United States. Works Progress Administration of Pennsylvania

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission (PCPC) had barely come into existence (April 1929) when the stock market crashed, marking the onset of the Great Depression. Declaring itself to be without funds in December 1933, the commission, under the direction of its secretary, Walter H. Thomas, and vice chairman, S. P. Wetherill, Jr., applied for a grant from the Pennsylvania Civil Works Administration to support the activities of the commission from mid-December 1933 through mid-February 1934. The PCPC requested federal funding, made possible through President Roosevelt’s New Deal work relief programs, to subsidize general administrative costs of PCPC and support the continuation of work on a master plan for the city of Philadelphia which had already begun. The agency also proposed to conduct a survey of central Philadelphia which would help address the problems of decaying older neighborhoods. Authorized as CWA Project No. 51-0081, this project became the first of a number of surveys conducted by PCPC under the auspices of federal relief programs during the Great Depression. From 1933 to 1939, the Commission employed hundreds of architects, engineers, social workers, and other professional and clerical staff in efforts to analyze the physical, economic, and social conditions of the city and to address these problems through a combined program of research, planning, and public advocacy.

The history of the PCPC during these years is significant because it illustrates the experiences of one municipal agency in channeling state and federal work relief funds to local communities during the 1930s. Although the immediate goal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was to get working people back to work in the face of a national economic collapse, the provision of federal and state aid to agencies like the PCPC had other dimensions besides furnishing jobs. Indeed, the history of such programs provides a telling look at the political life and thought of the times and specific policy objectives in such areas as public housing, transportation, social welfare, and other relatively new professions which had emerged to cope with the challenges of an urbanized country.

The public funds to PCPC supported the ongoing work of the organization as well as special projects. The nature of these projects changed over time as did their personnel. Within a seven-year period, PCPC received grants from several public relief agencies to support projects of varying duration and intent. The PCPC officers who oversaw PCPC’s “Physical and Economic Survey of the Central Intensive Area of Philadelphia” (1933-1935) used the data to recommend slum clearance and housing projects. By 1936-37, the agency was also focusing its efforts on a “Cost of City Government” study to show the burden that crime and other problems endemic to slums imposed on the city overall.

The interest in both slum clearance and housing studies highlights the variety of research efforts which were conducted by state and local planning organizations under the New Deal. PCPC’s first projects in the Depression years were done in cooperation with statewide emergency relief programs including the Civil Works Administration from 1933-1934 and the Federal Employment Relief Administration from 1934-1935. Under funding from the Federal Works Progress Administration, PCPC produced a number of reports and summaries from 1936-1938. The reports incorporated newly gathered information but were drawn primarily from research collected under CWA and FERA.

The following is a guide to the records of the surveys conducted by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission during the Great Depression which are housed at the Philadelphia City Archives.

GLOSSARY: PCPC = Philadelphia City Planning Commission; PHA = Philadelphia Housing Authority; CWA= Federal Civil Works Administration; LWD FERA = Local Works Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration; WPA = Federal Works Progress Administration.