Research

Scope and Content Note

This series documents the activities of federal, state, and local agencies and organizations implementing the Farm Labor Program which the Farm Manpower Service served to coordinate. It includes draft and final legislation regarding the Farm Labor Program's creation, organization, and goals. Other records relating to the program's organization and administration include mission statements, meeting minutes, and annual reports, providing information on the program itself as well as information used by the Farm Manpower Service in its provision of a statistical service concerning farm labor.

Plans for programs and campaigns to mobilize workers on a local level, work plans of County Agricultural Extensions helping to implement the Farm Labor Program, and news releases by federal, state, and local agencies reflect worker mobilization efforts in response to the farm labor shortage. Drafts to amend existing legislation regarding the employment of minors and patients from mental health facilities show the program's efforts to recruit labor from non-traditional sources.

The series contains the Farm Manpower Service's records and its correspondence with individual labor camps involved in the program. These deal with issues such as health inspections, the suitability of the camps for housing farm laborers, nutrition, and rationing of food and materials. Also included are records concerning groups of food production workers from various sources, such as Army troops for emergency work, Navy trainees, Italian prisoners of war, Jamaicans, vacation workers, and the Women's Land Army, an organization of women working in food production.