Tackling Unemployment
One of the main goals of the Greenbelt cities project was to provide
immediate work for men on unemployment relief. Initially, about a
thousand workers were assigned to the Greenbelt
project. Only about 45 of them were skilled laborers, which emphasized
the need to put people to work. The transient workers were transported to
the site
from Baltimore and Washington by buses and by train.
The construction of Greenbelt, MD became very unique with the priority of
putting people to work. Men worked
constantly. If work was delayed in one area, than work was found somwhere
else. Roosevelt wished to use manual labor wherever possible in order to
put more men to work. This meant sacfrificing the facility of heavy
machinery and equipment to accomplish difficult tasks. For instance,
there was no crane used to build the town theater, so a ramp had to be
used to build the higher floors. For the man-made lake, the men had to do
a tremendous amount of digging rather than use a bulldozer. If there was
a job that required different steps, a different worker would be used for
each step. Tugwell became a little frustrated with these inefficient
methods of consrtuction, perhaps because he was recieving all the
criticism for the high costs involved. It is reported that Tugwell once
infuriated FDR by suggesting that the men use spoons instead of
shovels.
The performance of the laborers came into question early but as time went
on they gained more experience. Bad publicity surrounded the laborers in
the fall of 1937 when the opening of the community buildings, and
schools were delayed because they weren't ready yet.
The men who worked on the Greenbelt were not all local. In fact only
about half of them came from Maryland, which caused a lot of complaints
among the unemployed in Maryland. With any type of federal employment
project, the government had to show priority towards those on employment
relief. The government stood by this position.
The men worked since the groundbreaking in October of 1935 till downsizing
began over 1937. Overall the employment goal of Greenbelt was a success.
It is estimated that 10,600 total workers had been on the Greenbelt
project, and that twice the amount of jobs were created in private
industry due to Greenbelt.
For more on the construction of Greenbelt, see Raj's Project.
Criticisms of Greenbelt
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