This sanitary outhouse is typical of those built by the Works Progress Administration in the early 1930's and eventually nicknamed The Eleanor. In the early 1930's the nation fell into a great depression as many people were out of work, the stock market had crashed, and families did not have enough to eat. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as the 32nd president in 1933, he sought to improve economic conditions by creating the Works Progress Administration. Through the WPA, millions of unemployed people were hired to build new roads, schools, airports, and thousands of outhouses. Roosevelt's wife Eleanor pushed to improve sanitation for farmers and rural communities. Poorly built outhouses with bad drainage, leaky roofs, and dirt floors contributed to the spread of waterborne diseases such as typhoid and the invasive parasitic hookworm. A farm family could have a WPA sanitary outhouse built for the cost of materials, from $5 to $17, if their old outhouse was burned. A three-man team spent an average of twenty hours constructing each one. The Eleanor had a one-piece cast-concrete foundation and raised seat placed over a hole dug in the ground, a tin roof that was either A-frame or slanting, and screened ventilation openings that drew away odors and kept out flies.