Figure 1.--Here an unidentified boy is playing an harmonica at the newly opened Penderlea Homesteads in 1936.

The FDA was designed to assist rural Awericans adversely impacted by the Depression and Dust Bowl and although not often statesd, the AAA policies of taking land out of poroduction. The FSA's programs, included rural rehabilitation, farm loan, and subsistence homestead programs. Many of these were projects begun by the Resettlement Administration (RA). Others were inherited from other agencies. The RA had begun to make loans to farmers for purchases of land, equipment, seed,and livestock. The FSA initiated a health care plan for participating farm families and promoted a range of educational and training programs. The FSA encouraged more attention to sanitation and worked with other New Deal agencies such as the National Youth Administration and the Work Projects Administration (WPA) to help fsrmers build privies and dig wells. They also worked to improve sanitary facilities and mosquito control for migratory labor camps and for the FSA recreational areas and land utilization projects. Certainly the loan program was the core of the FSA. Because if the farmers could get bavk on their feet, other assisance became less important. The loans were primarily used for actual farming activities, but were also used housing improvements anf for the sanitary or health programs. The basic objective was to give farmers the means to become self-sustaining. The family farmer who owned his land was the primarily focus of the FSA. Unlike the earlier Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the FSA attempted to assisst tenant farmers (share cropers). AAA efforts had actually driven some tenant farmers' off the land. The FSA's primary appraoach to helping tennant farmers was to assist them to buy land. They used funds from the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937 and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The FSA set up a tenant-purchase loan program. By early 1941, 16,000 tenant families were participating in the program. They were proivided 40-year loans at 3 percent interest. The average loans were small, less than $5,000, although that was substantially mote in terms of modern dollars. FSA loans (1937 to mid-1941) totaled more than $473, most of which was repaid with interest. The FSA also dispursed $122 million in grants. The programs had a major impact on farm net worth. In assessing the cost of the FDA effort, one has to consider the impact of putting farmers back on their feet or helping tennant farmers become land oners. This meant that with increased income they not only led more productive lives, but began paying taxes.

Resettlement Administration (RA)

President Roosevelt created the Resettlement Administration (RA) (May 1, 1935). Unlike most other New Deal Agencies, he created ot by executive action (Execurive Order 7027) and not by Act of Congress. This suggestshe understood from the beginning that it would extremely controiversial. It was formed from the Subsistence Homesteads Division (DSH/SHD) in the Interior Department. The President chose New Deal Braintruster Rexford G. Tugwell to head the new agency. Tugwell and the RA sought to relocate dislocated urban and rural families to new communities planned by the Federal government. He used his relationship with the President to get approval for the agency. Tugwell, an economics professor at New York's Columbia University who became an important advisor to Governor Roosevelt during the 1932 presidential election campaign. After his election victory, the President The President appointed Tugwell to positions in the Agriculture Department involved in efforts to alleviate the Depression. Efforts to assist the dispossed were especially important to Tugwell and thus he had great plans for the new agency and the President with overwealming Congressional majorities was willing to back him. Mrs. Roosevelt took an interest in the RA. The Agency administered various programs under four divisions: Rural Rehabilitation, Rural Resettlement, Land Utilization, and Suburban Resettlement. [Sternsher, pp. 262-65.] Tugwell had expansive plans for his new agency. He hoped to move some 650,000 people from 100 million acres (400,000 km2) of agriculturally exhausted, worn-out land, meaning many sharecroppers. This elicited intense criticism from Congress including Democrats, especially southern Democrats. Many Congressmen saw it as socialistic, seeming similar to Soviet collectivuztion. Others, especially southern Democrats, objected to relocating farm laborors including share croppers which they thought would weaken the rural economy. While the President could create the Agency, Congessional support was needed for funding. And Congress refused the massive outlays that Tugwell needed for his esettlen=ment efforts. The RA was only given limited funding for relocating only a few thousand individuals from 9 million acres (36,000 km2), less than 10 percent of Tugwell's goal. Several greenbelt cities were built which received some positive commentary. The cooperative future that Tugwell envisioned, however, was accomplished even before the Republican and conservative victories undercut New Deal programs (1938). The main focus of the RA thus became the building of relief camps in California for migratory workers. Caligornia was where the devestated refugees from the Dust Bowl of the southern Plains who became known as 'the Oakies as many came from Oklahoma headed. Many Californians did not welcome the arrival of large numbers of destitute families. So the RA took on the task of setting up resettlement camps, even this was not popular. With so much opposition, the RA did not last long. The agency was dissolved (January 1, 1937). Some of the projects were taken over by the Farm Security Administration.

