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The Board of Public Welfare Commissioners was created in 1917 to serve as an independent advisory board to both the Governor and the Department of Public Welfare (L. 1917, p. 26). The Civil Administrative Code further empowered the board to study the entire public welfare field and to publish statistics annually on mental health and crime. The board also investigated and reported upon the policies of the department and the institutions under its jurisdiction as well as surveying conditions at all charitable, penal, and reform institutions in the state.
With the creation of the Department of Public Safety in 1941 the board also acquired investigative authority over institutions under the Department of Public Safety's control (L. 1941, vol. 1, p. 1214). When the Department of Mental Health assumed the duties of the Department of Public Welfare in 1961 the board's name changed to the Board of Mental Health Commissioners (L. 1961, p. 2659).
See also BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION, RG 351.000.
306.001
ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS. 1929-1971. 30 cu. ft. No index.
General file contains a wide range of material including minutes of board meetings, 1929-1973; annual reports of Departments of Public Welfare and Mental Health; departmental budgets, ca. 1951-1971; reports, surveys, and investigations of state mental institutions, including material from the board's 1962 investigation of Anna State Hospital; correspondence of board's executive secretary concerning such matters as pending legislation, bond issue appropriations, departmental personnel problems, investigations, and speaking engagements; promotional material and publications of the Departments of Public Welfare and Mental Health and federal, state, and private organizations active in the mental health field; departmental memoranda; manuals of administrative procedure; and photographs of inmates and employees of Lincoln State School and Jacksonville State Hospital taken during a 1963 legislative tour.
These records are available at the Illinois State Archives, Office of the Secretary of State.
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