 Resettlement Administration poster by Bernarda Bryson Shahn (c. 1936) | |
| Agency overview | |
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| Formed | May 1, 1935 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Dissolved | September 1, 1937 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Agency executive |
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The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. [1] It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Security Administration.
The RA was the brainchild of Rexford G. Tugwell, an economics professor at Columbia University who became an advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt during the latter's successful campaign for the presidency in 1932 and then held positions in the United States Department of Agriculture. Roosevelt established the RA under Executive Order 7027, [1] as one of the New Deal's "alphabet agencies", and Tugwell became its head.
The divisions of the new organization included Rural Rehabilitation, Rural Resettlement, Land Utilization, and Suburban Resettlement. [2] Roosevelt transferred the Federal Emergency Relief Administration land program to the Resettlement Administration under Executive Order 7028 on May 1, 1935. [3]
However, Tugwell's goal of moving 650,000 people from 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) of agriculturally exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress. [4] This goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive influential farm owners of their tenant workforce. [4] The RA was thus left with enough resources to relocate only a few thousand people from 9,000,000 acres (36,000 km2) and build several greenbelt cities, [4] which planners admired as models for a cooperative future that never arrived. [4]
The main focus of the RA was to build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-struck Dust Bowl of the Southwest. [4] This move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst. [4] The RA managed to construct 95 camps that gave migrants (unaccustomed to clean quarters) housing with running water and other amenities, [4] but the 75,000 people who had the benefit of the camps were a small share of those in need and even they could stay only temporarily. [4] Tugwell resigned in 1936, wanting to prevent a red-baiting campaign against him from affecting the agency. [4]
On January 1, 1937, [5] with hopes of making the RA more effective, the Resettlement Administration was transferred to the Department of Agriculture through executive order 7530. [5] In the face of Congressional criticism, in September 1937 [5] the Resettlement Administration was folded into a new body, the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which operated until 1946. [5]
The RA worked with nearly 200 communities on its projects, notably including:
The Weedpatch Camp (also known as the Arvin Federal Government Camp and the Sunset Labor Camp), now on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1936 south of Bakersfield, California — not by the Resettlement Administration but by the Works Progress Administration. The camp inspired John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath .
The RA also funded projects recording aspects of its work and context, including:
The Works Progress Administration was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.
Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of Washington, D.C. At the 2020 census, the population was 24,921.
Ben Shahn was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content.
Roy Emerson Stryker was an American economist, government official, and photographer. He headed the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Great Depression, and launched the documentary photography program of the FSA. It hired photographers to travel across the United States and document people in different areas and settings as part of showing the state of people in rural areas in those years. Specific projects were conceived to help assess effects of government programs.
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was a program established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, building on the Hoover administration's Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937).
Rexford Guy Tugwell was an American economist who became part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first "Brain Trust", a group of Columbia University academics who helped develop policy recommendations leading up to Roosevelt's New Deal. Tugwell served in FDR's administration until he was forced out in 1936. He was a specialist on planning and believed the government should have large-scale plans to move the economy out of the Great Depression because private businesses were too frozen in place to do the job. He helped design the New Deal farm program and the Resettlement Administration that moved subsistence farmers into small rented farms under close supervision. His ideas on suburban planning resulted in the construction of Greenbelt, Maryland, with low-cost rents for relief families. He was denounced by conservatives for advocating state-directed economic planning to overcome the Great Depression.
Cumberland Mountain State Park is a state park in Cumberland County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park consists of 1,720 acres (7.0 km2) situated around Byrd Lake, a man-made lake created by the impoundment of Byrd Creek in the 1930s. The park is set amidst an environmental microcosm of the Cumberland Plateau and provides numerous recreational activities, including an 18-hole Bear Trace golf course.
Arthurdale is an unincorporated community in Preston County, West Virginia, United States. It was built in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression as a social experiment to provide opportunities for unemployed local miners and farmers. Arthurdale was undertaken by the short-lived Subsistence Homesteads Division and with the personal involvement of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who used her influence to win government approval for the scheme.
