The Great Depression and the New Deal
When a national real estate bubble burst in 1926, its effects were most intense in Florida, where the bubble had been going the strongest. “Contemporary accounts describe a collective madness that consumed Florida investors: city lots in Miami were bought and sold as many as ten times in a single day” (Forgotten Real Estate Boom, 2012, par,. 2). Two severe hurricanes, one in 1926 and one in 1928, further damaged the state’s economy, and in 1929, the citrus industry was devastated by an infestation of the Mediterranean fruit fly, which reduced production by 60 percent (Migrant Workers, n.d., par. 3-4).
Florida’s government was ill-equipped to handle the Depression, and the federal government stepped in with a form of aid called relief. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, in particular the Civilian Conservation Corps, helped to put the state back to work. Food and clothing were provided to workers who planted trees, dug firebreaks, worked on state parks and wildlife reserves, helped build schools and federal buildings, and rebuilt Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad to Key West, which had been damaged by a hurricane. The Works Progress Administration gave jobs to researchers, writers, and editors, and gave one of Florida’s best known writers, Zora Neale Hurston, work during this period (Great Depression, 2002, pars. 8-10).
Read more about the Great Depression and the New Deal in Florida below.
http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/depress/depress1.htm
The Works Progress Administration (WPA), an employment and infrastructure program, was initiated by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Primarily a public works project, it also sponsored projects in the arts.The WPA Guide to Florida was part of the WPA's American Guide series. The link below includes some of its contents, and shows some of the WPA's work projects carried out in Florida at the University of Florida.
https://floridarevealed.tumblr.com/post/177809887854/the-wpa-guide-to-florida
Florida writer Zora Neale Hurston had already received acclaim for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God when she began her work in Florida with the WPA's Federal Writers Project in 1939. Find out more about her project at the below link.
Another well-known Florida writer who wrote during the Depression was Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, whose work drew from her rural life at Cross Creek, Florida.
http://www.stateparks.com/marjorie_kinnan_rawlings_historic_state_park_in_florida.html
