Education Relief Programs in St. Clair County during the Depression

Michelle Peterson
Belleville Township High School West, Belleville

On October 29, 1929, the economic boom known as the Roaring Twenties came to a halt. On this fateful Black Tuesday, stock market prices plummeted, bringing the United States into the worst economic depression in its history. The stock market crash was caused by over-production of goods, inflated stock values, and greed. The economic downturn left many people jobless, penniless, and hopeless. By March 1933 between thirteen and fourteen million able-bodied Americans were out of work. Farmers were forced off their land, personal belongings of others were taken, and people went from being wealthy to being poor.

In 1929 no economic protection from the federal government was available, and many families survived by accepting relief from local charities. Many men and women also took part in locally organized work relief projects. Those projects were developed by local government agencies, which allowed unemployed people to work for compensation. The two earliest relief projects in St. Clair County, Illinois, were a soup line in East St. Louis in January, 1930, and a Goodwill Employers Bureau in February, 1930, also in East St. Louis. The Employers Bureau was established to find jobs for the needy.

The Great Depression, as this dark period in American history is called, affected children as well as adults. The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of East St. Louis noticed that children's schoolwork was being affected as a result of undernourishment. The PTA set up a soup kitchen at Franklin Grade School in East St. Louis to feed starving children. The money for this project came from the East St. Louis Community Chest Fund and donations from area businesses. The meals were cooked at the school. By 1933 many people, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, knew that local charities alone did not have the resources to bring the United States out of poverty. Roosevelt began a program called the New Deal, which marked the first time the federal government assumed the responsibility for the financial welfare of individuals within the nation.

One of the first relief programs established under the New Deal was the Civil Works Education Service (CWES). This program, already in effect in other parts of the nation, was introduced to St. Clair County on January 22, 1934. The CWES established an adult education program in East St. Louis. Unemployed teachers who applied for jobs were hired to teach adults such skills as reading and writing. Several vocational classes were also offered at East St. Louis High School. These included typing, sewing, and cooking. This federal program was not only established to help the unemployed teacher, but also to give adults skills they could use for future occupations.

The CWES also aided children in St. Clair County. The CWES established a primary kindergarten program in Lebanon and at the Bunsen School in Belleville. A music class was also started under CWES at the Belleville Central School.

The CWES was a short-term program. The federal adult education program that started under CWES was continued under a new federal program called the Federal Emergency Education Project (FEEP), a program started with federal relief money from an emergency appropriation. FEEP education began in St. Clair County in November 1934, when twenty-four teachers and ten clerks and janitors were hired. Any person over sixteen years of age and not in school was eligible to attend classes. Any person who taught under the CWES program or any unemployed person on relief who qualified to teach was eligible for a teaching position. Citizenship was the subject stressed under the FEEP program. The FEEP program ended in September 1935 due to lack of attendance because of warm weather. However, the citizenship classes continued in the East St. Louis schools. One hundred people, most of whom were of foreign descent, enrolled in six different classes at various schools and halls throughout East St. Louis.

The CWES and FEEP programs served two purposes. First, they helped combat unemployment. Second, they served as temporary trial programs for a much larger work-relief program. This large relief program was launched in the spring of 1935. It was called the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Harry Hopkins, a close friend of President Roosevelt, headed the program. It had five important points: the projects should be useful; a large portion of the funds should go towards wages; the funds should be promptly spent; the projects were to employ as many employables on relief as possible; and a portion of the expenditures should eventually return to the federal government.

Under the WPA, many types of programs were established to fit the talents of people from different skills and backgrounds. An adult education program was continued under the WPA similar to the programs established under the CWES and FEEP. The WPA classes were started in February 1936. They were held at high schools throughout St. Clair County. These classes taught citizenship, vocational

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skills, reading, and English courses. Special classes for women were held in O'Fallon. These classes for women taught sewing, handicrafts, child guidance, health management, first aid, and yard and garden setting.

