Social Welfare History Project Organizations Page 9

Removal of Children From Almshouses in The State of New York (1894)

Presentation by the Hon. Wm. P. Letchworth, Member of the State Board of Charities Of New York. This entry is one of three presentations by distinguished leaders of the era at the 1894 Annual Meeting of the National Conference on Social Welfare in a section of the meeting on “Child-Saving.” Together, the three entries describe the institutions, deplorable conditions and efforts to reform and improve the care of vulnerable children.

Boarding System For Neglected Children (1894)

Presentation by Miss C. H. Pemberton, Acting Superintendent of The Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania at the Twenty-First Annual Session of the National Conference of Charities And Correction, 1894. This is one of three presentations by distinguished leaders of the era in a section of the meeting on “Child-Saving.” Together, the three entries describe the institutions, deplorable conditions and efforts to reform and improve the care of vulnerable children.

Congress of Racial Equality

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pioneered direct nonviolent action in the 1940s before playing a major part in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Founded by an interracial group of pacifists at the University of Chicago in 1942, CORE used nonviolent tactics to challenge segregation in Northern cities during the 1940s. Members staged sit-ins at Chicago area restaurants and challenged restrictive housing covenants. Early expansion beyond the University of Chicago brought students from across the Midwest into the organization, and whites made up a majority of the membership into the early 1960s.

What Religion Means to Me (1932)

Article by Eleanor Roosevelt, Forum, 1932. “…in all cases the thing which counts is the striving of the human soul to achieve spiritually the best that it is capable of and to care unselfishly not only for personal good but for the good of all those who toil with them upon the earth.”

New Governmental Interest in the Arts (1934)

Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech before the Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Artists in 1934. “Go ahead and make this thing as beautiful as you can make it…make of this thing something that really was the expression of a “love”–a piece of work that was done because he loved to do it.”

Lasting Values of the WPA

Written by Ellen Woodward, WPA Assistant Administrator in charge of the Division of Women’s and Professional Projects. “No one can better appreciate the lasting values of the work relief program than we women, for its results affect primarily that which is closest to our hearts–the home.”

Washington Sweatshop (1937)

by Robert S. Allen, The Nation July 17, 1937. Wage-hour legislation was a campaign issue in the 1936 Presidential race.

Outlining the New Deal Program (1933)

A Radio Address by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sunday, May 7, 1933.

We Do Our Part–But… (1933)

Article by Ira DeA. Reid in Opportunity, Journal of Negro Life (September, 1933). “Three million Negro workers, more than half of the total number of Negroes who must labor for their livelihood, will not be covered by the industrial codes now being formulated by the NRA!”

White, Walter F.

By 1931 White had become executive secretary, the highest position in the association. During his tenure, the NAACP led the fight for anti-lynching legislation, and initiated trailblazing legal battles to eliminate all-white primaries, poll taxes and de jure segregation….Working with labor leader A. Philip Randolph, White in 1941 helped persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 which prohibited racial discrimination in defense industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), the first Federal agency to monitor compliance with anti-discrimination measures.