Research


Administrative History

Dr. H. Jackson Davis was employed by the State of New York from circa 1930-1945, working first for the Department of Health (series A3273) and then for the Department of Social Welfare (series A3274). His public service career spanned the years of the New Deal, during which time he coordinated State efforts with those of the federal government and local governments to provide public relief assistance to needy New Yorkers. During his tenure with the Department of Health, Davis held the titles of Assistant Director, Local Health Administration; Director of Medical Care for the (New York State) Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, or TERA; and (Federal) Works Progress Administration, or WPA, Consultant on Medical Care. In these roles, Davis led the State of New York's comprehensive medical relief program that provided medical, nursing, and dental care to families on public relief.

This program, run under the supervision of the Department of Health, was actually a coordinated effort between the department, the TERA, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), and later the WPA, to provide both "home relief" and "work relief" to New Yorkers, pursuant to the New York State Emergency Relief Act of 1931, which created the TERA (Chapter 798), and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration Acts of 1935 and 1936. Interestingly enough, the State's release of "Regulations Governing Medical Care in the Home to Recipients of Home Relief" in December 1931, which established a uniform plan of state aid to localities, strongly influenced policymaking at the federal level in FERA "Rules and Regulations No. 7," which H. Jackson Davis drafted in July 1933 at the request of Harry Hopkins and the Roosevelt Administration.

For the purposes of the medical relief program, "home relief" entailed such activities as bedside care, infant and child health care, and communicable disease prevention and treatment, while "work relief" focused on employing needy physicians, dentists, nurses, and other public health specialists to provide medical care to New Yorkers. One of the most successful efforts - characterized as "double relief" in a State Health Department report (1936) - was the Statewide Community Nursing Project, which was designed to emphasize bedside care. This project was administered by the Department of Health under the auspices of the TERA, the Federal Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the WPA. From February 1933 to December 1936, nurses employed by the program made more than 2,300,000 home visits in upstate New York communities.

By June 1937, the State Department of Social Welfare had assumed the function of continuing necessary state aid for persons on relief.