The Civil Works Administration was a short-term (November 8, 1933–March 31, 1934) federal program designed to help the unemployed get through the winter of 1933–34. The national program employed approximately four million people.
In 1933 the local board of the Civil Works Administration approved $30,000 for improvements to the campus upon the application of the university. The CWA provided the labor and the entity to which the workers were assigned provided materials for the project. Projects at UT included water system extension at the UT farm; water system extension on the main campus; extension of Rose Avenue (now Andy Holt Avenue) onto the campus to provide access to Alumni Memorial from the west side; grading and paving from the lower Hill entrance on Cumberland to Morrill Hall (site of the current Hesler Biology Building); expansion of the poultry facilities at the UT Farm—building five poultry laying houses, four breeding pen houses, six colony brooder houses, one hot water brooder, and constructing a cone concrete manure pit; repair of three farm labor tenant houses; and development of outside physical education areas, including hard-surfacing of five tennis courts. In addition, workers assisted in classifying specimens in the herbarium, translating documents from the German, classifying insects for the insect collection, cleaning and repair of library books and materials, repairing agricultural tenant houses, and overhauling and repairing machines in the power plant. Workers also did an enormous amount of archaeological work and archaeological records maintenance for TVA projects being managed by UT.