opposition or Criticism

🔹 Some private doctors and hospitals opposed free WPA clinics, fearing lost revenue.

🔹 This perspective is absent from the report.

📌 While this document provides an invaluable record of WPA health efforts, further research is needed for a balanced historical perspective.

Final Thoughts: Why This Report Matters

"WPA Health Services - 1938" is an eye-opening account of how the federal government provided essential healthcare, nutrition, and sanitation during the Great Depression. Through free clinics, school lunches, malaria control, and sanitation projects, the WPA saved lives and improved public health nationwide.

📌 The legacy of these programs can be seen today in public health clinics, school meal programs, and disease prevention efforts.

💡 The WPA proves that public health investments create long-term benefits for society. 🏥👏