The Civil Works Administration, 1933-1934: The Business of Emergency Employment in the New Deal

by Bonnie Fox Schwartz

Overview

Bonnie Fox Schwartz examines the New Deal's Civil Works Administration, the first federal job-creation program for the unemployed. Challenging assumptions that social workers and other urban liberals dominated New Deal relief agencies, she describes the role of engineers and industrial managers in the CWA's employment of 4.2 million Americans during the winter of 1933-1934.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691612140
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/14/2014
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #589
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

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The Civil Works Administration, 1933-1934

The Business of Emergency Employment in the New Deal

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By Bonnie Fox Schwartz

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-04718-8

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CHAPTER 1

Origins of Civil Works: Unorthodox Social Work and Progressive Engineering

In October, 1933, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal Administration settled in for its first winter, the federal government undertook a nation-wide relief census. For the first time, officials in Washington dared to count the exact number of families receiving aid from public funds, the number of persons in these families, the total cost to government, and gather other information to calculate the national dimensions of unemployment and dependency. When the statistics were finally tabulated, the Relief Census documented the shattering impact of four years of depression. More than 12.5 million Americans — ten percent of the population — were living on public aid. Four states alone, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Illinois, claimed a third of these persons, and an eighth resided in five cities with a million or more inhabitants. The count included over 5.25 million children under sixteen years of age. One seventh of all youngsters from six to thirteen years old depended on relief, an experience comparable to school in its impact upon a future generation. And almost .25 million infants were starting life out on the dole.

The Relief Census presented an ironic contrast to the first federal census of 1790, which counted 4 million farmers and artisans busy at work. The 1933 Census found three times as many individuals living in idleness and despair. The purposes of the two, however, offer striking analogies in furnishing basic information for government action. The 1790 statistics served to allocate representatives to the new Congress, to levy direct taxes to support the federal government, and to estimate military strength. The 1933 figures revealed data for use in the administration, not of a new government, but of new federal agencies attempting to provide emergency relief and work with few precedents to guide them. The Relief Census would assist in allocating funds, pointing to areas of extreme need, estimating the size and nature of individual and family needs, and planning programs to rehabilitate the jobless and their dependents. A century and a half of time had witnessed the growth of an industrial economy and a complex urban society far different from the 1790's. The federal government would have to undertake new responsibilities based on new attitudes toward the unemployed, who looked to Washington as a last resort for help.

I

Americans traditionally regarded a man out of work as lazy and worthless. Whether times were good or bad, if a person had no job, he was to blame. Some basic character flaw accounted for his destitution. As a result, those temporarily unemployed fell in with the improvident and physically disabled, all under the same stigma of dependency. This concept of "charity and corrections" influenced whatever forms of relief existed from colonial times through the twentieth century.

Elizabethan Poor Laws and the Puritan work ethic shaped colonial and early American practices of caring for the needy. Although the poor remained within the community and received "outdoor relief" in their own homes, public "overseers" meted out assistance harshly, feeling that charity only encouraged dependency. The pauper's oath, disfranchisement, or refusal of a marriage license served to humiliate recipients so that only the truly desperate applied. Payments took the form of food orders or donated clothing, just enough to maintain subsistence. This "relief in kind" implied that dependents did not have judgment arid represented an unwillingness to trust them with money.

In the optimistic, self-reliant nineteenth century, Jacksonian reformers preferred to isolate social deviants by replacing "outdoor assistance" with "indoor relief' and the establishment of almshouses. Instead of tending to the poor at home, community leaders created institutions to educate them in good habits. More than charity, the needy required supervision to avoid the temptations of liquor, gambling, and other vices. Once behind the walls of the asylum or "house of industry," residents could learn discipline under a precise, rigorous routine. Even during periods of economic crisis, when overloaded almshouses were supplemented by ad hoc relief committees, charitable groups still insisted that relief only prolonged idleness. Acknowledging that the Panic of 1819 had created "personal inconveniences," the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism pointed out that "no man who is temperate, frugal and willing to work need suffer or become a pauper for want of employment." The New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, founded in 1843 at the end of another severe depression, stressed personal regeneration over material aid. Although its directors noted how Manhattan's wretched slums had contributed to demoralization, they emphasized that individuals could be reformed by learning economy, industry, and temperance.

After the Civil War, unprecedented industrial expansion and intellectual affirmation of "survival of the fittest" sharpened the preference for private charity over public relief. Any clamor for public works during the 1873 depression smacked only of radical demands during the Paris Commune, while widespread revulsion against Boss Tweed's patronage gave the public dole connotations of political corruption. Wasteful expenditures by such dishonest bosses encouraged reformers in eight major cities, including New York and Philadelphia, to abolish municipal outdoor relief in the Gilded Age. In this era of individualism, Social Darwinists looked upon charity as a necessary evil, suited only to those who could not compete — the aged, the sick, the orphaned. Only private philanthropy, established on a permanent basis, could distinguish between such "worthy poor" and the indolent, who would not work if given aid. "Human nature is so constituted," remarked the social work pioneer Josephine Shaw Lowell in 1884, "that no man can receive as a gift what he should earn by his own labor without a moral deterioration."

