70-14-,016 FLACK, Bruce Clayton, 19 38- THE WORK OF THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION, 1935-1942. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 History, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright by Bruce Clayton Flack 1970 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE WORK OP THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION, 1935-19i;2 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Bruce Clayton Flack, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University Approved by ~ Adviser Department of History ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to Logan Wilson, president of the American Council on Education for permitting me to use the files of the American Youth Commission. I am grateful to Richard Young for allowing me to use the Owen D. Young Papers in Van Hornesville, New York and to Homer P. Rainey for opening to me his papers at the University of Missouri. The staffs of the National Archives and the Library of Congress were also very helpful. My adviser, Robert H. Bremner, has given patient and under standing assistance. A final word of gratitude goes to my wife, Carol, who has helped in innumerable ways. ii I VITA April 2, 1938 Born— Fremont, Ohio I960 ..... B.a ., Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio 1962 ........ M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1963-1965 . High School Teacher, Berea City Schools, Berea, Ohio 1965-1969 . Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1969 . .... Appointment as Assistant Professor and Chairman of the Division of Social Sciences, Glenville State College, Glenville, West Virginia FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Political and Social History of the United States Since 1900. Professor Robert H. Bremner Political and Social History of the United States, 1850-1900. Professor Francis Weisenburger Political and Social History of the United States, 1789-1850* Professor Mary Young Renaissance and Reformation. Professor Harold Grimm English History Since 1815. Professor Philip Poirier American Literature. Professor Julian Markels iii TABLE OP CONTENTS Page A CKITC V/LEDGMENTS....................................... ii VITA .................................................. iii Chapter I. FOUNDING OP 'THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION................................ 1 II. THE MEMBERS OP THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION 32 III. FINDING THE FACTS: THE SURVEY PROGRAM . 61+ IV. GENERAL EDUCATION........................... 109 V. ECONOMIC SECURITY: VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE, WORK PROGRAMS, AND PLANNING............... 11+7 VI. NEGRO YOUTH STUDIES AND THE END OP THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION.................. l8l CONCLUSION........................................... 206 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 210 iv CHAPTER I FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION Youth is in a muddle. Out of school too young; they don’t know what they want to do or why. They are in the midst of a great social and economic change.1 This was how one of more than 13,000 Maryland boys and girls interviewed by the American Youth Commission in 1937 described the nation's youth problem. His statement raised questions which were troubling many Americans in the xaid-thirties. Social and economic change in the early depression years had adversely affected youth. Unemploy­ ment among young people was higher than in any other age group, and education was hopelessly inadequate. These conditions were readily apparent, but to what extent they contributed to a youth problem no one was prepared to say. If the problem was elusive, solutions were more so. The only certainty was the urgency that something be done. In this troubled atmosphere in 1935 the American Youth Commis­ sion began its work. The proposal for the creation of the commission reflected the sense of urgency and called for immediate action. It began: Howard M. Bell, Youth Tell Their Story (Washington, 1938), 253. 1 Recent social and economic changes in the United States have given rise to difficulties in the care and education of young people with which existing institutions are quite unprepared to deal adequately. The changes not only have greatly intensified the problems which confront the schools, but also have created an urgent need of protection and further education for millions of youth whom the schools are not now reaching. Without some provision for basic planning to meet this situation, there is serious threat to the national welfare.2 The proposed commission was a creation of the General Education Board and the American Council on Education, two major agencies vitally concerned with Ameri­ can education. Both groups had been in education work long before the depression years. The General Education Board, a philanthropic foundation created in 1902 by John D. Rockefeller, had financed numerous educational programs. The American Council on Education, organized in 1918, had been largely concerned with problems of higher education. Though both organizations were interested in the x^elfare of secondary school-age youth, the former initiated the movement for the formation of a national youth commission. The proposal for a national youth commission was part of an extensive general education program which the General 2 A Proposal for the Development of a Comprehensive Program for the Care and Education of American Youth (Unpub­ lished report presented to the American Youth Commission, September 16, 1935)# It is hereafter cited as A Proposal. This document and all other unpublished American Youth Com­ mission reports cited in this dissertation are in the files of the American Council on Education in Washington, D. C. Education Board began in 1933* This program continued until 19i|.0# and was the Board’s major activity during the depres­ sion decade. Altogether the Board gave 112 grants totaling $8,i4i|.6,26i(. to national organizations, state and local agencies, graduate schools, colleges and universities, junior colleges, and high schools in its program of general ■a education. The Board’s earlier significant efforts had been programs for improving Southern education and medical education. Concerned with a lag in secondary education in the South, the GEB had contributed funds for Negro and white schools and for programs to improve Southern agricul­ ture. It had also given extensive sums to medical schools for educational improvements.^ But the depression caused the GEB to alter its approach. The Board’s financial resources were limited, and no longer did it feel it could freely hand out monies to distressed educational institutions. Other factors also prompted the change. The Board was becoming alarmed at what was happening to youth. Cutbacks in industry resulted in job elimination for younger workers. This meant an increasing number of youth were remaining in school longer and placing ^ General Education Board Report. 19^1-0, 53-59, 7. ^ Raymond B. Fosdick, Adventure in Giving (New York, 1962), 315-355. k heavier burdens on the schools. Even more frightening to the Board of trustees were the thousands of transient youth roaming the countryside in hope of finding a change from the grim conditions at home. By 1932 estimates of the number of these restless young people were as high as 300,000.^ These conditions illustrated to the Board that not only was the educational system inadequate in meeting youth needs, but the youth problem involved more than poor education. The view of an impending national youth crisis was in no way new or unique. Educational leaders had been arguing that social and economic developments in the twentieth century, and especially after 1929, had overburdened the schools. President Hoover's Research Committee on Social Trends summarized the feeling of many educators by calling for "a kind of education radically different from that 7 which was regarded adequate in earlier periods. By the early thirties vigorous attempts at educational ^ Ibid., 2k0; Interview with Robert J. Havighurst, October 2$, 1968. ^ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order (Boston, 1957), 251. ^ President's Research Committee on Social Trends, Recent Social Trends in the United States, I (New York, 1933), xlviii. 5 research were beginning, especially in the university departments of education, the United States Office of Education, bureaus of research of city and state school systems, and the Research Division of the National Educa- g tion Association. These efforts were often hastily conceived programs and reflected the feelings of panic brought on by the depression. Since there had been little integrated activity in the formulation of these studies, results were incomplete and inconclusive. In some areas of investigation the research was so sketchy that 9 necessary information for ameliorative action did not exist. During this same period it became apparent to the General Education Board that despite increasing interest in research, no institutions or other philanthropic organizations were capable or prepared to undertake a major effort at finding ways to improve the condition and educa­ tion of secondary school age youth.'*'® Thus in 1931 the General Education Board launched a two-year survey of American education in an attempt to find the most important needs and opportunities in education. A number of dis- Q Charles H. Judd, Problems of Education in the United States (New York, 1933)/ 20B. ^ American Youth Commission, Youth and the Future: the General Report of the American Ylouth~5ommi3 sTon (Washington,