HOPKINS, HARRY

Harry Lloyd Hopkins (August 17, 1890–January 29, 1946) was a progressive-era social worker, federal relief administrator during the Great Depression, and wartime presidential advisor who carved out a unique niche for himself in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administrations. Hopkins and Roosevelt developed a close relationship based on mutual trust and admiration, a position that afforded Hopkins a considerable amount of power. From 1933 to 1938, Hopkins played a crucial role in the development of social policies and legislation devised by the administration to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression. In this sense, Hopkins became one of the major architects of the American welfare system. Beginning in 1939, Roosevelt educated Hopkins in international affairs, and during the war years, Hopkins served as the president's unofficial wartime emissary to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, as administrator of war production, and as an advisor at most of the major conferences.

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

Harry Hopkins was born in 1890 in Sioux City, Iowa, the fourth child of David Aldona (Al) Hopkins and Anna Pickett Hopkins. The family, always struggling financially, moved numerous times around the Midwest before finally settling in Grinnell, Iowa, in 1901, a town selected by Anna mainly because Grinnell College was located there. During Hopkins's four years at Grinnell, where he was a mediocre student but a first-rate athlete and student leader, he absorbed a blend of the Social Gospel and the practical workings of the American republic as taught in his political science and applied Christianity courses. In addition, Hopkins's professors impressed upon him a reverence for democracy and a dedication to public service.

Soon after his graduation in 1912, Hopkins left rural Iowa to pursue a career as a social worker at Christodora Settlement House in New York City's Lower East Side, where he quickly became attuned to the squalid conditions in the urban slum and the destitution that so often accompanied the instability of waged labor in industrial centers. His first job there was as a counselor for the settlement house's summer camp for boys in Bound Brook, New Jersey. He later served as head of boys' activities at the settlement house on Avenue B. There he met and married his first wife, fellow settlement worker and suffragist Ethel Gross, who initiated Hopkins into the exciting reform environment of lower Manhattan. This work in progressive-era New York City had a profound effect on Hopkins. He began to formulate a secular view of poverty and came to understand that there were profound consequences to unemployment, that most people wanted to be self-sufficient, and that the dole took away a person's pride.

In 1913, in the midst of an economic recession, Hopkins accepted a position with New York City's Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP), a private charitable agency dedicated to both relieving poverty and reforming the individual. Hopkins joined the agency first as a friendly visitor, but soon, having demonstrated his capabilities as an observant and efficient social worker, he was appointed superintendent of the Association's Employment Bureau. His mandate was to suggest ways to eliminate unemployment, which was seen by the AICP as the second most frequent cause of poverty, illness being the first. Hopkins went into the tenements of the largely immigrant population of the Lower East Side and saw firsthand the degrading effects of poverty, a condition he agreed was caused largely by unemployment. During this phase of his career, he began to develop a set of convictions concerning poverty and unemployment that came to define the relief policies he later proposed to the Roosevelt administration in the midst of the Great Depression, according to which those who wanted to work and, for whatever reason, could not find employment would be provided jobs by the government; those unable to work would be provided government assistance.

In 1915, Hopkins and an AICP colleague, William Matthews, worked creatively to try to solve the problem of increasing unemployment in New York City. When they learned that the Bronx Zoological Park had received a generous donation of land but could not afford to develop it for use, Hopkins and Matthews proposed a solution by devising what was likely the first work relief program in New York. The two social workers offered to provide unemployed men to clear the land, and, moreover, raise enough money from private sources to pay their wages if the Bronx Zoo would provide the staff to supervise the work. This Bronx Zoo project (even though privately funded) provided a loose prototype for future public work programs.

Another main cause of poverty during this period was single motherhood. The New York state legislature, encouraged by social workers and progressive reformers, addressed that issue by passing the 1915 Mothers' Assistance Act, which allocated local public funds to support poor but deserving single mothers. New York Mayor John Purroy Mitchel appointed Hopkins as head of the Board of Child Welfare (BCW), the agency established to administer this program. From 1915 to 1917 Hopkins administered what was called the widows' pension to women considered worthy of help. This work reflected some of the most important political issues of the era, especially the value placed on home life that had been articulated at the 1909 White House Conference on Children—no child should be removed from the home for reasons of poverty alone. Furthermore, the enabling legislation that allotted money for such programs established the legitimacy of public outdoor relief, that is, using state money to assist the needy outside of institutions. This experience reinforced Hopkins's belief that it was the responsibility of the government, through agencies such as the BCW, to devise effective, state-funded programs to help the deserving needy.

