New Deal Accomplishments

Above: Construction work at the Douglas Dam, part of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) , Sevier County, Tennessee, 1942. TVA was created in 1933 by FDR and the New Deal Congress, in order to control flooding, mitigate soil erosion, and produce affordable electricity; and also to improve the economic situation for the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley area.  Photo by Alfred T. Palmer, Farm Security Administration, courtesy of the Library of Congress . Above: A TVA locomotive, to assist in construction and operations. Unknown photographer, scanned from a personal collection . Above: The hydro-electric Douglas Dam, on the French Broad River, still providing affordable electricity 83 years later. It is one of 29 hydro-electric dams operated by TVA, 17 of which were built between 1933 and 1945 (see: Robert D. Leighninger Jr., Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal , The University of South Carolina Press, 2007, p. 112).  Photo from  TVA . Abo...

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in May 1940--reads: "Erosion gully, with CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) building a check dam. Monona County, Iowa." From 1933-1942, the CCC built 6,659,223 check dams - 6,341,147 were temporary and 318,076 were permanent. Check dams slow down water run-off after heavy rains, thereby reducing soil erosion and downstream pollution, and also allow water more time to sink into the ground. They are often built in non-fish-bearing gullies, ditches, wet weather streams, and other areas that are dry most of the year. Check dams allow for re-vegetation of eroded areas. Photo above by John Vachon, Farm Security Administration, and provided courtesy of the Library of Congress . Above: Members of CCC Company 3747--stationed at Camp SCS [Soil Conservation Service]-Mo-12, Paris, Missouri--installing check dams. These were probably temporary check dams, designed to slow down the velocity of water run-off until vegetation--planted by t...