Why did the WPA cut off funding for The Cradle Will Rock?
The play was ostensibly cancelled due to funding cuts. The last half of 1936 had seen a brief surge in economic growth, despite the fact that millions remained unemployed. Subsequently, there was a great deal of pressure to phase out the federally funded WPA projects, which had always been intended as a temporary measure to provide jobs and stimulate the economy during the Great Depression. The arts projects were considered the least essential and thus were cut first. Given the political context of the time, however, it is clear that the play was dropped for its political content. After nearly fifty years of bloody defeats & setbacks, organized labor was achieving great victories against big business. The Flint sit-down strike, after a long & often violent struggle during December and January of 1936-37, had emerged victorious. The newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations was growing rapidly more powerful. Though ultimately reformist in its aims, the CIO employed former IWW an
