The devastating stock market crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the history of the United States. At the height of the Depression in 1933, nearly 13 million people—roughly 25 percent of the workforce—were unemployed. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created an economic relief program known as the New Deal to offer employment to struggling Americans. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federally funded agency, hired some ten thousand artists to produce work for public buildings and traveling exhibitions as part of the Federal Art Project (FAP).
