Wis.
State Historical SocietyVisual
Materials CollectionNeg #WHi (x3) 9577
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by Charles Silver, 1935Wis.
State Historical SocietyVisual
Materials Collection Neg #WHi (x3) 9577 |
The Great Depression
After the 1929 stock market crash, and President Hoover's ineffectual response, America faced its greatest economic crisis. Millions of newly unemployed were exhausting private relief organizations.
In New York state,
Governor Franklin Roosevelt viewed the unemployed as a vast social problem that
could only be fixed by government. An emergency temporary relief agency delivered
funds to local work projects and relief providers.
As President, Roosevelt's first major act was creation of the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration (FERA, the first of an "alphabet soup" of relief
agencies) to fund locally administered unemployment relief.
The principle of locally funded, locally controlled welfare dates back to America's colonial era and the Poor Laws of 1601. But the problems of the Depression proved too great for local governments or charities. Federal funding came with guidelines, including the hiring of social workers. Many private charity social workers now entered government service.
