With the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, his promised New Deal resulted in the creation of a number of federally sponsored programs to help provide relief to the American people suffering the economic and psychological effects of the Great Depression. The largest and most successful of these programs was the Works Progress Administration (1935). The WPA provided assistance to workers of all walks of life. The Library Services Division got its start under the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA 1933) and later made the transition to the WPA as the Library Services Section and in 1936 came under the direction of the Division of Women’s and Professional Projects. The goal of the Library Services Section was to provide employment for professional librarians, primarily women, as a way of exchanging work for relief.

Like most New Deal programs the Library Service had a practical as well as altruistic application. The practical application of the program provided the opportunity of employment for professional and semi-professional librarians as well as expanding the services of local library in the areas of adult education and rural extension. The hope, in the spirit of New Deal ideology, was to also provide the opportunity to improve literacy while addressing the inherent right of all Americans to cultural enrichment. The library project achieved its greatest successes with permanent gains in the extension of library services to those people and places that had either lost their library, had limited library access, or never had a library. Residents in rural areas began to see the delivery of books in a variety of modes including backpack, saddlebags, and bookmobiles. Criticism of the program mainly rested on ‘make work’ activities that did not do anything positive other than pay wages. However, in those areas where people had at least semi-regular access to books and magazines for the first time these WPA libraries became “’the bread line of the spirit.’”

According to WPA Montana (PAM 3499), the library service not only brought books to rural Montana it also helped strengthen Democracy by providing more reading material on national and international affairs. By the early 1940s, the bookmobile already served four Montana counties around Great Falls with the hope of expanding that rural service in other sections of the state. Along with the extension of rural services, the Library Project provided labor assistance to libraries across the state that needed more help. The WPA library project included training opportunities for professional and non-professional library work. In conjunction with the assistance to libraries, it operated two book binding units in Great Falls and Butte. These two units made sure book repairs were cost efficient for WPA libraries. WPA libraries and bookbinding units in Montana and across the nation participated in collecting books for the Victory Book Campaign for members of the military at the start of World War II. The Library Service officially closed the week of March 15, 1943. At its peak the library service employed 38,324; 25,628 in library services and 12,696 working on book repair.