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Utah Resettlement Project papers

 Collection
Identifier: UUS_COLL MSS 146

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of two boxes of material, 21 folders, discussing the following projects of the New Deal resettlement agencies: Price River, Green River, Elberta, Blue Bench, Ashley Valley, Lasal, Ivin's Bench, Price Suburban Homesteads, and Midvale Suburban Homesteads. The entire collection is composed of photocopied documents, the originals being in Record Group 96 of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

The original filing order system has been maintained to preserve the integrity of the collection. The somewhat hasty manner in which documents were filed says much about the hustle and bustle of the New Deal resettlement agencies. Working with the collection, one can sense the frustration that the massive bureaucracy and endless paperwork of New Deal government provoked. The collection is small enough that preserving the original filing order will not inhibit the researcher's ability to use the documents.

Dates

  • 1910-1937

Language of Materials

Material in English

Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions on use, except: not available through interlibrary loan.

Conditions Governing Use

It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances.

Permission to publish material from the Utah Resettlement Project must be obtained from the Special Collections Manuscript Curator and/or the Special Collections Department Head.

Historical Note

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration dispensed federal funds to establish rural rehabilitation communities for farmers who had been displaced by the Depression to encourage the development of self-sustaining farm families.

One of the New Deal's most ambitious schemes for agricultural reform was the rural resettlement program. Four New Deal agencies - the Division of Subsistence Homesteads, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Resettlement Administration, and the Farm Security Administration - participated in the effort. Thereunder, the government was to purchase submarginal farmland nationwide and resettle its inhabitants on viable farms. In Utah, the resettlement agencies proposed to buy 5,280 submarginal farms and resettle 1,200 farm families. In practice, the agencies permanently resettled fewer than fifty of the state's farm families, centering their activities in Widtsoe, a small town twenty miles north of Bryce Cannon. None of the projects proposed within this collection were ever implemented by the resettlement agencies. Nonetheless, the papers in this collection are valuable, for they reveal much about the nature of the New Deal resettlement program and about environmental, social, and economic conditions in southern eastern Utah during the Great Depression. It is fitting that these documents should be available at Utah State University since the university served as headquarters for the Resettlement Administration duding the 1930s

Extent

2 boxes (1 linear foot)

Abstract

Records pertaining to Utah projects of the New Deal resettlement agencies. Included are records from Price River, Green River, Elberta, Blue Bench, Ashley Valley, LaSal, Ivin's Bench, Price, and Midvale. The records were obtained from the National Archives.

Arrangement

Documents are generally arranged by project. For the three major projects - Price River, Green River, and Elberta - documents are further divided into 0-1000-level papers just as they were filed by the Resettlement Administration.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Acquisition information is unknown.

Related Materials

Additional sources of information: The best general work on the resettlement program is Paul K. Conkin, Tomorrow a New World: The New Deal Community Program (Ithaca, NY, 1959). (HD1761 .C66)

Brian Q. Cannon, "Remaking the Agrarian Dream: The New Deal's Rural Resettlement Program in Utah" (master's thesis, Utah State University, 1986), provides an overview of the Utah resettlement experience. Chapters 3 and 4 of that thesis extensively utilize the documents found in this collection.

Utah Resettlement Project oral histories, COLL MSS 401

Processing Information

Processed in May of 2006

Title
Guide to the Utah Resettlement Project papers 1910-1937
Author
Finding aid/Register created by Special Collections and Archives
Date
©2011
Description rules
Finding Aid Based On Dacs (Describing Archives: A Content Standard, 2nd Edition)
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid encoded in English.

Revision Statements

  • 2009: Template information was updated to reflect Archives West best practice guidelines.

Repository Details

Part of the Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives Repository

Contact:
Merrill-Cazier Library
Utah State University
3000 Old Main Hill
Logan Utah 84322-3000 United States
435 797-8248
435 797-2880 (Fax)