Social Welfare History Project Housing Page 2

Housing In The Depression: A Speech by Senator Robert F. Wagner 1936

Address of the Honorable Robert F. Wagner, U.S. Senator, at the National Public Housing Conference, 1936. “They reflect our desire as a practical people to get at the essential. It is curious that our search for the essential has taken so many years to reach even the threshold of the housing problem. It has long been known that many of the evils confronting philanthropy and education are rooted in bad living conditions.”

Defense Housing: 1942

Speech by C.F. Palmer, Coordinator of Defense Housing. “In the twelve months ending next June 30th, we expect that an enormous army of two to three million men, women, and children will have been involved in the essential migration required by war industry and military concentration. The arrival of these millions of people in defense areas is creating a complexity of problems, in which the largest is the supply of shelter.”

National Housing Conference, Inc

From the 1940s to the 1960s, NHC consisted of a coalition of public housing advocates, social workers, labor unions, and local housing authorities who pushed for housing reforms. However, by the 1970s, NHC became an ally of the federal housing bureaucracy because its membership included primary builders, construction unions, and real estate developers.

Effect of Economic Conditions Upon the Living Standards of Negroes (1928)

Presentation by Forrester B. Washington, Director, Atlanta School of Social Work, given at the 55th Meeting of the National Conference on Social Welfare, 1928. “The problems which I will discuss are health, education, delinquency, crime and family disorganization. They follow logically those discussed by Mr. Thomas. In addition, I will attempt to summarize his paper and my own and present our combined recommendations.”

Program of Work for the Assimilation Of Negro Immigrants In Northern Cities (1917)

Presentation by Forrester B. Washington, Director of the Detroit League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, given at the 44th Meeting of the National Conference on Social Welfare, 1917. “The establishment of a bureau of investigations and information regarding housing comes next in importance. The character of the houses into which negro immigrants go has a direct effect on their health, their morals and their efficiency. The rents charged determine whether the higher wages received in the North are real or only apparent, whether the change in environment has been beneficial or detrimental. The tendency is to exploit the negro immigrant in this particular.”