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Volunteers dispensing coffee and sandwiches outside headquarters of the Philadelphia County Emergency Relief Committee, 1450 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA, September 8, 1932.
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Men, women, and children stand behind a roped area. One man, guarded by police officers, pours liquid into a waiting child's cup.

Credit: Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.

In the early years of the Great Depression, the Philadelphia County Emergency Relief Committee helped more than 40,000 families. By 1932, however, the needs of the city's unemployed and their families had overwhelmed the city's private and public relief efforts. As unemployed workers organized unemployed citizen leagues and the suffering families turned to their own communities for relief, Mayor J. Hampton Moore fired city workers and shut down municipal spending to prevent the city's bankruptcy. From 1932 to 1937, Philadelphia's city government contributed no direct relief to city residents, who became wholly dependent upon the state for assistance.

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