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Local Council Of Unemployed Has 230 Members

Possibility of Saving to Town Indicated in Offer of Members to Cut Wood for Welfare Use

Membership in the Greenfield Council of Unemployed has risen to over 230 at the end of the first month of the council's existence and is still moving upward. The council, with headquarters in King's hotel, draws upwards of 100 each Wednesday for its weekly meetings which fill the room to capacity.

The possibility of a considerable saving to the town through the council is indicated in the offer of the officers to have council members cut wood for welfare use. Chairman David O. Rice points out that the men are willing to go to whatever wood lots the town may wish to have cut, provided the men are given transportation to the land and tools to work with. The men would be glad to offer their time cutting fuel just as they are now working on the sewer construction and members have pointed out that it is not too soon to begin to cut next winter's supply in order that the wood may be well seasoned.

One of the members of the council, Eugene Gagnon of Shelburne street, has set up a barber shop in the council headquarters where he cuts hair from 1 to 5 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for all men who present a membership card in the council. Membership is free.

Among the recent donations of the council was wall paper from A. L. Chevalier for renovating the quarters in the hotel where the women of the council are conducting their weekly sewing work. The women, meeting Tuesday afternoons, are now cutting cloth and helping make clothing. Their method is to find who among the unemployed are particularly in need of clothes and then to make the garments for those persons.

Several donations of used clothing have been received by the women of the council for distribution and more donations are asked.

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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The Greenfield Council of the Unemployed was one town's response to the economic and social crisis of the Great Depression. Council members, who were unemployed, volunteered their labor on projects such as cutting firewood to be distributed to Greenfield, Massachusetts, citizens in need of home heating fuel. Female council members made clothing for the unemployed. The Council also coordinated the collection and distribution of donated goods to those in need. The Depression sparked a wide variety of voluntary and self-help efforts in communities because very few Federal or state programs to aide the increasing numbers of unemployed existed at the beginning of the Depression. These programs relieved pressure on local governments which, by the early 1930s, were already financially strapped.

 

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"Local Council of Unemployed Has 230 Members" article from the Greenfield Daily Recorder-Gazette newspaper

publisher   Greenfield Daily Recorder-Gazette
date   Jan 30, 1933
location   Greenfield, Massachusetts
height   6.75"
width   1.75"
process/materials   printed paper, ink
item type   Periodicals/Newspaper
accession #   #L06.010


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See Also...

"Share the Work Campaign Gets Under Way at Meeting" article from the Greenfield Daily Recorder-Gazette Newspaper

"New Home Sewing Machine Co. of Orange, Mass."

"A Hard Nag to Ride" political cartoon from the Daily Recorder-Gazette newspaper


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