Patriot Games
SIRS Decades

Immigration has long been a hot-button issue. In 1909, two concerned citizens, Thomas James and James Ward, wrote letters to Pennsylvania congressman Allan Foster Cooper urging him to do everything in his power to limit immigration. One wrote of the need to ensure top political posts were filled by "patriotic Americans," while the other lamented the effects of immigration on "true Americans."

Houses—Who Wants Them?
History Study Center

While economists don't always agree on exactly how we entered a recession, they mostly do agree on what, in general terms, we need to do to get out of one: spend money. But what happens when millions of people don't have any money to spend? In this new activity from the History Study Center, learn how the pursuit of one aspect of the American Dream has made it very difficult to realize the others.

When the stock markets opened for the first time after 9/11, President Bush urged Americans to do something patriotic: shop. The thinking then, as now, was that we could spend our way out of the worst effects of recession.

Now, as one Wall Street crisis has followed another and credit has become harder and harder to get, the prescription to consumers is the same. But this time round, there's a very serious problem.

A multi-trillion-dollar housing bubble has collapsed, wiping out much of the equity Americans had accrued in their homes over the past several years. Those hit hardest now owe more—in some cases far more—than their houses are worth, while even the more fortunate aren't as well off—and so aren't nearly as prepared for retirement—as they thought they were.

As a result, homeowners of all stripes are cutting back their consumption at a time when, for the health of the economy, they should be spending more.

In the 1930s, as consumers struggled to get by, President Roosevelt tried to stimulate the economy by dramatically increasing what the government spent on public services and the infrastructure.

In order to inject money into the economy and create jobs, he created an agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), whose principal job was to put people to work. Critics charged that much of the work was useless, but it's undeniable that a lot of men who would otherwise have remained unemployed found work through the WPA.

Search the History Study Center for articles dealing with the WPA. With reference to at least two of them, describe some of the benefits and costs of using public money to put individuals to work. Then write a 250-word essay either rejecting or advocating the implementation of a similar scheme today.