• Ashwood School Gymnasium and Auditorium - Ashwood SC
    "The Ashwood School Gymnasium and Auditorium is situated south of Bishopville, South Carolina just off U.S. Highway 15 on Ashwood School Road near Ashwood Lake, all namesakes and products of the rural New Deal resettlement community of 'Ashwood Plantation.' The gymnasium/auditorium was completed in December of 1938 for a total cost of $63,888.81 by the Goode Company of Charlotte, North Carolina, contracted by the Farm Security Administration." (NRHP Registration Form)
  • Ben Shahn Mural - Roosevelt NJ
    The Farm Security Administration commissioned this mural in 1937-38 to commemorate the New Deal resettlement community of Jersey Homesteads, now called Roosevelt, N.J. The mural can still be seen in the Roosevelt Public School. "Ben Shahn's mural for the community center at Jersey Homesteads, Roosevelt, is a fresco - a painting done on fresh, moist plaster with pigments dissolved in water. It depicts the life of Jewish immigrants coming to America in the 1930s. Shahn was an American Social Realist painter. His paintings often focused specifically on social problems and the hardships of everyday life. His work was influenced by Diego Rivera,...
  • Cumberland Homesteads - Crossville TN
    "Cumberland Homesteads is a community located in Cumberland County, Tennessee, United States. Established by the New Deal-era Division of Subsistence Homesteads in 1934, the community was envisioned by federal planners as a model of cooperative living for the region's distressed farmers, coal miners, and factory workers. While the cooperative experiment failed and the federal government withdrew from the project in the 1940s, the Homesteads community nevertheless survived. In 1988, several hundred of the community's original houses and other buildings, which are characterized by the native "crab orchard" sandstone used in their construction, were added to the National Register of Historic...
  • Dalworthington Gardens - Dalworthington Gardens TX
    Dalworthington Gardens (named that for its proximity to Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington) was established in 1934 as a subsistence homestead project by the Resettlement Administration: "In early 1934, the federal government allotted $250,000 to buy 593.3 acres of land south of Arkansas Lane near Arlington, Texas.  It would contain 80 sites for development (U.S. Plat and Dedication).  In June of that year, Civil Works Administration workers arrived to remove all fences and clear out the woods except in the extreme south end of the project.  On July 13, a local contractor, F.A. Mote was awarded the contract to build the...
  • Deerfield Dam - Hill City SD
    Several New Deal agencies contributed to the construction of the Deerfield Dam in the vicinity of Hill City and the Black Hills National Forest, SD. Construction began before the Roosevelt Administration, continued during the New Deal, and finished after World War II. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, "Construction was started on July 7, 1942, by the Farm Security Administration and was later continued by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Civilian Public Service Camp under the Works Projects Administration during World War II. The facilities were completed by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1947."
  • Haywood Farms - Stanton TN
    In 1937, when the Resettlement Administration was turned over to the Farm Security Administration, the proposed farmstead community at Haywood Farms, Douglass Community, was still in the land acquisition stage. Within a year, the Farm Security Administration had “built or repaired 100 houses for tenant farmers in West Tennessee at an average cost of $211 per room, or $2,050 per farmstead, including barns, fences, wells, smokehouses and other outbuildings” (100 tenants aided in state, p. 2). This included the Haywood Farms Project, where 19 homes were nearly completed by then. The contract for construction of 34 complete farm units of four...
  • Haywood Farms Project - Stanton TN
    The Farm Security Administration located 37 farms, developed from land mainly purchased from Willis Burchett Douglass, in the Douglas community near Stanton. The farms included a 5-room wooden frame house, outdoor toilet, waterpump, barn, and smokehouse. "The Project" as it was known locally, was developed as RR-TN-25 for African Americans, and local families participated in renting the farms with option to buy.
  • Historic Dyess Colony - Dyess AR
    "Originally known as “Colonization Project Number 1,” Dyess Colony was first controlled by the Arkansas Rural Rehabilitation Corporation.  This corporation was set up by the Rural Rehabilitation Program of the Emergency Relief Administration in Arkansas.  In 1936 the Resettlement Administration took over management of the Arkansas Rural Rehabilitation Corporation.  The legal structure of the colony was revised, and Dyess Colony Corporation was organized.  When the Farm Security Administration was established in 1937, it became the third agency to administer Dyess. Dyess Colony was an experiment in permanent reestablishment of the independent farmer.  Intended as a pioneer effort, the colony was, in...
