Part of a vast federal reaction to the Great Depression of 1929 known as The New Deal. With 13 million unemployed people by the summer of 1935, the WPA became a necessary and important source of deliverance from the doldrums of despair. Responsible for employing millions and engendering the greatest expansion of public educational institutions and hospitals in American history, this agency also sustained the arts through a wide variety of public enterprises. Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA spent over eleven billion dollars refreshing the American economy and spirit.