The first extensive use of "made work" for the unemployed during the Panic of 1893 was undertaken in this punitive spirit. Presuming the jobless were probably "work shy," local authorities applied the "work test" to determine the "genuineness and desert of the applicant." Enthusiastic supporters held that an honest day's labor prevented pauperism and gave the able-bodied indigent a chance to improve their characters by making them self-supporting. "Work-for-relief" programs provided an excuse for those getting aid to "earn" whatever they received. Projects involved only rough physical labor and were generally useless. One local relief official conceded that the typical task "may be necessary or unnecessary; it may be useful here and now or in anticipation of a future need; invented or ad hoc." Meager payments in kind enabled overseers to stretch limited resources and dissuaded all but the most desperate. Careful to avoid competition with the private market, advocates indeed followed Josephine Shaw Lowell's philosophy that "to be a benefit rather than an injury work relief must be continuous, hard, and underpaid."

The severity of the 1893 depression, however, combined with the reform spirit of the progressive movement to prompt a major shift in outlook by the turn of the century. Although this new perspective did not totally deny that individual frailties caused personal destitution, it did stress the impact of the factory system and low wages, which prevented even the thrifty from saving. Settlement house leaders like Jane Addams and Lillian Wald practiced community service and came to understand slum-living first hand. Statistical researchers such as Robert W. De Forest and Lawrence Veiller provided sophisticated studies of tenement crowding, and Robert Hunter voiced the widespread conviction that "social evils must be remedied and certain social wrongs must be put right." Frances Kellor's Out of Work (1915) urged that commissions gather accurate data to understand fully the plight of the jobless.

This spirit of scientific inquiry also brought technological experts to see the root causes of unemployment in the chronic disorganization of the market place. Engineers, economists, and enlightened industrialists, influenced by Frederick Winslow Taylor's scientific management, realized that periodic fluctuations in business had forced many laborers out of work and below the subsistence level. Captivated by the efficiency movement, technicians called attention to disorders in the industrial system which created dramatic "labor turnovers" and threw men out of work involuntarily.

Armed with these new explanations for the phenomenon of unemployment, two groups in particular — social workers and social engineers — offered new professional approaches to the traditional dispensation of poor relief. The recession of 1914–1915, the mobilization and relief efforts during the First World War, and the economic downturn of 1921–1922 would provide each group with opportunities to demonstrate and refine its expertise.

II

Although social workers had often operated in the public sector, for example, in staffing legislative commissions of inquiry to upgrade housing and factory safety standards, their professional methods remained centered on the individual "client" and were practiced predominantly under private auspices. By the turn of the century, case work had begun to emerge as the "nuclear skill" of the profession. Good-hearted, casual home visitors, who voluntarily dispensed a little charity, were gradually displaced by full-time, trained professionals, well read in sociology, with degrees from the University of Chicago or the New York School of Social Work. These investigators attempted to "diagnose" social ills and prescribe treatment for particular needs. They determined the amount of relief according to a "means test," which involved a searching inquiry into personal finances and family resources with scientific budgeting. By establishing a relationship with each client, case workers could render informed advice on how to secure a job and other questions. They understandably disapproved of public relief with its lax, often corrupt administration, its unsightly breadlines, and crowded municipal flophouses.

Case workers confronted the first challenge of mass unemployment during the recession of 1914–1915. Instead of offering free soup or a mattress for the night, settlement houses, federated charities, and private neighborhood groups in many cities coordinated their activities in "programs of community planning." Despite the emergency, professionals remained committed to adequate investigations and personalized case work for individual clients and their families. Within this approach, the United Charities of Chicago devised street cleaning and clearance of vacant lots for 1,729 married men with dependents. New York's Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor arranged with the Bronx Botanical and Zoological Gardens to place clients at $2.00 a day for three days a week. If men refused this opportunity, the Association turned down further relief claims. Minneapolis Associated Charities undertook a local dam project and paid heads of families $1.60 plus carfare for an eight-hour day, three days a week, with wages in kind or in grocery orders. Such modest attempts resembled the nineteenth-century work test with "jobs" as a precondition for family assistance.

The World War I mobilization enhanced the status of the private charities and their commitment to case work. Community war chest drives stimulated private fund-raising, particularly the idea of combining all contributions in one pledge. Although welfare officials gave relief to soldiers' families who had not received their allotment, the amount of aid depended on need.

