The Kansas Emergency Relief Committee was created in July 1932 to obtain and administer federal emergency loans made available to states through Herbert Hoover's Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932. President Franklin Roosevelt expanded on this act with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in 1933, leading the Kansas committee to change its name to the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee (KERC). Under the direction of Kansas's new governor, Alf Landon, the KERC managed direct and work relief programs in Kansas including emergency education, transient relief, rural rehabilitation, drought relief, and a slew of public works projects including the construction of farm ponds and lakes, and the renovation and construction of public buildings, roads, and quarries. This group of fourteen stories "selected from the records in the 105 county relief departments represents typical examples of social welfare service in every section of the state during the last three years."
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