I thought this to be an appropriate time to post this description, because I recently posted a four part review of a book about FDR. The term Boondoggles became well known as the result of one of Roosevelt’s signature programs, the Works Program Administration (WPA), during the Great Depression. A man hired to teach crafts in the WPA told a Senate committee he taught “Boon Doggles.” When asked to explain he said, “Boon doggles is simply a term applied to the pioneer days to what we call gadgets today…” The New York Times published an article on April 4, 1935 describing how millions were being spent teaching the jobless to play by making “boon doggles.” The term evolved into “boondoggle,” and was applied to anything that involved useless, wasteful, or trivial work. The term apparently originated with scouts making decorations for their lanyards. Worldwidewords notes that the term was first mentioned in print in Punch August 14, 1929, “The chief scout has recently been presented…with a Degree, and by the scouts of America with a boondoggle.”