Content Description

Annual reports for the Civil Service Commission date from 1894 to 1975. The earliest report, from 1894, is a report of the Labor Commissioner. The Labor Commissioner administered the Public Employment Office, which was part of the Civil Service Commission Office. Early reports, from 1896 to the 1920s, have appendices that include reports from the secretary and chief examiner and labor commissioner reports. The appendices include more detailed information including statistics, rulings, amendments, examinations, examination questions, and labor. The 1899 report includes reports on 1897 and 1898. Labor Commissioner reports in the 1890s are very detailed and contain information on types and numbers of positions filled, the increase of population due to the gold rush in Alaska, railroad laborers, hop picking, women, and minorities.

The Labor Commissioner report for 1897, included in the 1899 Civil Service report, comments on “female help.” The reports states “There has been a somewhat general complaint from families employing domestics, that they cannot get girls to stay for any length of time, which is a source of much annoyance to the housekeeper. This is a condition with which we have to contend more in this new country than in the older cities, and may be partly explained from the fact that a restlessness and desire for a change pervades the atmosphere of the west: but the fault does not rest altogether with the girls.”

By the 1930s, the annual report of the Labor Commissioner is presented jointly with the Civil Service Commission report and not as an appendix. These reports include statistical information but less narrative than earlier reports. Labor Commissioner reports ceased to be a part of the Civil Service Commission reports in 1942 when the Public Employment Office was abolished.

Civil Service Commission reports in the 1950s begin listing names of examiners used, both inside and outside of City employment. Reports in the 1960s include organizational charts. Beginning in 1970, the reports are much shorter, only including one to two pages of statistical trends, or no statistics, and a few pages of narrative. The 1998 report includes a case status report on appeals brought before the Commission.