BUREAU encyclopedia topics

employment bureau, a government-run establishment for bringing together the employer offering work and the employee seeking it. As a not-for-profit service, employment bureaus operate differently from privately run firms, such as employment agencies, temporary job agencies, and executive search firms, that charge fees to employers for filling a job opening. In Great Britain the first public employment bureau was opened in 1885 at Egham. A national system was established in 1909, and when the Ministry of Labour was later founded, both unemployment insurance and the labor exchanges were transferred to it. The exchanges charge no fees. In Germany local public exchanges were founded in the late 1800s. France has had public employment agencies since 1916. The International Labor Conference of the League of Nations in 1919 included in the convention on unemployment an article providing that ratifying states would establish free public labor exchanges. In the United States the first state regulation of private employment agencies was in 1848, and Wisconsin and Minnesota required licensing by 1885. Other states enacted similar licensing laws. The first state agency was established in 1890 in Ohio. The federal government in 1907 opened employment offices within the former Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization. In 1918 the Employment Service was established as a unit in the Dept. of Labor. By the time World War I ended, decreasing appropriations and considerable opposition rendered it practically ineffective. With the passage of the Wagner-Peyser Act in 1933, the United States Employment Service (USES) was reestablished as part of the Dept. of Labor. Its functions were to develop a national system of public employment offices, furnish information on employment opportunities, and maintain a system for clearing labor among the states. The USES maintains over 1,700 employment offices in the states and territories that provide about 3.2 million workers with jobs annually. Since the 1960s Congress has passed several acts that expand the scope of services offered by the USES, including the Area Redevelopment Act (1961), the Manpower Development and Training Act (1962), The Vocational and Educational Act (1963), and the Economic Opportunity Act (1964), the Job Training Partnership Act (1982), and the Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance Act (1988). Since 1979, the USES has given employers tax credits for hiring disadvantaged workers.

See G. de Guzman and C. Corbett, The Job Bank Guide to Employment Services (1989).

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Reclamation, United States Bureau of

Reclamation, United States Bureau of, agency set up in the Dept. of the Interior under the Reclamation Act of 1902. It is charged with promoting regional economies by developing water and related land resources in the West. The original purpose of developing and executing irrigation projects in arid and semiarid regions of the West has been expanded to include developing and executing projects to provide municipal and industrial water supplies, hydroelectric power generation and transmission, water quality improvement, flood control, navigation, and river regulation and control. The bureau is the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States and would rank as the ninth largest electric utility on the basis of production capacity.

The Bureau of Reclamation contracts for the project beneficiaries to reimburse the government for the cost of constructing and operating the project. In many instances it chooses the sites for dams to be used for power as well as irrigation, and then constructs them. The bureau cooperates other government agencies in distributing the power developed. Among such projects are the Bonneville Dam (with an enormous power project) and Grand Coulee Dam, together with a host of related activities on the Columbia, the Snake, and their tributaries (see Columbia, river); the Central Valley Project in California; the Colorado-Big Thompson Project; and the Missouri River Basin Project.

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National Bureau of Standards

National Bureau of Standards: see National Institute of Standards and Technology.

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Indian Affairs, Bureau of

Indian Affairs, Bureau of, created (1824) in the U.S. War Dept. and transferred (1849) to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior. The War Dept. managed Native American affairs after 1789, but a separate bureau was not set up for many years. It had jurisdiction over trade with Native Americans, their removal to the West, their protection from exploitation, and their concentration on reservations. Because of wide dissatisfaction in the West over army administration of Native American affairs, the responsibility was given to the Dept. of the Interior and reorganized. The new bureau was no more successful than its predecessor in preventing wars with Native Americans or in protecting their rights. The Bureau of Indian Affairs instead evolved primarily into a land-administering agency, a process speeded up by the Dawes Act of 1887, the Burke Act of 1906, and the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934, now acting as trustee over Native American lands and funds. The bureau also promotes agricultural and economic development, provides a health program, social services, Native American schools, and reclamation projects for Alaska Natives and Native Americans in the United States. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has also been officially called the Office of Indian Affairs and the Indian Service. Beginning in the early 1970s, Native American civil-rights groups, such as the American Indian Movement, began actively protesting their dissatisfaction with the bureau; in 1997 the bureau was accused by Interior Dept. auditors of mismanaging money owed to Native American tribes and individuals.

