Research

Scope and Content Note

This series contains carbon copies of monthly report forms compiled by the state and local war councils and sent to the United States Office of Civil Defense Statistics Section. The local war councils would send their forms to the Office of Civilian Protection, which compiled the totals for a consolidated report, and then sent the originals to the federal office.

The local and state report forms are nearly identical in layout, with both entitled "Civilian Defense Report." The local report form provides: name of local war council; address; population of area served; and all subsidiary councils.

Both forms provide the number of: full and part-time staff; staff who are paid, volunteer, or on loan from another agency; total volunteer personnel; civil defense volunteers; and "service corps" volunteers (all non-civil defense programs such as child care, salvage, health, and housing).

For the civil defense and "service corps" volunteers, the number of members trained and in-training is also listed. A last section reports on the readiness of air raid and blackout systems.

Many local war council forms are incomplete, while others are accompanied by correspondence or memoranda expanding on the numbers in the reports and circumstances which affected activities. Reports span August 1942 through October 1943 (with the exception of March 1943), and March 1944.