In a terrific example of
no good deed goes unpunished, most of the
southern third of the
United States hates
FDR for these programs, and its
legacy.
In my high school this era of American History was described as the socialist period. There are many, many people who still describe FDR as an evil communist and blame him for many of the ills of the country today. The fact that these programs fed large portions of the South for about a five year period, or that it employed large numbers of transient males for almost a decade has been forgotten.
What is not forgotten is the building projects. The TVA, described above, gave electrical power to a large portion of the eastern half of that state, as well as western Virginia and northern Georgia. (They did not yet have it). Many of the public libraries, high school buildings and community centers in small town southern America where built by the WPA during this time period, and most of them have plaques explaining this.