President Franklin D. Roosevelt inherited a nation in crisis. Upon his arrival in Washington in 1933, the unemployment rate was a staggering 24.9 percent — the highest rate ever recorded. But Roosevelt had a vision, announcing, “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.”

In October, Roosevelt would ask his trusted adviser Harry Hopkins, a longtime social worker, to develop a plan. Winter was coming, and Roosevelt was convinced that the solution to avoid large masses of people freezing and starving to death was to create the most robust public works program the nation had ever seen. The idea was straightforward: the federal government would provide millions of jobs on public works projects at prevailing wages for those without work. No means testing, just fair work at fair wages.

On November 9, 1933, President Roosevelt would sign Executive Order 6420B to create the experimental Civil Works Administration (CWA). Within a week, Hopkins had a plan to present to the nation. Within a month, the program was launched. Within two months, the CWA was fully operational, directly employing 4 million Americans — nearly one in ten workers — across the nation. It was an astonishing accomplishment.