Arthur Rothstein was an American photographer. Rothstein is recognized as one of America's premier photojournalists. During a career that spanned five decades, he provoked, entertained and informed the American people.
The National Youth Administration (NYA) was a New Deal agency sponsored by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidency. It focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25. It operated from June 26, 1935, to 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and included a Division of Negro Affairs headed by Mary McLeod Bethune, who worked at the agency from 1936 to 1943. Following the passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939, the NYA was transferred from the WPA to the Federal Security Agency. In 1942, the NYA was transferred to the War Manpower Commission (WMC). The NYA was discontinued in 1943.
George Nelson Peek was an American agricultural economist, business executive, and civil servant. He was the first administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and the first president of the two banks that would become the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Norvelt is a census-designated place in Mount Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States, founded in 1934 as Westmoreland Homesteads. In 1937 it was renamed to honor Eleanor Roosevelt. The community was part of the Calumet-Norvelt CDP for the 2000 census, but was split into the two separate communities of Calumet and Norvelt for the 2010 census. Calumet was a typical company town, locally referred to as a "patch" or "patch town", built by a single company to house coal miners as cheaply as possible. On the other hand, Norvelt was created during the Great Depression by the federal government of the United States as a model community, intended to increase the standard of living of laid-off coal miners. Award winning writer Jack Gantos was born in the village and wrote two books about it
The New Deal was a series of domestic programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, with the aim of addressing the Great Depression, which began in 1929. Roosevelt introduced the phrase upon accepting the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination, and won the election in a landslide over Herbert Hoover, whose administration was viewed by many as doing too little to help those affected. Roosevelt believed that the depression was caused by inherent market instability, and that massive government intervention was necessary to rationalize and stabilize the economy.
Arvin Federal Government Camp, also known as the Weedpatch Camp or Sunset Labor Camp, was built by the Farm Security Administration south of Bakersfield, California, in 1936 to house migrant workers during the Great Depression. The National Register of Historic Places placed several of its historic buildings on the registry on January 22, 1996.
Cumberland Homesteads is a community located in Cumberland County, Tennessee, United States. Established by the New Deal-era Division of Subsistence Homesteads in 1934, the community was envisioned by federal planners as a model of cooperative living for the region's distressed farmers, coal miners, and factory workers. While the cooperative experiment failed and the federal government withdrew from the project in the 1940s, the Homesteads community nevertheless survived. In 1988, several hundred of the community's original houses and other buildings, which are characterized by the native "crab orchard" sandstone used in their construction, were added to the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district.
Greenbelt Homes, Incorporated (GHI) is the housing cooperative in Greenbelt, Maryland, comprising the original houses built by the U.S. Federal Government in 1936 during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of the New Deal, as well as additional defense housing built in 1941 by the Farm Security Administration, and smaller numbers of homes built later. With 1,600 homes, GHI forms the core of Old Greenbelt, and a large portion of the Greenbelt Historic District.
The Subsistence Homesteads Division of the United States Department of the Interior was a New Deal agency that was intended to relieve industrial workers and struggling farmers from complete dependence on factory or agricultural work. The program was created to provide low-rent homesteads, including a home and small plots of land that would allow people to sustain themselves. Through the program, 34 communities were built. Unlike subsistence farming, subsistence homesteading is based on a family member or members having part-time, paid employment. However the new residents were not allowed to purchase the new homes.
Calvin Benham Baldwin, also known as Calvin B Baldwin, C.B. Baldwin, and generally as "Beanie" Baldwin, served as assistant to US Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace and administrator of the New Deal's Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, worked for the CIO in the 1940s, and then worked with the Progressive Party from 1948 to 1955.
The first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on March 4, 1933, when he was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the second term of his presidency ended on January 20, 1941, with his inauguration to a third term. Roosevelt, the Democratic governor of the largest state, New York, took office after defeating incumbent President Herbert Hoover, his Republican opponent in the 1932 presidential election. Roosevelt led the implementation of the New Deal, a series of programs designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform to Americans and the American economy during the Great Depression. He also presided over a realignment that made his New Deal Coalition of labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans, and rural white Southerners dominant in national politics until the 1960s and defined modern American liberalism.
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