New York State Defense Council Administrative and Correspondence Files

Rough alphabetical by subject.

The series consists of copies of legislation, organizational charts, requisitions, memoranda, informational circulars, reports, bulletins, minutes, and some correspondence relating to the organization and administration of the council's war work. Consistent with the council's purpose to coordinate the military, industrial, agricultural, and commercial resources of the state, the series reflects cooperation with other state agencies (especially the Departments of Health, Agriculture, Education and the Food Supply Commission), the Council of National Defense, and the network of state home defense committees.

Included are files of the council's Divisions of Films, Information, and Women as well as material related to committee work on highway transportation, provision of legal service, and the Liberty Loan campaign. Correspondence in the series is principally to/from the chairs of the divisions, often with the council's assistant secretary Frederic E. Foster. Other forms of material fall either under general headings or specific subjects covering the whole range of council work, from aliens to war-risk insurance.

Materials of special interest include: bulletins promoting Fire Prevention Day, advising on military sanitation and hygiene (venereal diseases, alcohol, and tuberculosis), reporting on a census of the state's agricultural resources, and reviewing the network of state laboratory services; organization charts for the State Defense Council, and the Adjutant General's Resource Mobilization Bureau, and the home defense committees; a "War Contract Analysis" blueprint (1918) made by the Division of Information using statistics from the Council of National Defense, showing nationwide distribution of firms holding war contracts and illustrating New York as the lopsided leader in that category; memoranda circulated to chairs of county home defense committees by the council; minutes of proceedings of a council meeting (March 28, 1918); reports on such topics as military training, aliens, work of the State Food Supply Commission and the council's Industrial Division, use of the state's canals for transport, the military census, the New York naval militia, and preparation of the National Guard for federal service; circulars by the council's Division of Information relating to the military census, a drive for donation of observation glasses, fighting a "conspiracy" to destroy grain and cattle by fire, the Liberty Loan appeal, mobilization of the National Guard, and the organization of "cadet camps" to provide agricultural labor to save perishable crops; and materials relating to the enrollment and registration of draftees.

Microform is available at the New York State Archives through interlibrary loan.

A0226Series A0226, Food Supply Commission scrapbook, contains related records.

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