New Deal Accomplishments

Above: A Rural Electrification Administration (REA) poster. From the U.S. Department of Agriculture . The Enduring Legacy of the Rural America & New Deal Electric Partnership President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act into law on May 20, 1936, in order to finance utility projects in under-served areas. Private business had no interest in providing electricity to these rural areas, so U.S. Senator George Norris (R-Neb.) propelled the electrification bill through Congress and onto FDR's desk. Rural Americans then created electric cooperatives, borrowed money from the recently-created Rural Electrification Administration (REA), at low interest, and built their own electric plants and installed poles, lines, and connections.   By the end of 1943, as the core of the New Deal years disappeared in the shadow of World War II, the REA had provided loans to 805 electric cooperatives, serving over 1 million Americans. Fortunately, the REA was one of the New ...

Above: The description for this ca. 1938 photograph reads: "Planting crews in action near Dunlap [Texas] shown at work in the general type of country in which plantings of shelter belts of trees, against wind erosion, are being made by relief workers - many of them farmers employed on the U.S. Forest Service-WPA Prairie States Forestry Project. About 500 WPA workers were so employed in northwest Texas alone in 1938. Similar work is in progress in other prairie states of the region west of the Mississippi River." Photo from the National Archives . Above: The description for this photo, also ca. 1938, reads: "Two-year-old shelterbelt near Memphis [Texas], planted by relief workers employed under the U.S. Forest Service-WPA Prairie States Forestry Project. Center rows of cottonwood flanked by Chinese elm, honey locust and Osage orange. The man shown in the picture is standing between the honey locust rows."  Photo from the National Archives . Above: A CCC camp and t...