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This Week in
American History

June 20—26, 1935.

FDR Launches a Program To Rescue America's Youth

The Great Depression of the 1930s usually conjures up images of unemployed adult men standing on lines at soup kitchens, or riding in freight cars and living a precarious existence in hobo camps. Actually, one-third of the unemployed during the depression were young people under the age of twenty-five, and many of them became wanderers desperately looking for work. This was a matter of special concern to President Franklin Roosevelt, for he knew that this young generation, hungry and discouraged and limited in their future prospects, was going to have to continue fighting for improvements in the general welfare of the nation.

In March 1934, President Roosevelt wrote a letter to the chairman of the Citizens' Conference on the Crisis in Education which discussed some of his concerns. He wrote: "That our educational institutions have suffered much within the past few years is evident. Because of a lack of funds, thousands of schools have closed early this year and many have eliminated highly essential services.

"Although the effects of the present lack of adequate educational opportunities on our national life may not be noticeable today, the time may soon come when dire effects will be apparent. It is, therefore, the responsibility of every American to see that the great strides that we have made in education since Colonial times shall not be lost. It is also his responsibility to see that the schools march forward, that the scope of education become such as to provide educational opportunities for every person from early childhood into adult life. One group that we need to consider especially are the many youths who are not in school and who are apparently drifting."

On June 26, 1935, President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order establishing the National Youth Administration. In an accompanying statement, the President said: "I have determined that we shall do something for the Nation's unemployed youth because we can ill afford to lose the skill and energy of these young men and women. They must have their chance in school, their turn as apprentices and their opportunity for jobs—a chance to work and earn for themselves. In recognition of this great national need, I have established a National Youth Administration, to be under the Works Progress Administration."

Roosevelt's executive order set up a National Advisory Board, with similar boards in states and municipalities. "On these Boards," said the President, "there shall be representatives of industry, labor, education, and youth because I want the youth of America to have something to say about what is being done for them." The Executive Director of the project was Aubrey Williams, and he served under Harry Hopkins, the Director of the WPA.

President Roosevelt wrote about his goals for the organization and how it was organized, looking back from the year 1937. "The young people of the United States who had been caught in the depression," wrote FDR, "had special problems in addition to those shared with their elders. Their needs were greater and more far-reaching than the immediate demands of food, clothing, and shelter. They were confronted with the problem of an education, a beginning in a trade or a career, and, above all, the prevention of the natural effects of long idleness and continued frustration. Theirs was a spiritual as well as a physical problem.

"Certain Provisions of the NRA [National Recovery Act] codes increased the difficulty of the problem. Most industries had abolished employment of persons under 16 years of age, a condition which resulted in the immediate discharge of 1,500,000 employed youth. The adoption of minimum wages served also to keep out of employment vast numbers of young people otherwise eligible, because employers who had to pay a definite minimum naturally selected their employees from the vast number of unemployed adults rather than young persons. The result was to swell the number of the hopeless young people looking for jobs, or just 'hanging around' on the street corners, or aimlessly wandering around the country.

"The first direct attack upon this problem was the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps. This gathered approximately a half-million boys and young men from the streets and from idleness into a healthful outdoor environment of work. However, the CCC was no help to girls and young women, or to young people who wished to continue in school or college, or to those millions of young men, who, for various reasons, could not be separated from their families. Of course, during this time the enrollment in the colleges where tuition fees were charged was continuing to slump.

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