Dissolved May 15, 1935 | ||
Formed August 23, 1933 (1933-08-23) Superseding agency Transferred to Resettlement Administration Agency executive Dr. Milburn L. Wilson, Director Parent agency United States Department of the Interior | ||
The Subsistence Homesteads Division of the US Department of the Interior (DSH or SHD) was a New Deal agency that was intended to give safe residences to urban poor in small plots of land that would allow them to sustain themselves. Unlike subsistence farming, subsistence homesteading is based on a family member or members having part-time, paid employment.
Contents
Definition and description
The Subsistence Homesteads Division Director, Milburn L. Wilson, defined a "subsistence homestead" as follows:
A subsistence homestead denotes a house and out buildings located upon a plot of land on which can be grown a large portion of foodstuffs required by the homestead family. It signifies production for home consumption and not for commercial sale. In that it provides for subsistence alone, it carries with it the corollary that cash income must be drawn from some outside source. The central motive of the subsistence homestead program, therefore, is to demonstrate the economic value of a livelihood which combines part-time wage work and part-time gardening or farming.
DSH projects "would be initiated at the state level and administered through a nonprofit corporation. Successful applicants would offer a combination of part-time employment opportunities, fertile soil for part-time farming, and locations connected to the services of established cities."
Philosophy
The Subsistence Homesteading Program was based on an agrarian, "back-to-the-land" philosophy which meant a partial return to the simpler, farming life of the past. Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt both endorsed the idea that for poor people, rural life could be healthier than city life.
Cooperation, community socialization, and community work were also emphasized. However, going "back-to-the-land" did not always sit well with people stuck in outlying "stranded communities" without jobs. According to Liz Straw of the Tennessee Historical Commission, the most controversial were those rural communities of long-unemployed miners or timber workers whom opponents of subsistence homesteading thought unlikely to thrive without better job opportunities.
History
Carl Cleveland Taylor, the 36th President of the American Sociological Society, served as a sociologist for the SHD.
Some of the subsistence homesteading communities included African Americans. DSH Assistant Supervisor John P. Murchison wrote to W. E. B. Du Bois in April 1934 for advice on racial integration and how to incorporate African Americans into the program. Eleanor Roosevelt took a personal interest in the project, and became involved in setting up the first community, Arthurdale, WV after a visit to the stranded miners of Scotts Run.
There was strong opposition to the idea of subsistence homesteads, as undercutting agricultural prices, unions, and the labor supply for manufacturing. Nonetheless, as of 2011, some communities, such as Arthurdale, West Virginia, in which Eleanor Roosevelt was personally involved, maintain an active memory of the program.