Roosevelt and the Farmers

The impact of the New Deal on agriculture

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.

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.

The dust storms

The worst effected areas were Oklahoma and Arkansas

Life was disrupted during the storms

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."

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.

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.

The TVA

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.

Some people criticised the TVA

• Roosevelt’s 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)

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?