Interview with Historian David L. Roll on Harry Hopkins 1912
Grinnell in the News 2013-06-16
Summary:
Many readers today may not know much about Hopkins. What are a few things you'd say to introduce him?
He was born in Iowa in 1890, the son of an itinerant harness maker with champagne tastes. He graduated from Grinnell College and became a social worker, following the path of his older sister.
He became very well known as a social worker and rose quickly through the ranks of several social service agencies. Then he caught the eye of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt when Roosevelt served as governor of New York.
After Roosevelt became president in 1933, and during the first hundred days, he hired Harry to become the head of a series of FDR's jobs programs during the Great Depression, culminating with his appointment to head the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, the centerpiece of the New Deal. Harry used his social worker background and his expertise in running bureaucracies to serve the president in Washington.
As head of the WPA, Hopkins put eight-and-a-half million Americans back to work and injected ten billion dollars into the economy. He famously reported to Roosevelt: "Well boss, they're all back at work, but for God's sake, don't ask me what they're doing." Roosevelt loved that kind of humor.