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Freedmen's Bureau

Freedmen's Bureau, in U.S. history, a federal agency, formed to aid and protect the newly freed blacks in the South after the Civil War. Established by an act of Mar. 3, 1865, under the name "bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands," it was to function for one year after the close of the war. A bill extending its life indefinitely and greatly increasing its powers was vetoed (Feb. 19, 1866) by President Andrew Johnson, who viewed the legislation as an unwarranted (and unconstitutional) continuation of war powers in peacetime. The veto marked the beginning of the President's long and unsuccessful fight with the radical Republican Congress over Reconstruction. In slightly different form, the bill was passed over Johnson's veto on July 16, 1866. Organized under the War Dept., with Gen. Oliver O. Howard as its commissioner, and thus backed by military force, the bureau was one of the most powerful instruments of Reconstruction. Howard divided the ex-slave states, including the border slave states that had remained in the Union, into 10 districts, each headed by an assistant commissioner. The bureau's work consisted chiefly of five kinds of activity—relief work for both blacks and whites in war-stricken areas, regulation of black labor under the new conditions, administration of justice in cases concerning the blacks, management of abandoned and confiscated property, and support of education for blacks. In its relief and educational activities the bureau compiled an excellent record, which, however, was too often marred by unprincipled agents, both military and civilian, in the local offices. Its efforts toward establishing the freed blacks as landowners were nil. To a great degree the bureau operated as a political machine, organizing the black vote for the Republican party; its political activities made it thoroughly hated in the South. When, under the congressional plan of Reconstruction, new state governments based on black suffrage were organized in the South (with many agents holding various offices), the work of the Freedmen's Bureau was discontinued (July 1, 1869). Its educational activities, however, were carried on for another three years.

See P. S. Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau (1904); L. J. Webster, The Operation of the Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina (1916, repr. 1970); G. R. Bentley, A History of the Freedmen's Bureau (1955, repr. 1970); M. Abbott, The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina (1967).

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Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice charged with investigating all violations of federal laws except those assigned to some other federal agency. The FBI has jurisdiction over some 185 investigative matters, among them espionage, sabotage, and other subversive activities; kidnapping; extortion; bank robbery; interstate transportation of stolen property; civil-rights matters; interstate gambling violations; and fraud against the government. Created (1908) as the Bureau of Investigation, it originally conducted investigations only for the Justice Dept. After J. Edgar Hoover became (1924) director of the Bureau of Investigation, Congress gradually added one duty after another to the jurisdiction of the bureau and reorganized (1933) it with wider powers as the Division of Investigation in the Dept. of Justice. Under Hoover's direction, it battled against such roving outlaws as John Dillinger and "Pretty Boy" Floyd as well as against the organized crime of the prohibition era. In 1935 it was designated the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI played an important role in raising the standards of local police units through its FBI Academy.

During Hoover's final years as director (he served until his death in 1972), the bureau became highly controversial and was the frequent target of attack from a wide variety of liberal groups. During the Watergate affair it was revealed that the FBI had yielded to pressure from top White House officials, acting on behalf of President Richard M. Nixon, to halt their investigation of the Watergate break-in. The FBI subsequently cooperated with the White House "inquiry" into the break-in, which was actually attempting a cover-up, and FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray destroyed files belonging to one of the convicted Watergate conspirators, E. Howard Hunt. Gray resigned (Apr., 1973) after his role became public. In June, 1973, Clarence M. Kelley was named director. He was followed by William H. Webster (1978-87), William S. Sessions (1987-93), Louis J. Freeh (1993-2001), and Robert S. Mueller 3d (2001-).

See H. A. Overstreet, The FBI in Our Open Society (1969); W. W. Turner, Hoover's FBI (1970); R. O. Wright, ed., Whose FBI? (1974); J. T. Elliff, The Reform of the FBI Intelligence Activities (1979); F. M. Sorrentino, Ideological Warfare: The F.B.I.'s Path toward Power (1985); B. Burrough, Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI: 1933-34 (2004).

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credit bureau

Organization that provides information to merchants or other businesses concerning the creditworthiness of their customers. Credit bureaus may be private enterprises or may be operated on a cooperative basis by the merchants in one locality. Users of the service pay a fee and receive information from various sources, including businesses that have granted the customer credit in the past, public records, newspapers, the customer's employment record, and direct investigation.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Freedmen's Bureau

(1865–72) U.S. agency established during Reconstruction to help freed slaves in their transition to freedom. Officially named the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, it was directed by Oliver O. Howard. It built hospitals and provided medical assistance to more than 1 million freed blacks and 21 million rations for blacks and whites. It also built more than 1,000 schools for black children and helped found colleges and teacher-training institutes for blacks, but it had little success in safeguarding civil rights and promoting land redistribution. Congress later responded to pressure from white Southerners by terminating the bureau.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Largest investigative agency of the U.S. government. It was founded in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation within the U.S. Justice Department. J. Edgar Hoover served as its director from 1924 until his death in 1972. Since 1968 the director, who reports to the attorney general, has been appointed by the president for a 10-year term, subject to Senate approval. The FBI employs more than 10,000 special agents. Its responsibilities include investigating violations of federal criminal law (including in the areas of civil rights and organized crime), collecting evidence in civil cases to which the U.S. is a party, and providing internal security.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.