On April 8, 1935, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, the President's advisor, believed that an employment program such as the Works Progress Administration, set up under the act, would bring economic recovery to the country and result in less dependence on public assistance. The goal was to provide one paid job for any family in which the breadwinner had bee