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Work—Study—Live:
The Resident Youth Centers of the NYA

The National Youth Administration

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When the National Youth Administration (NYA) is mentioned, there may be a good many persons who will say, "Oh, we know about the NYA." But what they have in mind is the NYA program that dealt with the needs of young people who were in schools and colleges throughout the country. The part that I am writing about came later. It dealt with out-of-school, unemployed, poverty-stricken youth who were the most damaged victims of the depression.

NYA-sponsored Softball Team, Tucson, Arizona

The NYA was the last of the programs of the Roosevelt New Deal to tackle the massive problems of unemployment, poverty and despair characteristic of the great depression. In May 1934 Eleanor Roosevelt told a reporter for the New York Times , "I have moments of real terror when I think we may be losing this generation of young people." She had in mind the dire effects of the depression on young men and women throughout the country. More than most citizens, Eleanor Roosevelt realized that youth caught in the depression had problems different from those of their elders, who, although unemployed, too, had at least worked during the prosperous years of the twenties. But children born in the late twenties and growing up after 1929 lived in years of general job scarcity through the thirties and had no memories, let alone actual experiences, of working. Eleanor Roosevelt had good reason to worry about losing a generation of youth.

Moreover, years of idleness had sapped whatever confidence and self-esteem youth may have succeeded in developing. Serious psychological and emotional problems resulted. Many bad habits had been formed that threatened not only their future employment but also the practices of good citizenship as well as healthy, constructive living.

NYA workers, Illinois

Franklin Roosevelt responded to his wife's concerns with a public declaration: "I have determined that we shall do something for the nation's unemployed youth." On June 26th, 1935 the National Youth Administration was authorized as part of the Works Progress Administration, one of the principal vehicles of the New Deal. Aubrey Williams, a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, was appointed its Executive Director. Its charter granted it authority "to initiate and administer a program of approved projects to provide emergency relief and employment to persons between the ages of 16 and 25 who are no longer in regular attendance at a school requiring full time study and who are not engaged in remunerative employment."

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