GENERAL FILES, 1909-1992

Summary: Administrative files of the Council for Human Services in New Jersey. Document types include correspondence received, copies of correspondence sent, minutes, reports, copies of bills, budgets, membership lists, agendas, programs, publications, press releases, and newspaper clippings.

Documents the planning and execution of the yearly conference, annual meeting and Board meetings, nominations to the Board, fundraising, support of legislation, relations with membership particularly the United Funds and Councils (United Way), finances, and relations with other social service organizations. Among the organizations with which the Council cooperated were the Citizens Association on Correction, the Citizen Committee for Mental Health, the Inter-Agency Committee for Education of the Handicapped, the Consumers League of New Jersey, and the League of Women Voters of New Jersey.

In the 1970s, these files document the Council's function as a clearinghouse for social welfare information.

Until 1926, when the Council established a year-round office, the records solely pertain to the yearly conference. Of interest in this section is a survey of attendees asking for ideas for the next conference. After 1926, the Council did several surveys of health and social welfare provision in the state, including a survey of municipalities in Bergen County (1928), counties (1937), and of the policies and structure of local welfare councils (1961).

Of particular interest are the minutes and reports of the Advisory Section on Social Welfare to the Emergency Relief Administration (1931-1933) on which several Council officers served. Among the Council's recommendations were the establishment of a special department to make loans to the "white collar class" and the better training of relief workers. Also of interest is the correspondence of Ellen Potter during her presidency of the Council (1935). As well as fundraising and administration, her correspondence refers to the policies of the Emergency Relief Administration, particularly in relation to relief of transients and the homeless; and her support for the New Jersey Birth Control League and the Federal Social Security Act.