Wednesday, January 25, 1933

Viola Clark is going to give a mystery story up at school once a week, maybe until it ends. Mother traded flour for sugar so we can make candy.

*The Emergency Relief Administration (ERA) was created by President Herbert Hoover in 1932 to give loans to the states to operate relief programs that provided food and other aid to the unemployed. In May 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to set up the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which gave grants to the states for the same purpose. FERA's main goal was alleviating household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (rather derisively called "the dole"), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job for self-esteem to play the role of male breadwinner. From May 1933 until it closed in December, 1935, FERA gave states and localities $3.1 billion. FERA provided work for over 20 million people and developed facilities on public lands across the country.