Philadelphia City Planning Commission surveys conducted with New Deal Federal Work-Relief funds records 1933-1939

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Philadelphia City Planning Commission surveys conducted with New Deal Federal Work-Relief funds records 1933-1939

http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_PCA_PCARecordGroup14550

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission had barely come into existence (April 1929) when the stock market crashed, marking the onset of the Great Depression. 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. 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 Philadelphia City Planning Commission Survey files (Record Group (RG) 145-50) consist of 156 cubic feet of records pertaining to surveys conducted by PCPC under state and federal relief programs from 1933 to 1939. These surveys were done under the auspices of the Federal Civil Works Administration Project No. 51-0081 and continuation grants ( Dec. 19, 1933-Ap. 1, 1934); the Local Works Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration Project Nos. 51-F2-22 (Ap. 8-Aug. 20, 1934) and 51-F2-1011 (Oct. 11, 1934-July 1935); and Federal Works Progress Administration Project Nos. 4421 (Dec. 3, 1935-July 27, 1937); 14692 (Sept. 10, 1937-May 5, 1938), and 18313 (1938-39). The PCPC survey files contain administrative files, grant applications, correspondence, memoranda, reports, report drafts, research notes, survey data, charts, diagrams, tables, block plans, blueprints, drawings, news clippings, and printed matter compiled and collected by PCPC survey staff in the course of conducting these studies.

156.0 Cubic feet

City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, City Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6328647

Related Entities

There are 4 Entities related to this resource.

United States. Works Progress Administration

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67b4x1k (corporateBody)

Organizational History President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 as a part of his New Deal to curtail the Depression's effects on the United States. The WPA attempted to provide the unemployed with jobs that allowed individuals to preserve skills or talents. The Federal Writers' Project (FWP), one branch of the WPA, provided work for over 6,600 unemployed writers, journalists, edit...

United States. Federal Civil Works Administration

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wh6nm8 (corporateBody)

The Civil Works Administration was established by EO 6420-B, November 9, 1933, under authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act (48 Stat. 200), June 16, 1933, to provide relief work for unemployed persons through public work projects. Functioned simultaneously, and to some extent with the same personnel, with Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Liquidated March 1934, and functions and records transferred to the Emergency Relief Program of FERA. From the description...

Philadelphia City Planning Commission

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j71bb6 (corporateBody)

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission is a municipal agency established in 1929. During the period of this collection the Commission was composed of twelve mayoral appointees, two members of City Council, and one of the Commissioners of Fairmount Park. The duties of the Commission were to make recommendations to City Council concerning proposed changes in the city plan or any new public facilities. Its reports, correspondence, plans, minutes, and scrapbooks from 1929 to the present are found...

United States. Works Progress Administration of Pennsylvania

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6h195kx (corporateBody)

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-Febr...