Below are several entries about a small number of Federal agencies that had, and continue to have, a significant impact on social welfare.

  • Children's Bureau - A Brief History & ResourcesThe early 1900’s was a time in which the United States was attempting to change it stance on child labor and end abusive child labor practices. As more advocates started to address the issue, they recognized that the federal government was not yet fully engaged in addressing the physical or mental well-being needs of children
  • Children's Bureau: Part IThis is the story of the Children's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from the idea in 1903 to its founding in 1912 and on through the years to the present time. The Bureau's establishment by Congress was an expression of a belief on the part of many people that children are the most important of the Nation's resources and that the Government should foster their development and protection by setting up a center of research and information devoted to their health and welfare. From this center would flow knowledge of conditions surrounding children's lives, ideas on how to improve these conditions, and plans and programs for action in their behalf.
  • Children's Bureau: Part IIThe State of Washington was the proving ground for the emergency program for the care of the wives and babies of servicemen. At Fort Lewis, as around all training posts, in late 1940 and early 1941, families of many of the men had come to live. The Commanding Officer of the Fort, concerned with the well-being of his men, began observing some of the difficulties that these families–far from home–were encountering. He found a group of wives who were in need of maternity care but unable to get it. They were girls, most of them young, who had followed their men to camp with the hope that they might be with their husbands for a little while before they were sent overseas. Most of them were having their first babies. Frequently their husbands went overseas before their babies came. These girls had no fixed residence.
  • Children’s BureauFaced with a small staff of only fifteen and a miniscule budget of $25,640, the U.S. Children’s Bureau’s relied on data collected by other federal agencies and an army of female volunteers. In 1913 the bureau found that the world’s largest economic power had an infant mortality rate of 132 deaths per 1,000 live births that placed it behind New Zealand (83), Norway (94), Ireland (99), Sweden (104), Australia (108), Bulgaria (120), and Scotland (123). Bureau investigators concluded that poor sanitation, lack of good medical care, and poverty were the major factors contributing to infant deaths. Educating mothers, improving public sanitation, and requiring birth certificates would help save babies’ lives. Advice pamphlets published by the bureau became very popular and Congress declared 1918 Children’s Year.
  • Social Security Compared to Public AssistanceThus the Social Security Act was really a compromise. It reconciled the philosophy of individualism with the facts of economic interdependence. It involved acceptance of the premise that a Government has a certain responsibility for the welfare of its people --one consistent with humanitarian principles and with the tradition of democratic Government. It would have been more radical had the Government assumed responsibility to assure continuity of income and a minimum level of economic well being to those citizens whose income had been interrupted or curtailed by certain risks or events. This, as you know, is under serious consideration today.
  • Social Security: A Brief History of Social InsuranceAs we know today when enacted, social security neither damaged the liberty of the citizen nor eliminated the voluntary aspects of community action. Instead, it provided a support that invigorated both. But earlier in this century, social insurance had to contend with the idealization of voluntary institutions which are deeply rooted in the United States. Voluntary associations performed the function of mediating between the individual and mass society and Government.
  • Social Security: A Radio Address by Frances Perkins, 1935Barely a month after President Roosevelt presented the Report of the Committee on Economic Security to the Congress, along with the Administration's draft Economic Security Bill, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins went on a national radio broadcast to explain the Administration's proposals to the American people. This was one of the earliest popular explanations of what would become the Social Security program.
  • Social Security: Early HistoryMan's quest for economic security is as old and as continuous as our records of human life itself. Evidence of it is to be found in the most primitive people's attempts to shift from a hunting economy to settled agriculture. it can be seen among early urban societies in projects to store grain for lean years. It appears in classical antiquity in policies to provide bread for the needy. It is exemplified in the middle ages by the lords assuming some responsibility for the welfare of their vassals. It is visible in early modern times in poor laws, charity workshops, poor farms and the philanthropic activities of religious organizations.
  • Social Security: Organizational History of SSAThe Social Security Administration (SSA) began in 1935. It became a sub-cabinet agency in 1939, and returned full-circle to independent status in 1995. Throughout the years, arguments had been heard in the halls of Congress that SSA should be returned to independent agency status. This debate was given impetus in 1981 when the National Commission on Social Security recommended that SSA once again become an independent Social Security Board.
  • U.S. Administration on AgingCreated in 1965 with the passage of the Older Americans Act of 1965 (OAA), the AoA is part of a federal, state, tribal and local partnership called the National Network on Aging. This network, serving about 7 million older persons and their caregivers, consists of 56 State Units on Aging; 655 Area Agencies on Aging; 233 Tribal and Native organizations; two organizations that serve Native Hawaiians; 29,000 service providers; and thousands of volunteers. These organizations provide assistance and services to older individuals and their families in urban, suburban, and rural areas throughout the United States.
  • U.S. Department of Veteran AffairsThe Continental Congress of 1776 encouraged enlistments during the Revolutionary War by providing pensions for soldiers who were disabled. Direct medical and hospital care given to veterans in the early days of the Republic was provided by the individual States and communities. In 1811, the first domiciliary and medical facility for veterans was authorized by the Federal Government. In the 19th century, the Nation's veterans assistance program was expanded to include benefits and pensions not only for veterans, but also their widows and dependents.
  • U.S. National Recovery AdministrationThe agency was modeled, in part, after the War Industries Board, which had operated during World War I. To lead NRA, Roosevelt chose former Army General Hugh S. Johnson, who had served as a liaison between the Army and the War Industries Board during World War I. NRA began its work with great fanfare and initially received enthusiastic public support. A massive public relations campaign included the largest parade in the history of New York City. Businesses that adopted the codes were encouraged to advertise the fact by displaying the NRA blue eagle logo with its motto, "We do our part."
  • U.S. Public Heath ServiceEfforts were made during the early decades of the 20th century by both political parties and by people inside and outside of government concerned with the nation's health to combine public health-related work being done by various Federal agencies, but they were unsuccessful in Congress. On August 14, 1912 the name of the PHMHS was changed to the Public Health Service (PHS) and further broadened its powers by authorizing investigations into human diseases (such as, tuberculosis, hookworm, malaria, and leprosy), sanitation, water supplies and sewage disposal, but went no further.
  • WPA: The Works Progress AdministrationIn 1943, it was said: "Never before in the history of the human race has a public works program, whose principal object was the mitigation of need due to unemployment, reached the magnitude of the Work Projects Administration (note the name change, which occurred in 1939). This is true, however you measure it--by persons employed, money expended, or volume of results." (Joanna C. Colcord, Director of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation, in The WPA and Federal Relief Policy, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1943, p. 15)