Resettlement Success Stories
Mining the Archives
Edward Banfield wrote a book called Government Project which was a scathing critique of the Resettlement Communities of the 1930s. He wrote it in the 1950s, which those of us who are of an historical age remember as the Red Scare decade. Banfield focused his analysis on the Casa Grande Valley Farms in Arizona, created in 1938. That particular project unfortunately deteriorated into infighting and turmoil and collapsed quickly.
The book has been re-issued by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, primarily because the thesis is that government programs always fail, even the ones with good intentions.
The AEI was formed about the same time that the Casa Grande Valley Farms was created. AEI was opposed to all the New Deal Programs. The New Deal wanted to ease the problem of massive unemployment and poverty in America. AEI well…AEI didn’t want the government to ease those problems, because..well, I am not sure why, but I think because the programs would have to be paid for with taxes.
The Resettlement Communities Program was a project that the New Deal created to help tenant farmers. The Program gave struggling tenant farmers and workers some land and assisted the participants with the means to become self-sufficient. Over 100 communities were created. 10 of them were in Texas.
Most of the Resettlement Communities were successes.
AEI and Banfield fail to mention those success stories.
PHIT conducted a series of oral histories with participants in the Texas experiments and we have produced three documentaries which present a counter story of the Resettlement Communities.
When PHIT did its research, we found that the program was always intended to be experimental. The government wanted to create a number of different types of communities in order to find out what worked. Casa Grande didn’t work. Failed experiments teach you something. And Banfield plowed through those problems in excellent fashion.
But a lot of things in other Settlements worked. The program actually worked so well that it became a model for other countries after WWII and the program was imported to Japan when land redistribution took place after their defeat in 1945.
So…Look at our oral history documentaries. And you will get a different picture. One of the participants was truly grateful for the program and thinks that the government should do more of it today to help young people who want to farm.
Sabine Farms was in East Texas, south of Marshall, Texas. It was created for African Americans, and was only one west of the Mississippi. It was isolated, further out in the country, with few roads into larger towns, so the New Deal FSA aided and supported a small community to rise in the middle of the Sabine Farms. There was a small school, and a grocery store and places to meet and picnic. The gatherings at Sabine Farms were attended by African Americans throughout East Texas. It finally began to decline when the roads opened up into Marshall, Texas. But the participants have kept the place alive and are reconstructing the community. A wild success.
Sabine farms…1930s Sabine farms—21st century
Ropesville Farms was south of Lubbock. Ropesville was designed for West Texas tenant farmers. Houses and barns were built and money lent for animals and seed. This community was also successful and some of the participants still live on the land and still farm the land. The community maintains a museum dedicated to Ropesville Farms. The project lasted until after the war, when most people bought their farms. Wildly successful, and in one of the interviews, and it was one of the Ropesville Farm participants that wondered why the government doesn’t do this for young people today. A wild success.
Dalworthington Gardens was located between between Dallas and Fort Worth, hence the name. It was designed for workers who needed to supplement their meager income with produce from gardens. The lots were smaller and a community center helped the residents with seed and canning techniques. It was also successful and Dalworthington Gardens takes great pride in the origin story. A wild success.
Other Resettlement Communities were spread across Texas. There was on in Wichita Falls, one outside of Houston, another in Port Arthur/Beaumont and yet another in East Texas. The community in Three Rivers failed and disappeared quickly. A couple of others didn’t last long. These were experiments. The government, at the time, really thought that 30% of the population was permanently surplus and the best way to deal with situation would be to provide land for the unemployed and an opportunity to grow their own food. After WWII, the government realized that they could solve the unemployment problem with Keynesian government spending. There was no longer any need for the communities and they were disbanded and sold to the participants, although the communities and relationships in most cases continued to exist…in fact, existing to the present day. A wild success.
Can't believe I had not heard of the Resettlement Communities. Thanks!