The WPA not only assisted with educating adults and training them for future jobs, it aided elementary and high schools in educating America's future work force. One of Belleville's earliest WPA labor projects included a $2,789 project in the autumn of 1935 for landscaping Roosevelt and Hough School yards and for finishing work on wood floors in nine Belleville grade schools. In 1935 Mascoutah received $2,237 from the WPA for school repairs. In October 1938 the WPA awarded $58,800 to St. Clair County for the hiring of 102 women and 1 man for ten months to serve in the school's halls and washrooms to assist the children in anyway possible.

A major education project in St. Clair County was the building of a 7,800-seat stadium for the Belleville Township High School District. The WPA allotted $94,400 to the district in November 1938. The school district's share of the project was $40,300 for materials. A football field, cinder track, and a complete drainage system were installed. The project was completed in less than two years. A portion of Belleville West's vocational section was located under the east-end bleachers in the stadium.

In January 1941 a hot lunch program was started at Rose Lake School in Fairmont City through the efforts of the WPA. It paid the workers' wages, and the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation provided half of the food. Contributions bought the other half. The sponsor of the program was the East St. Louis Trade and Labor Union, and the vegetables were obtained from the seventy-five acres of WPA gardens in the area. Ninety-five percent of children in the school participated in the program. Contributions were accepted from children for the food, but they were not required.

The WPA opened recreation centers throughout St. Clair County for young people. These centers offered dancing, games, crafts, and athletics. A play school for children three to six years old was started in East St. Louis. WPA officials hoped these programs would give children a chance to develop hobbies.

While the WPA was established to help adults find work, the federal government also established a program to aid high school and college students. This program was called the National Youth Administration (NYA) and helped unmarried youths find jobs or prepare for jobs. The NYA also aided youths in school. Many youths were assigned to manual labor jobs that paid $17 to $18 for forty hours of work. In September 1934 plans were completed to employ students at McKendree College in Lebanon. For example, twenty-seven students were paid $15 a month to perform various jobs on campus. The NYA also offered vocational training courses for students and others who wanted to attend. The principal of a participating high school decided which students would be placed on the NYA. These students had to maintain satisfactory grades, and the money paid to students in the NYA program was to be used only for books, car fare, and lunch.

From the beginning of the NYA in mid-1935 to January 1938, the program had three phases. During the first year of the program, the goal was to bolster the morale of needy youths. To accomplish this, young people were assigned to work on various projects to assure them of an income. The second phase established a schedule to help shape the future plans of needy youth. The third stage trained youths in theory and practical skills and helped them find jobs.

A report from a local probation officer stated that the NYA program helped cut juvenile delinquency by 50 percent. NYA centers gave youths something to do to keep them off the streets by offering games, athletics, and vocational courses. It provided a purpose for young people who otherwise had nothing to do.

During the Depression years, schools received much aid from government programs such as the WPA. But some schools also gave back to their community and country when they could. In early November 1936 East St. Louis High School gave one fourth of the receipts from the first three home football games to two women's charity organizations, the Queen's Daughters and the Protestant Women's Welfare League.

Although the Great Depression was one of the darkest times in American history, some benefits to education in St. Clair County resulted. New structures were built, and people who otherwise would not have had the opportunity received an education.—[From Belleville Daily Advocate, Feb. 3, 1934, Aug. 7, Aug. 8, Aug. 19, Sept. 16, 1935, June 30, 1936, June 3, Nov. 17, 1938, Nov. 25, 1940; East St. Louis Daily Journal, Feb. 16, Feb. 20, Oct. 22, Dec. 12, 1930, Nov. 8, 1931, Dec. 7, 1933, Jan. 23, Sept. 9, Nov. 2, Dec. 14, 1934, June 14, Sept. 27, Oct. 7, Nov. 3, 1935, Ap. 29, Dec. 27, 1936, Ap. 17, 1937, May 14, Oct. 30, Nov. 9, Dec. 7, 1938, Aug. 29, 1939, Jan. 31, July 13, 1941; Lebanon Advertiser, Feb. 16, 1934; O'Fallon Progress, Ap. 2, 1936; Anne Schraff, The Great Depression and the New Deal; T. H. Watkins, The Great Depression: America in the 1930s.]

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