This Relief Survey is a compilation of studies made for the Russell Sage Foundation by a group of persons each specially qualified to conduct the inquiry and to analyze the issue. The contributors are:

Part I. Charles J. O’Connor, Ph.D., secretary of the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds, who was appointed on the relief force soon after the disaster.

Part II. Francis H. McLean, now secretary of the American Association of Societies for Organizing Charity; at the time of the study, field secretary of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation. He was superintendent for the Rehabilitation Committee in July and August, 1906.

Part III. Helen Swett (now Mrs. Gregorio Artieda), who was secretary of Sub-Committee VI, the business committee of the Rehabilitation Committee, from its organization November 1, 1906; before that date connected with the Associated Charities of Oakland, California. Now resident of the People’s Place settlement, San Francisco.

Part IV. James Marvin Motley, Ph.D., now associate professor of economics at Brown University; at the time of the investigation, assistant professor of economics at Leland Stanford Junior University.

Part V. Jessica Peixotto, Ph.D., assistant professor of social economics, University of California, and a member of the Central Council of the Associated Charities of San Francisco.

Part VI. Mary Roberts Coolidge, formerly associate professor of sociology, Leland Stanford Junior University; reviser of Warner’s American Charities; author of Almshouse Women, and other works.

When the six separate studies were completed, a perplexing situation was disclosed. The purpose in preparing the survey was to offer a book of ready reference for use on occasions of special emergency. The six studies would have formed a set of volumes valuable as a contribution to the literature of relief work but not adapted to the particular purpose in view. It therefore became necessary to condense the studies at the cost of cutting out material. In order to preserve certain facts in proper sequence, subject matter in a few instances has been transposed from one part to another.

The authors of the various parts have wished to express their appreciation of the help rendered by university colleagues and students. A study made by Lilian Brandt of the first registration after she had worked at relief headquarters in the late spring and early summer of 1906, has been used in part. An article by Colonel C. A. Devol, extracts from which appear in Appendix I, furnished valuable data concerning the part taken by the army, especially in receiving and distributing the relief supplies. Charities and the Commons has been drawn upon for data from articles which have not been noted in the text because their authors were so a part of the relief work itself that specific mention seemed uncalled for.

The statistics of this volume require, perhaps, a word of explanation. The quantitative material upon which the study is so largely based is derived from records, many of which were compiled in haste and under great pressure of work. The record forms themselves were properly devised primarily to aid the relief workers in abating distress, rather than as possible sources of social statistics to be compiled at some future time; and it was necessary to entrust the filling out of the records to persons most of whom were wholly without experience in work of this character. The data for the several parts of the study were, moreover, compiled by a number of persons working quite independently of one another.

Under these circumstances it is but natural that there should have been embodied in the report various minor inaccuracies and some real or apparent inconsistencies. Every possible effort has been made, in preparing the material for publication, to correct errors, to remove inconsistencies, and to harmonize the plan of statistical presentation as far as this could be accomplished by means of the information available.

No attempt has been made to present a comprehensive statement covering the complete disposition of the Relief Funds. It is understood that such a statement will be prepared under the direction of the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds. The figures showing receipts and disbursements, which appear in this volume, have been presented solely because of their bearing on the relief problems dealt with, and not by way of an accounting.