The President's Committee on Unemployment Relief and the Federal Children's Bureau requested that the American Friends Service Committee provide relief for the children of unemployed mine workers in the poverty-stricken bituminous coal fields in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, and West Virginia during the winter of 1931-1932. The supervisor of the coal mission team in West Virginia and Kentucky was Mary Kelsey (1877-1948), a Quaker social worker and pacifist who had worked with the American Friends Reconstruction Unit after World War I. Charles M. Tatum worked in West Virginia and Kentucky for the AFSC Coal Relief mission from 1931-1933. A Quaker engineer, he was the son Mary Biddle McCollin Tatum and Oliver Parry Tatum and member of Radnor Monthly Meeting, Pa.
From the description of American Friends Service Committee Coal Relief Papers, 1931-1941 (bulk 1931-1933) (Swarthmore College). WorldCat record id: 170924372
