That led the administration to create a permanent jobs program, the Works Progress Administration.

NYTIMES: The Great Depression

But the Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals that line the lobby are free to see.

BBC: Twenty-five free attractions in San Francisco

Isay, of Sound Portraits Productions, says the StoryCorps project was inspired by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) recordings made during the 1930s.

NPR: StoryCorps, An Oral History of America

Several leftish academics have advocated an updated version of the 1930s Works Progress Administration in which the jobless could be put to socially useful work, such as building low-income housing or providing childcare.

ECONOMIST: The jobs summit

Among them: freeze entitlement programs and raise the Social Security retirement age to 70, tackle health care in a "serious way" and limit government spending to below 1% of nominal gross domestic product while setting up a modern Works Progress Administration to build infrastructure.

WSJ: WRITING ON THE WALL: The 1% Has Found Its Moses

While the U.S. was struggling through the Depression and encouraging the kind of representational art tinged with social themes propagated by the Works Progress Administration, the Park Avenue cubists insisted art should exist apart from politics, in a protected sphere where individuals could assert a private vision.

FORBES: Cubists In Love