WORLD WAR I AND THE 1920s

With America's entrance into World War I, Hopkins (ineligible for the draft because of poor eyesight) joined the American Red Cross, first in New Orleans (Gulf Division) working in the Civilian Relief Division. Also called Home Service, this division was central to the Red Cross because it aided families of servicemen, as well as wounded and demobilized soldiers and sailors. During this time, because the South lacked both an established network of trained social workers and an integrated group of agencies, Hopkins had the opportunity to create an organization from the ground up. He consequently built Civilian Relief into a smoothly operating service agency for military families experiencing hardships because of the war. To accomplish this, Hopkins initiated an array of educational programs in order to train social workers in the South. Hopkins and his staff of about two hundred workers served approximately ten to fifteen thousand families each month. To further professionalize the work he and his colleagues were engaged in, he joined with other social workers to draft the charter for the American Association of Social Workers in June of 1920. When the Red Cross Gulf Division merged with the Southwestern Division after the war, Hopkins went to Atlanta as general manager in 1921. Through his work in the American Red Cross, Hopkins became nationally known and entered into the upper ranks of the social work profession.

In 1922, Hopkins returned to New York City with his family. He worked for the AICP until 1923 when he took a job as general director of the New York Tuberculosis Association and directed his energies toward public health issues. For him, illness resulting from an unfriendly and unhealthy environment was merely another form of social injustice and a preventable cause of poverty. During his tenure with the Tuberculosis Association, Hopkins expanded the agency by absorbing the New York Heart Association. True to his liberal, progressive social work background, he cared little for the bottom line and was often criticized for his free-spending style. When he joined the association it had a surplus of $90,000; when he left it seven years later, it carried a deficit of $40,000. Still, everyone close to the association was delighted with Hopkins's work there.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION YEARS

With the onset of the Great Depression, Hopkins drew on his previous experiences to address the problems brought about by the high levels of unemployment. The crisis reinforced his belief that public works programs, federally funded and rationally planned, could be used to mitigate the effects of widespread unemployment. In 1931, New York State governor Franklin D. Roosevelt called on Hopkins to run the first state relief organization, the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), which provided both direct relief and work relief to the state's unemployed. The TERA was the first instance of a state accepting responsibility for citizens suffering from the effects of the Depression.

In 1933, President Roosevelt named Hopkins as federal relief administer. Convinced that jobs were the antidote to poverty, Hopkins used his growing influence with the president to push for government-sponsored jobs programs that would put money immediately into the pockets of newly-employed workers. These programs included the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The progressive-era notion that the industrial system lay at the heart of the economic ills threatening the nation shaped Hopkins's early New Deal policies and programs. With an original allocation of $500 million, the FERA provided the states with matching grants, one federal dollar for every three they raised, in order to provide relief for the unemployed. While direct relief (known as the dole) proved crucial for the survival of many families, recipients also received FERA jobs in exchange for needs-based relief payments. For Hopkins the important element of a jobs program was that it would ensure that American workers could retain their dignity as the breadwinners. Under the more radical and short-lived Civil Works Administration (CWA), the unemployed got a job and did not have to undergo any investigation to ascertain need. Under this program, one did not have to be on relief to get a job and wages were based not on need but on the work performed. The CWA reflected Hopkins's firm conviction that most people simply wanted to work and that jobs were always the best antidote to poverty. The issues that shaped relief policy during the First New Deal continued to define the much debated relationship between relief and recovery and between citizens and the government that plagued the administration for the next several years. Much of this debate had to do with the widespread fear that continued government relief, even in the form of jobs, would foster dependency.

Early in 1934, Harry Hopkins began formulating a new program for the nation's unemployed that emphasized the importance of work, not only as a relief measure but as an integral part of the national recovery effort. The unemployed needed the opportunity to work for wages and industry needed consumer dollars in order to survive. Hopkins became convinced that a permanent national program of employment assurance, working in concert with unemployment insurance, would not only lead to economic recovery for the nation, but would ensure real security for American families and preserve the nation's democratic values. Hopkins and other New Deal liberals believed that under-consumption was retarding the nation's economic recovery. The solution lay in cooperation between the government and private industry to insure that the American worker earned a sufficient wage to afford a decent standard of living.

