<P> Following the passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939 in April 1939, the WPA was grouped with the Bureau of Public Roads, Public Buildings Branch of the Procurement Division, Branch of Buildings Management of the National Park Service, United States Housing Authority and the Public Works Administration under the newly created Federal Works Agency . Created at the same time, the Federal Security Agency assumed the WPA's responsibility for the National Youth Administration . "The name of the Works Progress Administration has been changed to Work Projects Administration in order to make its title more descriptive of its major purpose," President Roosevelt wrote when announcing the reorganization . </P> <P> As WPA projects became more subject to the state, local sponsors were called on to provide 25% of project costs . As the number of public works projects slowly diminished, more projects were dedicated to preparing for war . Having languished since the end of World War I, the American military services were depopulated and served by crumbling facilities; when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938, the U.S. Army numbered only 176,000 soldiers . </P> <P> On May 26, 1940, FDR delivered a fireside chat to the American people about "the approaching storm", and on June 6 Harrington reprioritized WPA projects, anticipating a major expansion of the U.S. military . "Types of WPA work to be expedited in every possible way to include, in addition to airports and military airfields, construction of housing and other facilities for enlarged military garrisons, camp and cantonment construction, and various improvements in navy yards," Harrington said . He observed that the WPA had already made substantial contributions to national defense over its five years of existence, by building 85 percent of the new airports in the U.S. and making $420 million in improvements to military facilities . He predicted there would be 500,000 WPA workers on defense - related projects over the next 12 months, at a cost of $250 million . The estimated number of WPA workers needed for defense projects was soon revised to between 600,000 and 700,000 . Vocational training for war industries was also begun by the WPA, with 50,000 trainees in the program by October 1940 . </P> <P> "Only the WPA, having employed millions of relief workers for more than five years, had a comprehensive awareness of the skills that would be available in a full - scale national emergency," wrote journalist Nick Taylor . "As the country began its preparedness buildup, the WPA was uniquely positioned to become a major defense agency ." </P>

The major goals of the works progress administration (wpa) included all of the following except to