After the Armistice, during the 1921–1922 recession, private agencies turned their fund-raising and disbursement apparatus to the unemployed. Financial federations, the successors of the war chests, solicited contributions; and councils of social agencies coordinated local relief. Despite added client loads, dedicated case workers staunchly maintained standards, as suggested by the meticulous procedures of the Philadelphia Society for Organized Charity. A first interview focused on the applicant's immediate plight: why unemployed, previous earnings, jobs held in the last three years, how the family coped, children's health, and job prospects. A "curtailed" investigation still required information from the last two employers, one relative on each side of the family, the church, and the medical service. The case worker also checked neighborhood references, including tradesmen, school officials, the physician, and the clergyman. Even when municipal funds supplemented the private effort, social workers insisted on limited public involvement. The Minneapolis Associated Charities referred the unemployed to City Hall, but sent along staff members to advise on procedures. A long-standing agreement between Boston's Family Welfare Society and the city Board of Overseers had public authorities watch over families who required continuous cash allowances while private organizations conducted home visits. When private agencies developed work projects, they did so for special clients rather than as a general policy. The Philadelphia Society for Organized Charity had five programs, which allowed for diversity and a crude placement of applicants according to their capabilities. Laborers wielded picks and shovels, while opportunities for skilled repair work were available at the Pennsylvania Hospital, College Settlement, and the Lighthouse Settlement. Officials preferred to keep projects small enough to remain an adjunct of good case work rather than a substitute for it.

With renewed prosperity in the mid-Twenties, social workers solidified their commitment to case work and private fundraising. The return of most of the able-bodied to industry permitted time to focus on chronic dependents, like the handicapped, orphans, and widows. While Freudian ideas stimulated an exploration of the ways in which individual psychosis hampered a person's ability to find and keep a job, the publication of Mary Richmond's classic What Is Social Case Work? in 1922 gave an authoritative definition to this painstaking process "which develops personality through adjustments consciously effected individual by individual, between men and their social environment." At the same time, private charities experienced the influence of bureaucratic management, as businessmen participated in the administration of relief. They helped make rationalized fund drives an accepted strategy during the 1920's, and even expanded the federation movement to a national scale. These achievements in casework orthodoxy and private charity organization would provide the first line of defense against the Great Depression in 1929.

III

While social workers served through private agencies, a new generation of technicians had moved from the factory production lines to the public arena. In the progressive era, Frederick W. Taylor's disciples preached the gospel of rationalized public administration and encouraged engineers to enter government service, particularly to clean up the wasteful corruption of boss politics. Victories of insurgent mayors like New York's John Purroy Mitchel and Rudolph Blankenburg in Philadelphia placed many Taylorites in office to confront a painful example of national inefficiency, the recession of 1914–1915. Administering municipal departments like public works, streets, and sanitation, efficiency experts found opportunities to offer a scientific response to mounting "labor turnovers." At the first National Conference on Unemployment in New York City, held February 27 and 28, 1914, speaker after speaker dwelled on the concept of "regularizing employment." Henry S. Dennison, a business executive and Taylorite, drew up "Standard Recommendations for the Prevention and Relief of Unemployment," which found joblessness "a concomitant of the disorganization rampant in the industrial system." "It is almost impossible to conceive that under good management there is any necessity for such violent changes in the number of employees as we saw in Philadelphia during the winter of 1913–1914," added Morris L. Cooke, the city's director of public works. As the recession deepened, New York's Mayor Mitchel appointed a committee on unemployment and relief chaired by U.S. Steel magnate Elbert H. Gary. Viewing direct relief as debilitating, Gary preferred putting the idle to work to increase overall efficiency and productivity. In Philadelphia, Mayor Blankenburg invited business leaders to confer with his cabinet; and public works director Cooke assigned Joseph H. Willits, a Wharton School professor and fellow Taylorite, to study the city's jobless. Although these committees failed to initiate permanent reforms, they did suggest statistics gathering, soundly managed employment bureaus, and long-range planning of public works for the future.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Civil Works Administration, 1933-1934 by Bonnie Fox Schwartz. Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Preface, pg. vii
• Contents, pg. xiii
• Acronyms, pg. xv
• Abbreviations, pg. xvii
• Chapter One. Origins of Civil Works: Unorthodox Social Work And Progressive Engineering In, pg. 1
• Chapter Two. The Civil Works Organization: From Social Welfare to Social Engineering and Management, pg. 39
• Chapter Three. The Cwa in The States: Social Workers and Corporate Liberals Vs. The Bosses, pg. 72
• Chapter Four. Civil Works arid the AFL, pg. 102
• Chapter Five. Civil Works for the White Collar and Professional, pg. 129
• Chapter Six. Civil Works for the "Forgotten Woman", pg. 156
• Chapter Seven. The Four Million: From Relief Clients to Work Force, pg. 181
• Chapter Eight. Demobilization, pg. 213
• Chapter Nine. Reconversion to Work Relief: The FERA Work Division and the WPA, pg. 239
• Epilogue: From CWA To CETA, pg. 260
• A Note on Sources, pg. 277
• Index, pg. 285