In late 1934, Roosevelt named Hopkins to the cabinet-level committee for economic security directed to write legislation that would protect American citizens from the vagaries of life in a modern industrial society. The Social Security Act, passed in August 1935, laid the foundations for the American welfare system by enacting legislation that established old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid to dependent children. This legislation built the foundation of the American welfare system that defined American social policy until 1996. However, the act contained no permanent program for unemployment. Instead, with the president's vigorous encouragement, Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which gave Roosevelt the broad authority to create the National Emergency Council on May 6, 1935, out of which emerged the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Roosevelt named Hopkins as WPA director, with the mandate to find government-funded jobs for the vast army of unemployed workers on relief. Despite critics who castigated the WPA and its director as being either too liberal or too political, the WPA was enormously successful. In 1938, Hopkins presented to Roosevelt a report that listed an impressive array of 158,000 projects undertaken by approximately five million WPA workers earning an average of $52 a month. Although 80 percent of WPA funds were spent on construction projects, including roads, bridges, parks, playgrounds, air landing fields, and public buildings, there were also numerous nonconstruction jobs available. Sewing, educational, health, and clerical projects abounded; WPA workers provided disaster relief, did scientific research, restored historic sites, and engaged in conservation programs. Over the course of seven years, the WPA generated more than three million jobs each year, at a total cost of $10.7 billion.

Despite the overwhelming number of unemployed men seeking relief, women formed a critical portion of the unemployed in 1935. Therefore, Hopkins, with the wholehearted support of Eleanor Roosevelt, established a Women's and Professional Division within the WPA, headed by Ellen Woodward. In addition, Hopkins extended aid to the artistic community and received a great deal of criticism when he developed the WPA Federal Arts Project, known as Federal One. This program had roots in FERA and CWA programs to help the country's thousands of unemployed artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Music Project provided work for musicians under the directorship of Nokolai Sokoloff. The Federal Theatre Project, under the direction of former Grinnellian Hallie Flanagan, brought live theater to about a million people each month in forty cities and twenty-two states. Holger Cahill directed the Federal Artists' Project, which provided work for thousands of unemployed muralists, easel painters, sculptors, and art teachers. The main program of the Federal Writers' Project, under the leadership of Henry Alsberg, was the production of the American Guide series, which included volumes providing detailed information on various states.

In late 1938, Roosevelt appointed Hopkins as Secretary of Commerce, thinking that this would set him up as a viable liberal candidate for president in 1940. However, the public perception of Hopkins's tax and spend and elect policy proved to be too much of a political liability. In addition, his increasingly poor health kept him out of the presidential race.

AFTER THE DEPRESSION

During World War II, Hopkins acted as Roosevelt's unofficial assistant and advisor. In 1941, at the president's request, Hopkins traveled to England and Russia on diplomatic missions to ascertain the allies' defense needs. On his return, Roosevelt directed Hopkins to oversee the massive buildup of war production after the passage of the legislation establishing the Lend-Lease plan. After Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941, Hopkins became a central figure in the nation's mobilization and a trusted confidante to the president. The worldwide attention that Hopkins received as Roosevelt's wartime advisor and emissary to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, as administrator of Lend-Lease and mastermind of war production, and as the shadowy figure behind Roosevelt at the war conferences has somewhat subsumed his role as an architect of the American welfare system. Yet Hopkins always took great pride that he was able to marshal the resources of the federal government to champion the rights of the poorest one-third of the nation.

Hopkins died in early 1946 as a result of long-term digestive illness and complications relating to stomach cancer.

See Also: CIVIL WORKS ADMINISTRATION (CWA); FEDERAL EMERGENCY RELIEF ADMINISTRATION (FERA); WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Henry H. Harry Hopkins: A Biography. 1977.

Charles, Searle F. Minister of Relief: Harry Hopkins and the Depression. 1963.

Hopkins, June. Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer. 1999.

McJimsey, George T. Harry Hopkins: Ally of the Poor and Defender of Democracy. 1987.

Tuttle, Dwight William. Harry L. Hopkins and Anglo-American-Soviet Relations, 1941–1945. 1983.

JUNE HOPKINS