Emergency Relief Commission records

The Commission was created by an Act of the General Assembly (1933, Public Acts, Ch. 276), effective June 7, 1933. Although its functions were somewhat broader, it was clearly the successor to the Connecticut Unemployment Commission (RG 31) and its predecessor, the Connecticut State Emergency Committee on Employment. James W. Hook, Chairman of the two earlier agencies, was appointed a member of the new Commission, and Eleanor H. Little, former Research Secretary of Unemployment Commission, became the Executive Secretary and later Relief Administrator.

The Emergency Relief Commission had two main functions: To supervise emergency municipal finance and to supervise emergency unemployment relief. The first responsibility was in effect limited to the approval of local bond issues for relief purposes, which it did for Norwalk, Danbury, Westport and Waterbury. Its unemployment relief work was much more extensive, involving preparing requests for and administering Federal grants under the Federal Emergency Relief Act (May 1933), the Civil Works Administration (November 1933), the Commodity Relief Distribution program under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (September 1933), the Civilian Conservation Corps program (April 1933) and several other smaller programs. Accounts of the activities in some detail may be found in the two published reports listed below under "Related Records". In the later pat of 1935 the work relief projects, which had been administered first under C.W.A. and then under E.R.A., were gradually turned over to the new Works Progress Administration. The Emergency Relief Commission itself continued until it terminated by limitation of statute on February 1, 1937.

See also the Emergency Relief Commission Agency History.