Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of Female Sexuality during World War II

Appendix 3: Federal Agencies: The Social Protection Division

Appendix 3 Federal Agencies The Social Protection Division1 The SPD, established in March 1941 operated, at first, out of the Of- fice of the Coordinator of Health, Welfare, and Related Defense Activities . After a series of reorganizations, the SPD became a division of the OCWS established within the FSA. During mobilization and wartime the OCWS operated to develop and coordinate programs to meet emergency needs in the fields of health, medical care, welfare, recreation, education , and nutrition. The specific responsibility of the OCWS and its predecessors was to meet the needs of thousands of communities experiencing large population increases or other difficulties related to defense production and war that rendered local public and private organizations inadequate to the task of providing community services. The OCWS served as a coordinating agency by working through and with other federal, state, and local agencies, as well as with private national organizations. The federal agencies included the army, navy, Of- fice of Civilian Defense, War Manpower Commission, Federal Works Agency, War Production Board, Federal Housing Authority, Office of Defense Transportation, USPHS, Children’s Bureau, Office of Education , and War Relocation Authority. Some of the private agencies were the USO, American Red Cross, ASHA, National Recreation Association , National Parent-Teachers Association, Junior Leagues of America, and numerous Community Chests and Councils. As a rule, the OCWS asked existing agencies to continue their work, adding OCWS functions where necessary or if no appropriate agencies existed. Paul V. McNutt, the FSA administrator, served as coordinator of the Office of Health, Welfare, and Related Defense Activities and as director of the OCWS from November 1940 to April 28, 1943. Charles P. Taft served as OCWS director from April 29, 1943, to November 21, 1943. He was 169 succeeded by Mark A. McCloskey, who served until June 30, 1945. Watson Miller then assumed the directorship, serving until the agency was terminated shortly after the end of the war. The OCWS had two responsibilities that were not within the scope of any other federal agency: recreation and social protection. Mark A. McClosky served as the Director of the Recreation Division from its formation in January 1941. The SPD, instituted in March 1941, came under the leadership of Eliot Ness after the short term of Bascomb Johnson . Ness served as director until his resignation on September 8, 1944. The SPD was the government agency charged with checking the spread of venereal disease through the repression of prostitution. In addition to the major federal agencies, numerous committees, some preexisting the establishment of the SPD and others that formed after the establishment of the SPD, participated in the campaign to eliminate prostitution. An Interdepartmental Committee, for example, that brought together twenty federal agencies (e.g., the FSA, SPD, Army, Navy, USPHS, FBI, and Children’s Bureau) had been established by the Council of National Defense in January 1940 to assist the FSA director in relation to health and other defense-related problems. The Interdepartmental Committee met regularly to discuss emergent problems and to monitor progress in the war on prostitution. The National Advisory Police Committee on Social Protection Out of other umbrella committees similar to the Interdepartmental Committee , a plethora of subcommittees emerged. Ness acted quickly to pull numerous groups into the SPD’s orbit. In 1942 he called together law enforcement officials from all over the United States to discuss wartime problems. Out of this meeting came the NAPCSP. The committee, appointed by Paul McNutt, consisted of twenty-one police officers from fifteen states, plus representatives from the army, navy, USPHS, FBI, and ODHWS, which included the SPD. According to the NAPCSP’s statement of purpose, “[T]he Committee was formed to assist in the enforcement of the Federal government’s Social Protection Program and to develop new and effective techniques of police enforcement pertaining to the repression and prevention of prostitution.” Shortly after the formation of NAPCSP, the OWI released a press statement: “The National Advisory Police Committee on Social Protection today called upon po170 | Appendix 3 lice and law enforcement officials throughout the country to stamp out prostitution.” In a report to McNutt, the NAPCSP acknowledged their “professional obligation” to stamp out prostitution so that the “Army, Navy, and war industries are not to be decimated by casualties due to venereal diseases.” This committee became one of the most active groups in the campaign to repress prostitution and to control...