Purdue University – West Lafayette IN

Description

Multiple New Deal agencies: the Public Works Administration (P.W.A.), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.), Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), and National Youth Administration (N.Y.A.) left an indelible imprint on Purdue University with many notable construction and improvement projects.

Robert Topping:

[Purdue University President Edward C.] Elliott once summarized federal grants and expenditures made since 1933, pat of the national effort to shore up the United States economy. The PWA, for example, had spent $700,000 toward construction of five new buildings—two units of the women’s residence halls (Windsor Halls), the Executive Building (Hovde Hall of Administration), a fieldhouse and gymnasium (Lambert Fieldhouse), and an addition to the Purdue Memorial Union. Through the WPA, more than $413,000 had been spent for an airport hangar, an addition to the old Physics Building (Peirce Hall), tennis courts, roadways, sewers, fencing, and sundry other campus improvements. At the same time, the NYA had spent more than $200,000 for needy students for their work at various jobs throughout the university.