Historiography

My assignment given to me by my professor for the week was to write a 3-5 page historiography on my topic, using 3 historians. 

I don't have much of it done yet but this is what I have so far. 

The historiography of different projects that the Works Projects Administration put out for children is an interesting one. Historians, such as Daryl Webb, Bayrd Still, and Robert Mennel debate about how this topic should be addressed. Webbs's approach is a new comparative version, compared to Still and Mennel. Mennel's approach is that of a juvenile delinquency historian. Where Still is more of a traditionalist in his reasoning. 

Webb in his article, "Scooter, Skates & Dolls: Toys against Delinquency in Milwaukee," he describers why the toy libraries were opened. That juvenile delinquency was on the rise sine 1935 with a "wave of youth crime.1 Webb also mentions the different groups that were against the program. There people were also against larger WPA projects. Conservative business people and other conservative Americans, felt that these type of projects were a "drain of money from the private sector and hindered economic recovery."2 Webb approaches the topic of the New Deal creating projects for the youth as an opportunity to give them a chance to be children by giving them toys to fill their idle hands. 

In his book Milwaukee: The History of a City, Still states that there was an increase in enrollment of students in the public school system. He then goes on to say that children were staying in school longer then they were during the 1870's. He continues with citing different reasons as to why children were staying in school longer, demand for child labor decreasing, and state legislation changing in favor of child welfare. 3

1.Darly Webb, "Scooter, Skates, & Dolls: Toys against Delinquency in Milwaukee," Wisconsin Magazine of History Vol. 87, No. 4 (Summer, 2004): 4.

2. Darly Webb: 12.

3. Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The History of a City, (Madison: The States Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1948): 439.

Research Proposal Version 2.0

Topic:

I intend to study how the New Deal affected families in Wisconsin during 1933 to 1941. I plan on doing this by concentrating on the Works Projects Administration (WPA) in Milwaukee.

Research Question:

The question that is making me interested in this topic is, how did the Works Projects Administration effect families in Milwaukee with the toy loan centers that were created for the children that had parents in WPA programs. What I to find out about this project is what type of programs the children's parents were in, and how other families were effected by the toy loan program. The type of answers that I am trying to search for are that the families that were able to participate in the program were able to provide for their families better then those without the program.

 Historical Context:

At the same time this was going on President Roosevelt was creating more public programs to help get the country out of The Depression. Also at this time there were military buildups going on around the world in Europe and Asia.

Historiographical Context:

Historians have not written much on this topic, but what they have written is that the children needed something to help them be children during the hard times of The Depression.

Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Sources:

• Conkin, Paul K. The New Deal. ed.2. Edited by John Hope Franklin and Abraham S. Eisenstadt. Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson Inc, 1975.
  

This book discusses the different programs that were created by the WPA that helped people escape from the stressed of not working and providing services to other Americans.

• Flanagan, Hallie. Areana. Edited by William E. Leuchtenburg. New York: Harper&Row, 1968.
  

This book describes the extreme conditions that citizens were in during the depression and how no matter what was done, it was wrong.

• McCarthy, Dennis. "Toy loans teaching kids integrity." LA Daily News, October 20, 2008. 
  

This column discusses how the program got started, b shoplifters, and how in LA it is still running smoothly.

• Pawasart, John, Lois M. Quinn, Laura Serebin. Jobs for Workers on Relief in Milwaukee County, 1930-1994. Employment and Training Institute Division of Outreach and Continuing Education Extension, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, February 1995.
  

This paper discusses the different programs and jobs that the WPA created.

• Webb, Daryl. "Scooter, Skates, and Dolls: Toys Against Delinquency in Milwaukee." Wisconsin Magazine of History. vol. 87 no.4. (2004): 2-13.

This article discusses the Toy Loan Project that was created in 1938 to help the children in Milwauee County get by during the Depression. This project was created to help curb juvenile crime in the county.

• Wecter, Dixon. The Age of the Great Depression, 1929-1941. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948.

How under the WPA the moral of the American citizen grew, there was a new sense of pride.

Annotated Bibliography of Primary Sources:

• Chicago WPA workers. "Personal Reactions of Assignees to WPA in Chicago." Interviewed by Bristol, Marget C. Social Service Review (March 1938)
  

How families were effected by the pay of the WPA and the conditions that they were forced in live in.

• Children in Urban America. Play and Leisure Photo Gallery. http://www.marquette.edu/cuap/gallery/play/pages/Play39.html

Image of Children picking out their toy for the week at a toy loan center.

• Children in Urban America. Play and Leisure Photo Gallery. http://www.marquette.edu/cuap/gallery/play/pages/Play40.html

Image of a large family picking out their toys.

• Children in Urban America. Play and Leisure Photo Gallery. http://www.marquette.edu/cuap/gallery/play/pages/Play41.html

Image of boys in peddle cars and girls with dolls in a toy loan center.

• Hopkins, Harry L. The War on Distress. Edited by Howard Zinn. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril , 1966.
  

This essay discusses the steps that the government took to help revive the WPA in 1937.

• Mason, Alpheus Thomas. Free government in the making: reading in American political thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956.
• New Deal Network. Milwaukee WI Toy Loan Project Photo Gallery. http://newdeal.feri.org/library/i_3g_ly.htm

A collection of eight photographs of one of the first Toy Loan Centers in the United States.

• Toy Loan History, Toy Loan, History of the Toy Loan Program. http://dpss.lacounty.gov/dpss/toyloan/history.cfm
• United States. Works Projects Administration. Milwaukee Toy Loan Centers: 1939-1940 Scrapbook.

This is a collection of newspaper clippings, pictures, and a report about the WPA toy loan centers in Milwaukee.

Research Proposal version 1.0

Children playing with toys supplied to them by the WPA Toy Loan Center

This is what I have so far for my research proposal for my history seminar class as of yet. I hope to get the rest of it up here eventually.

Topic:

I intend to study how the NEw Deal affected families in Wisconsin during 1933 to 1941. I plan on doing this by concentrating on the Works Projects Administration (WPA) in Milwaukee.

Research Question:

The question that is making me interested in this topic is, how did the Works Projects Administration effect families in Milwaukee with the toy loan centers that were created for the children that had parents in WPA programs. What I want to find out about this project is what type of programs the children's parents were in, and how other families were effect by the toy loan program. The types of answers that I am trying to search for are that the families that were able to participate in the program were able to provide for their families better then those without the program.

Historical Context:

At the same time this was going on President Roosevelt was creating more public programs to help get the country out of The Depression. Also at this time there are military buildups going on around the world in Europe and Asia.