MARC record from Internet Archive

LEADER: 04216cam a2200385 i 4500
001 2014040820
003 DLC
005 20150819075928.0
008 150212s2015 tnua b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2014040820
020 $a9781621901600 (hardback)
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda$dDLC
042 $apcc
043 $an-usu--
050 00 $aHD1773.A5$bR63 2015
082 00 $a338.1/80975$223
084 $aHIS036060$aHIS036120$2bisacsh
100 1 $aRoberts, Charles Kenneth.
245 14 $aThe Farm Security Administration and rural rehabilitation in the South /$cCharles Kenneth Roberts.
264 1 $aKnoxville :$bThe University of Tennessee Press,$c[2015]
300 $axxx, 291 pages :$billustrations ;$c24 cm
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
504 $aIncludes bibliographic references (pages 267-284) and index.
520 $a"As the roaring twenties turned into the depressed thirties, southern farmers, far removed from the urban prosperity Americans had enjoyed during the 1920s heyday, found already difficult farming conditions greatly intensified by the onset of the Great Depression. Agricultural incompetence plagued the rural South through the misuse of land, depletion of natural resources, and a system of single-crop farming that failed to adequately provide for growing families on small farms, especially in the cotton-producing Southeast. Poverty and desperation came to define the farming communities of the rural South, both in reality and in Americans' collective conscious. In The Farm Security Administration and Rural Rehabilitation in the South, Charles Kenneth Roberts traces the administrative and political history of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and reconciles the administration's goals with Franklin D. Roosevelt's overall vision for the New Deal. Roberts takes a grassroots approach to dissecting the FSA's history. While other studies have focused on FSA photography or community building, or even policy making in terms of top-down government directives, Roberts focuses on the people and state governments who faced an immediate need to aid southern farmers within their own borders and to boost their states' crumbling agricultural economic bases. Roberts focuses on rural rehabilitation as a key aspect of the FSA and defines the agency's legacy not in terms of its failures but rather in terms of an idealistic program whose modest successes were ultimately too few to effect real change for southern farmers. Though Roosevelt failed to adequately recognize the plight of the southern farmer and political infighting hindered many of the administration's goals, the creation of the FSA stands as one of the first efforts to provide sustained relief to struggling southern farmers. In light of other federal programs of the era, the FSA may seem like a mere footnote to the New Deal outside of its small but revered photography program. But, as Roberts shows, the FSA's legacy has endured to the present day"--$cProvided by publisher.
520 $a"This manuscript examines the Farm Security Administration's political and administrative history and assesses the ideology of the institution against the overall goals of the New Deal. Roberts argues that the FSA's operating procedure in the rural south was woefully inadequate, stemming from a misunderstanding of rural poverty from leading New Dealers, a bogged-down bureaucracy that offered contradictory advice to southern farmers, and ineffective on-the-ground efforts by FSA agents"--$cProvided by publisher.
610 10 $aUnited States.$bFarm Security Administration.
650 0 $aAgriculture and state$zSouthern States$xHistory$y20th century.
650 0 $aFarms, Small$xGovernment policy$zSouthern States$xHistory$y20th century.
650 0 $aRural development$zSouthern States$xHistory$y20th century.
650 0 $aRural poor$zSouthern States$xHistory$y20th century.
651 0 $aSouthern States$xEconomic conditions$y20th century.
650 7 $aHISTORY / United States / 20th Century.$2bisacsh
650 7 $aHISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV).$2bisacsh