1930s Waterfront

The market crash of 1929 affected the NYC waterfront as it did the rest of the nation’s economy. SCI saw an increased demand for services as more and more seamen found themselves out of work and in need of aid. The Annual Report for 1930 appealed directly to readers: “only through increasing aid can we come through 1931 without a deficit, because the legitimate demands of the unemployed seamen showed a continual rise through the latter part of 1930 and unquestionably will show the same through 1931."

Lacking in Federal aid as of 1931, SCI moved to form a Joint Emergency Committee of Seamen’s Welfare Agencies, chaired by SCI Superintendent Rev. Archibald R. Mansfield. The Committee raised more than $100,000 from public donors and provided one thousand lodgings and two meals per day for seamen at the price of 65 cents. SCI itself cared for five hundred of the one thousand destitute men, and provided 24,227 nightly lodgings to seamen in an emergency dormitory installed on the third floor of 25 South Street.

Despite these relief efforts, many seamen were left to their own devices. These seamen, out of work and dissatisfied with the relief available to them, organized into groups and organizations representing different working class sections of the NYC waterfront. They used flyers and pamphlets to rally together in their struggles.