Rural Rehabilitation

The FSA initiated a health care plan for participating farm families and promoted a range of educational and training programs. The FSA encouraged more attention to sanitation and worked with other New Deal agencies such as the National Youth Administration and the Work Projects Administration (WPA) to help fsrmers build privies and dig wells. They also worked to improve sanitary facilities and mosquito control for migratory labor camps and for the FSA recreational areas and land utilization projects.

Farm Loans

The Resettlement Administration (RA) had begun to make loans to farmers for purchases of land, equipment, seed,and livestock. Certainly the loan program was the core of the FSA. Because if the farmers could get bavk on their feet, other assisance became less important. The loans were primarily used for actual farming activities, but were also used housing improvements anf for the sanitary or health programs. The basic objective was to give farmers the means to become self-sustaining. The family farmer who owned his land was the primarily focus of the FSA. Unlike the earlier Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the FSA attempted to assisst tenant farmers (share cropers). AAA efforts had actually driven some tenant farmers' off the land. The FSA's primary appraoach to helping tennant farmers was to assist them to buy land. They used funds from the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937 and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The FSA set up a tenant-purchase loan program. By early 1941, 16,000 tenant families were participating in the program. They were proivided 40-year loans at 3 percent interest. The average loans were small, less than $5,000, although that was substantially mote in terms of modern dollars. FSA loans (1937 to mid-1941) totaled more than $473, most of which was repaid with interest. The FSA also dispursed $122 million in grants. The programs had a major impact on farm net worth. In assessing the cost of the FDA loan effort, one has to consider the impact of putting farmers back on their feet or helping tennant farmers become land oners. This meant that with increased income they not only led more productive lives, but began paying taxes.

Ending Farm Tenancy and Sharecropping

The FSA was designed to assist rural Amwericans adversely impacted by the Depression and Dust Bowl and although not often stated, the AAA policies of taking land out of poroduction. An unintended consequence was that large number of tennant farmers and share cropers were forced off the land. The effort at Sunsistence Homesteadin was primasrily designed to assist those forced off the land. his fed into the Great Migration, the movement of rural blacks to the big Northeastern amd Midwestern industrial cities. It might be seen that ending bith farm tenancy anfd share cropping was a good thing. The way it was done, howver, caused a great deal of pain and suffering. There were fir the most part no jobs to be had. The Roosevelt recession (1937-38) led to increases in unemployment. And nothing was done to ease the adjustmnent of rural blacks to the big cities.

Subsistence Homsteading

An innovative New Deal program was subsistence homesteading. This began in 1934 and eventually 152 homestead projects were developed. The first was Penderlea Homestead Farms, located in northwest Pender County, North Carolina. The effort here was not just aimed at farmers. Certainly farmers were involved, including penniless tenant farmers unable to cotinue, bankrupt farm owners, and unemployed ex-farmers. Participation wasalso open unemployed city workers willing to try their hand at farming. Of course in the 1930s, many city workers had grown up on farms. The program was initiated by the Division of Subsistence Homesteads, U.S. Department of the Interior. Private contractors like Hugh MacRae'proposed indivdual projects. The projects varied substatially in size and complexity. The Oenderlea Project was particularly well planned. The project was designed by prominent Boston city planner John Nolen. The concept wa to build an entire self-sustaing farm city. Tere were to be 300 people living in a community of 10-acre cooperative truck farms to supply a central marketing plant. MacRae concluded that 10-acre farms would provide homesteaders both subsistence food and a cash income that would enable them to eventully purchase their homesteads. A lend-lease approach was used to faciliate this. Nolen sesigned the Farms as a horseshoe around a central community center. Included in the plsan was a 23-acre school campus with an auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, library, shop building, home economics building and "teacherage". Vesides the school and indivisual family farms, Nolen's plans included a vegetable grading shed, potato storage house, a cannery, grist and feed mills, a general store, social building, and furniture factory. Three hard-surfaced roads were built to connect the Farms with the nearby towns of Wallace, Burgaw and Watha. Here railway stations could be use to ship the produce to city markets. Construction was largely carried out by relief workers. Most of the Homesteading projects were transferred to the Resettlement Administration (RA) (1935). Eventually the RA was transferred to the Agriculture Department's FSA and with it the Susistence Homesteading projects.

Sources

Sternsher, Bernard. Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal (Rutgers University Press, 1964).

Created: 2:49 AM 6/13/2010
Last updated: 11:30 PM 2/11/2023