Figure 1.--Pie Town, New Mexico was one of the of the FSA's Subsisttence Homesteading projects. This is Jack Whinery and his family (September 1940). Whinery brought his wife and his five children. The photograph was taken in their dirt-floor dugout home. Whinery began homesteading with no cash less than a year ago and does not have much equipment. As a result, he and his family farmed the slow, hard way, by hand. Main window of their dugout was made from the windshield of the worn-out car which brought this family to Pie Town from West Texas. Photographer: Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration.

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 was also open unemployed city workers willing to try their hand at farming. Of course in the 2930s, 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'proposedindivdual 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.

Created: 10:20 PM 6/20/2010
Last updated: 10:20 PM 6/20/2010