Roosevelt and the Farmers

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Roosevelt and the Farmers

• The impact of the New Deal on agriculture

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Background

• Farmers had failed to share in the prosperity of
  the pre-1929 boom.
• In an attempt to keep profits up many had
  increased production and had exhausted the
  productivity of their land in the process.
• This was particularly true in the Mid-Western
  States.

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The Great Dust Bowl

• Between 1933 1934 there was a long drought
  following what had been a scorching summer.
• Linked to the over-production this turned a large
  area of the mid-west into a huge dust bowl of
  light, sandy top soil.
• When the autumn winds came they blew the soil
  away into massive dust storms.

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The dust storms
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The worst effected areas were Oklahoma and
Arkansas
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Life was disrupted during the storms
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Large numbers of Farmers lost their land and had
to go on the road

• As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The
  Grapes of Wrath"And then the dispossessed were
  drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New
  Mexico from Nevada and Arkansas, families,
  tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads,
  caravans, homeless and hungry twenty thousand
  and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two
  hundred thousand. They streamed over the
  mountains, hungry and restless - restless as
  ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to
  push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any
  burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We
  got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for
  work, for food, and most of all for land."

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These new migrants faced terrible hardships

• Over 350,000 Okies and Arkies travelled to
  find food and work.
• Many died of neglect or from casual violence
• Few found the sympathy and help they had hoped
  for.
• They formed a new, desperate underclass in
  American society.

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Roosevelt saw helping the Farmers as a top
priority of the New Deal

• The Agricultural Adjustment Act helped deal with
  low prices and over-production.
• The Farm Credit Administration (FCA) re-financed
  20 of farmers mortgages.
• The Farm Security Administration (FSA) helped
  evicted tenant farmers (sharecroppers) find homes
  and loans
• The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provided
  help and work for thousands over a vast area.

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The TVA
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The TVA.

• Built dams to provide employment, control the
  Tennessee River and produce massive quantities of
  electricity for industry and homes.
• 1000 km of river was made navigable to allow
  materials to be brought in and produce taken out.
• Farmers were shown how to use modern fertilisers
  and prevent soil erosion.

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Some people criticised the TVA

• Roosevelts critics said that the Federal
  Government should not interfere in the problems
  of individual states (laissez-faire rides again!)
• Others said that private companies, not the
  Government should have done the work (although it
  is unlikely that private companies would have
  taken the risk)

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So, did Roosevelt save the farmers?

• They seemed to think so they gave him massive
  electoral support in the Presidential Elections
  of 1936, 1940, and 1944.
• Opponents felt that Roosevelt had deluded the
  farmers and that things would have got better
  naturally.
• What do you think?