Hi there! Thanks for taking the time to read this second installment of the She Camps History Newsletter. Last month, I introduced the She She She camps and explained how I found them, what my goals were, and where I hope to go with “the project.” Since the beginning of March, this thing has really taken off, dragging me happily along behind it. Today I want to further discuss the program’s beginnings. So, let’s go!
From the very beginning of FDR’s presidency in the spring of 1933, the needs of America’s women were being brought to the attention of the new federal administration by various women’s advocacy groups and prominent individuals. However, it would be months, and in some cases, years before these needs would be satisfactorily addressed.
In March of 1933, the NWTUL (National Women’s Trade Union League) called on the Roosevelt administration to create a network of schools for jobless women to parallel the program for men being proposed in new legislation.1 The NWTUL pressed for the program to be jointly funded by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) still in it’s infant stages in congress at the time. The NWTUL hoped to get some of the $400 million dollars that was allocated for public works in Part II of the bill earmarked for women’s work relief projects.2 It is worth noting that while many claim the Women’s Work Camps were modeled after the CCC camps, this action by the NWTUL was taken fully one month before the CCC Act was passed on April 5, 1933. Let that sink in. Advocates for women’s assistance were lobbying for this type of assistance before the CCC was even created.
Eleanor Roosevelt took on the plight of unemployed women workers, becoming their champion in Washington as early as the spring of 1933. She was able to get something done, even if it was a drop in the bucket as far as how much relief was really needed. At Eleanor’s urging (she was VERY good at that) FDR forwarded Eleanor’s relief plan to Harry Hopkins, who, at the time, was still the director of TERA. (TERA: Temporary Emergency Relief Administration- New York state’s early relief plan formed under FDR while he was still governor of New York.) FDR urged Hopkins to support and comply with Eleanor’s wishes to model a camp for unemployed women in her home state of New York. Shortly thereafter, on June 10, 1933, Camp TERA was born at Bear Mountain State Park in Midstate New York.
Image of Eleanor Roosevelt’s later visit to Camp TERA courtesy of nystateparks.blog
As part of the NWTUL’s proposal, camps were to be housed on public property and modelled after the already existing Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry, and other existing YWCA camps for young women in industry. Hilda Worthington Smith, director of the program at Bryn Mawr was put in charge of creating the programming for the camps, and worked tirelessly with Eleanor and others to bring the proposed program to fruition. Despite over 700 women applying for admittance to Camp TERA, when Eleanor visited the site six weeks after its opening, she found only 20 women in attendance, and soon discovered that the rest had been turned down, disqualified, or turned away from aid relief.3 Suspecting interior dissent from new FERA administration, she would embark upon what can only be called a crusade to get more women on the camp rolls and off the streets.
Multiple inquiries were made over the summer and early fall to FERA for better support of relief programs, but these requests went largely unnoticed until Hilda Worthington Smith included them in a memo she sent to FERA administration in August of 1933. When FERA director, Harry Hopkins requested that Smith “do something” about this problem (speaking of unemployed women) Smith responded with an expanded plan in October of 1933. This new plan was based on her earlier suggestions and the limited success that had been had at Camp TERA despite its lack of funding. Let’s stop again for just a moment and realize that it had now been 8 months since the initial requests for women’s assistance had been made, and there was already an approved budget of $400 million dollars for Work Relief Programs in place.
In case you suspect this is just another case of how slow our federal government moves, let me point out that after the passing of FIRA in March of 1933, the CCC Act was established on April 5, 1933. The first CCC camp, Camp Roosevelt, opened on April 17, 1933 in the George Washington National Forest in VA. Yes! That’s right. While it only took 14 days to open the first Men’s camp, and to immediately begin providing work relief, it would be over a full year before Eleanor Roosevelt and other supporters of the She She She camps were given the go ahead, in May 1944, to establish a nationwide system of camps for women. Men’s relief took 14 days. Women’s relief? Took 13 months. By the time the women’s camp program was approved, its supporters were told they would have to make do with a shoestring budget, because there wasn’t any funding in the budget for women’s camps. I’ll give you a minute to take that all in.
Between June of 1933, and May of 1934, Eleanor Roosevelt was joined by an impressive roster of women who joined together at two national conferences on women’s welfare in DC. They all worked diligently to gain assistance and support for the programs that would ultimately serve over 8000 women over the course of just 3 short years before the program was unceremoniously unfunded in October of 1937.
In the next issue, we will begin to take an in depth look at the first rush of camps that were created in the spring of 1934, starting with Camp TERA itself. We will also explore more of the social and cultural issues that began to surround the camps as America worked to climb out of The Great Depression nationwide. In the meantime, be sure to follow She Camps History on Facebook, and Instagram, and to check out some of my recent articles over on the blog at shecampshistory.com Until then, get outside on a trail near you and start enjoying this beautiful spring weather. Good travels, my friends, and maybe I’ll see you out there.
Popular Blog Articles:
Kornbluh, Joyce L. "The She-She-She Camps: An Experiment in Living and Learning, 1934–1937." In Sisterhood and Solidarity: Workers' Education for Women, 1914-1984, edited by Joyce L. Kornbluh, Mary Frederickson, and Dorothy Sue Cobble, 253-84. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984. Accessed February 16, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv6mtdfq.14.
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. “The Goal of the National Industrial Recovery Act- A Statement by the president on Signing It.” In The Public Papers and Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, edited by Samuel I. Rosenman, 246-247. New York: Random House, 1938. archive.org/details/4925381.1933.001.umich.edu/page/246
Sexton, Elizabeth & Lester, Molly. “New Deal Resident Camps for Unemployed Women.” PennPraxis. 2020. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/02050ee5b4d543cf93821f56382367c2