This young man may be a farmer, or he may have been working on a federal Depression-era relief or recovery project. President Franklin Roosevelt had quickly implemented his New Deal initiatives in 1933, and some states endorsed them with great enthusiasm. Paul V. McNutt, newly elected Governor of Indiana, embraced the New Deal during his one term as governor (1933-37). He described his programs as “A Subsidy to Humanity” because he said it was government’s obligation to “protect the humanity it serves.”

Governor McNutt used the Federal Works Progress Administration, or “WPA,” to employ almost 100,000 Hoosiers. Most of the State parks, schools, roads and bridges they built continue to serve Indiana today. Camps operated by the Civilian Conservation Corps, or “CCC,” housed and fed over 64,000 unemployed young men throughout the state on land management and conservation projects. Paul McNutt streamlined bureaucracy, repaid the State’s debts, and when he left office, Indiana state government was operating at a surplus.