New York State War Council State Education Department War Programs Correspondence and Field Reports

Arranged by topic.

This series contains correspondence detailing the Education Department's establishment, supervision, or other involvement with war-time programs related to educating citizens on defense matters. Working under the auspices of the War Council, the department organized several programs including the Civilian Defense Training Program which sought to instruct citizens in first aid, nutrition, public safety (primarily fire fighter training), physical education and recreation (for defense plant workers), the recruitment and training of farm labor, and civic education (primarily for aliens).

The department worked closely with other state agencies or War Council offices, including War Training, Civil Protection, and Salvage, among others, in these endeavors. In particular, the department worked with the Departments of Health, Labor, Mental Hygiene, and Social Welfare to produce a series of pamphlets published for the War Council to educate the general public on war-related issues. These pamphlets are also found in this series.

The department was also involved in other programs either in an organizational or coordinating capacity for other state or War Council agencies. In addition to correspondence, this series contains field reports from Education Department personnel who visited war programs (youth services, agricultural education, home economics, physical fitness, child care, or adult education) around the state. The field reports were sometimes contained in memoranda, but predominantly a standard printed form was used. In both cases, they enumerate: organization met with; date and location of the meeting; purpose of the meeting; persons interviewed; and results.

Statements describe with varying amounts of detail the results of the meetings. The child care field reports usually contain two or three sentences. The other areas typically contain more substantial summaries of the meetings and the programs investigated.

Folder list is available at the repository.

This series was originally accessioned as boxes 208-210 of old collection #77, accession -71.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of the material.