The Departments of Public Assistance and Welfare merged in 1958 to form the Department of Public Welfare. Supervision over penal and correctional institutions was transferred in 1953 from the Department of Welfare’s Bureau of Penal Affairs to the Department of Justice (RG/015) and later to the Department of Corrections (RG/058).
More on that process can be found among the records of the Civil Service Commission (RG/003). It was also one of the first three state agencies to implement a merit system for employee hiring (the others being the Liquor Control Board and the Department of Labor and Industry). Public Assistance also administered the State Board of Public Assistance and the County Boards of Assistance. The State Emergency Relief Board was therefore abolished and its powers and duties, along with those of the Welfare Department's Bureau of Assistance, transferred to this new agency. In 1937, the Department of Public Assistance was created to centralize relief programs. A State Emergency Relief Board, established as part of the Department of Welfare in 1932, handled unemployment work relief as a result of the Great Depression. In 1923, the name of the Department of Public Welfare was changed to the Department of Welfare. In 1921, the Board was abolished, and the Department of Public Welfare was created in its place to coordinate and administer welfare programs. A Committee on Lunacy, established by the Board in 1883, examined places specifically for the confinement of the insane. The origins of the department began with the 1869 creation of the Board of Public Charities, charged with inspection of all charitable, penal, and correctional institutions in the Commonwealth.