Social Welfare History Project Federal Laws and Actions Page 3

What Rural Electrification Administration Means To Our Farm Home: 1939

Article written by Rose Dudley Scearce in Rural Electrification News, 1939. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created in 1935 by President Roosevelt to promote rural electricity.

The Tennessee Valley Authority: Electricity for All

TVA was one of the most ambitious projects of the New Deal, encompassing many of FDR’s own interests in conservation, public utility regulation, regional planning, agricultural development, and the social and economic improvement of the “Forgotten Americans.”

WPA Travelling Libraries (1937)

The depression came and county libraries were sorely stricken financially. Rescuing funds from the Federal government through relief agencies came in the nick of time. Numerous employees were being furloughed, others were having their salaries cut for the third or fourth time, book repair and book purchases had ceased, many buildings were sadly in need of repair and service was cut to the bone in the summer of 1933.

New Floors and Ceilings in the Minimum Wage: 1939

“The Wage and Hour Administration Reaches a Second Stage” by Beulah Amidon, an article in Survey Graphic, December, 1939

Emancipation Proclamation

This document gave the states of the Confederacy until January 1, 1863 to lay down their arms and peaceably reenter the Union, if these states continued their rebellion all slaves in those seceding states were declared free.

President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC)

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, creating a Committee on Fair Employment Practices (FEPC) to investigate complaints of discrimination and take action against valid complaints in any defense industry receiving government contracts.

Conscientious Objectors: World War II

by Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day Column,” June 20,1944

Training Schools – And Civilian Public Service (1944)

Article by Stephen Angell in The Reporter, 1944. The Civilian Public Service (CPS) was set up to provide conscientious objectors in the United States an alternative service to military service during World War II.

Carry On: Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors

“In the first number of this magazine, June 1918, Surgeon General Gorgas promised that ‘the Medical Department of the Army will ‘Carry On’ in the medical and training treatment of the disabled soldier until he is cured or as nearly cured as his disabilities permit.'”

National Youth Organization

“I hereby prescribe the following functions and duties of the National Youth Administration: To initiate and administer a program of approved projects which shall provide relief, work relief, and employment for persons between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five years who are no longer in regular attendance at a school requiring full time, and who are not regularly engaged in remunerative employment.”