Kansas in the Great Depression: Work Relief, the Dole, and Rehabilitation (review)

Scholars have given exhaustive attention to the 1930s, but comprehensive studies of the New Deal's relationship to state and county governments in regarding public relief remain relatively few. In this study, Peter Fearon, Professor of Modern Economic and Social History at the University of Leicester, provides a detailed policy history of New Deal relief programs administered by the State of Kansas. Fearon observes that Kansas provided public relief more efficiently than many states prior to the Great Depression, and the state embraced New Deal programs. Republican Governor Alfred M. Landon supported most New Deal funding, at least until he ran for the presidency in 1936, and he used federal dollars for social services that otherwise would have indebted the state and unbalanced the budget. In analyzing the relationship between Washington and Kansas, Fearon explains the organization of relief, often at the county level, discusses tensions between federal and state officials, and sorts out a host of relief-oriented initiatives, all of which remained underfunded and which occasionally generated animosity and violence.

The heart of Fearon's study involves the efforts of state and county governments to restrict public relief to individuals deemed eligible for work as opposed to direct assistance, that is, the dole, unless the unemployed could not hold a job for various reasons, such as health. Fearon contends that Kansans overcame their philosophical objections to direct relief but always preferred assistance based on work. Not everyone who qualified for work relief, however, received it due to insufficient funding, and the counties necessarily provided assistance to the unemployed as well as the unemployable. County relief officials also were more concerned with rehabilitation than federal agencies whose primary objectives were to provide work, loans, and grants. Federal programs paid cash and state and county relief agencies provided in-kind assistance, such as food, clothing, and shelter. Yet federal, state, and county governments all sought to move dependants off the relief rolls to independent status.

In this study, Fearon emphasizes the relief activities of the Civil Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, National Youth Administration, and Works Progress Administration. He also covers some agricultural relief programs and the difficulty of organizing rural people for work relief since most projects were located in urban areas where the unemployment problem proved greatest. Fearon concludes that the New Deal provided radical relief for the time, and the state adjusted and administered various assistance programs about as well as anyone could expect. This interpretation of the New Deal, of course, is not new, but his narrative rests on considerable statistical evidence, and it will be informative reading for anyone studying public relief during the 1930s. It also provides scholars with an analysis of policy making and administration on the state and county levels regarding New Deal programs in an important western state. By so doing it will serve as a comparative reference for anyone embarking on future policy studies of New Deal relief programs on a state-wide basis as well as a detailed look at relief efforts in the Kansas.