  • Homestead Housing - Bethlehem, St. Croix VI
    The homestead housing in Bethlehem, St. Croix was built by the Virgin Islands Company with the aid of PWA funding. A partnership program between the Government of the United States and the people of the Virgin Islands, the Virgin Islands Company sought to expand the homesteading and housing programs alongside industrial development on the islands. In Bethlehem, in addition to running the homesteading and housing programs, the Virgin Islands Company took on the reconstruction of the Bethlehem sugar mill, the island’s largest sugar mill. The 1934 Annual Report of the Governor of the Virgin Islands provides details about a homestead housing program funded with...
  • Homestead Housing - Frederiksted, St. Croix VI
    A homestead housing program funded with the aid of a $45,000 grant from the Housing Commission and a $242,000 loan from Subsistence Homesteads Corporation, sought to improve housing conditions on the Virgin Islands. The program included housing on farm land in the vicinity of Frederiksted on St. Croix. The 1934 Annual Report of the Governor of the Virgin Islands describes the housing conditions on the islands and the details of the new housing program. "A housing survey in October 1933 in St. Croix, where the need is greatest, showed 2,623 one-room houses, with from 1 to 12 persons in each house. Perhaps...
  • Homestead Housing - St. Thomas VI
    A homestead housing program funded with the aid of a $45,000 grant from the Housing Commission and a $242,000 loan from Subsistence Homesteads Corporation, sought to improve housing conditions on the Virgin Islands. The program included housing on farm land in St. Thomas. The 1934 Annual Report of the Governor of the Virgin Islands describes the housing conditions on the islands and the details of the new housing program. "A housing survey in October 1933 in St. Croix, where the need is greatest, showed 2,623 one-room houses, with from 1 to 12 persons in each house. Perhaps half of them are relics of...
  • Horral House (Chester Eisenhut House) - Decker IN
    This structure was built by the Resettlement Agency (RA) and Farm Security Administration (FSA) between 1937 and 1938. Its style is typical of early 20th century house
  • Lamesa Farm Workers Community - Los Ybanez TX
    The state historical marker at the site reads: By the 1920s, Dawson County’s rapidly expanding cotton economy was outgrowing its labor supply. Like other areas of the country, Lamesa began to rely on migrant laborers from Mexico to increase the available pool of seasonal workers. One effort to federally regulate migrant labor was the creation of farm labor communities to ensure a dependable source of labor for farmers and to provide safe and sanitary living facilities for migrant workers and their families. The Lamesa Farm Workers Community, present day Los Ybanez, operated from 1942 until 1980. In 1941, the Farm Security Administration...
  • Migrant Farm Workers Camp - Shafter CA
    "In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, more than 300,000 migrants from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas flocked to California, driven by poverty and the hope for new opportunities. This flood of migrants, collectively known as the Okies, included a wide cross-section of people—young and old, men and women, rural and urban... In 1935, the Resettlement Administration (RA), and later the FSA, began to establish migratory labor camps to house the destitute migrants. Many migrants living in cars, tents, and shacks along “ditchbank” settlements (Figure 1) were attracted to the sanitary, newly constructed camps located along a 600-mile-long...
  • Okeechobee Migratory Labor Camp - Belle Glade FL
    The Farm Security Administration build this camp in 1939 to house black farm workers from the Caribbean. While there is still housing here, this is no longer a camp.
  • Osceola Migratory Labor Camp - Belle Glade FL
    The Farm Security Administration build this camp for white farm workers about 1939. While there is still housing there, the camp no longer exist.
  • San Luis Valley Farms Resettlement Community (former) - Alamosa CO
    "In the 1930s, the Waverly area once again was to be the site for newcomers seeking a better life. Henry Gestefield, a German immigrant, worked as a Farm Management Specialist for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) Resettlement Division to develop 82 farms for the resettlement of destitute Dust Bowl farmers. Along with Mr. Yoshida, he was integral to the raising and shipping of iceberg lettuce in the San Luis Valley. The town of Waverly was established with support of the FSA Resettlement Project. The Houlton and Russell families were among the first of many families to relocate from eastern Colorado...
  • Thomastown Community, Ladelta Co-operative Association Farm Settlement - Tallulah LA
    The Farm Security Administration established a resettlement project called the Ladelta Co-operative Association at Thomastown, Louisiana in 1938. The project was for African American families who had been sharecroppers. The project included 147 individual farmsteads, with five-room house, barn, smokehouse, and poultry shed. The project also included the school building, and cotton gin. The project encompassed 21,876 acres in East Carroll (Transylvania) and Madison (Thomastown) parishes. Bids were solicited for the community center construction in May 1939. The high school at Thomastown graduated its first class in 1944. The building was destroyed by fire in 1972, but the elementary school...