The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created in by Executive Order in 1935, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, as a work program for those facing unemployment as a result of the Great Depression. The WPA's stated purpose was to provide opportunities for unemployed workers to use and preserve their skills through public works projects, as well as arts and culture initiatives such as the Federal Arts Project, Federal Theatre Project, and Federal Writers' Project. Renamed the Works Projects Administration in 1939, its programs and projects provided work for approximately 8.5 million people over its eight years, coming to an end in 1943 with the boom in employment provided by the new wartime economy.

In 1935, soon after the establishment of the WPA, Pennsylvania began a Museum Extension Project, also known as the State-Wide Museum Extension, with the purpose of creating visual educational aids for classroom use. The Museum Extension Project employed artists, sculptors, and writers to create historic models, puppets, illustrated plates, and maps to be used throughout Pennsylvania's school districts, particularly those without easy access to the larger museums. The program had seven offices throughout the state, centered in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, with the latter office co-sponsored with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Atwater Kent Museum (now known as the Philadelphia History Museum), and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.