Foreclosure and The Great Depression

The Original Foreclosure Protest
(Iowa, circa 1930's)

I always wondered why farmers where viewed as being 'poor' when I was growing up. I did not live through the Great Depression. I found this pic in government archives. Fascinating. The farmers refused to bid against each other. The police were brought in to supervise the farm foreclosures and keep the peace. Look closely and you will see Sheriffs, wearing uniforms with hats, near the auctioneer and at the sides. At that time, it was a public sale. Cash on receipt. 

Today, the banks use credit bids (via inflated debt accounting on the property) and take what they want. They even 'pick and choose' which ones to keep. Ironic. After so many foreclosure-style "evictions," the Banks and Wall Street now control the rental market too. 

Co-authors discuss amendments to farm bill with Alabama senator. Washington, D.C., Nov. 30. Co-authors of the Senate Farm Bill, Senators George McGill of Kansas, (left) and Senator James P. Pope of Idaho, (right) discuss amendments to the bill now being written by Senator John B. Bankhead (center) of Alabama. Senator Bankhead has appealed to the Senate for enactment of the strongly compulsory cotton section of the bill to prevent "disastrous fluctuations" in the price of cotton which he said were 'threatening foreclosures all over the South". 11/30/37  Harris & Ewing, photographer

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was created in the Department of Agriculture in 1937. The FSA and its predecessor, the Resettlement Administration (RA), created in 1935, were New Deal programs designed to assist poor farmers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

When the government created jobs, they sought to preserve history too. The photo assignments were rather stoic. Rarely was the word foreclosure used. Some of the people photographed had never seen a camera before.

https://francessmithdocumentary.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/research-the-farm-security-association-photographers/

The works and images created became social documentary photographs and were used as a social catalyst for the provision of humane living conditions for the rural farmers. Many of these images appeared in newspapers and magazines, pictures of tenant cotton farmers and migrant farm laborers were published in an endeavor to influence social reform. Homelessness was not just for migrants during the Great Depression. Many families lived in tents or out of the cars. Others walked, sometimes several states, looking for potential work and opportunity elsewhere.

 

            

• Farm Debt Adjustment Committee meeting with farmer who has appealed for assistance. He has been threatened with foreclosure and loss of farm. Ozark Mountain town of Harrison, Arkansas. Allison, Jack, photographer

 

FDR and The New Deal

When the Great Depression came, West Virginia was one of the states hardest hit. In 1932, West Virginia Democrats, inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call for a “New Deal” and led by gubernatorial candidate Herman Guy Kump, won political control of the state for the first time in 35 years. Though Governor Kump and his successor, Homer Holt, sometimes resisted the initiatives from Washington, the New Deal helped West Virginians deal with one of the highest unemployment rates of the Depression era.

Federal work relief agencies such as the Works Progress Administration organized public projects to provide income to the unemployed. The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration addressed the lack of opportunities for youth. The Public Works Administration provided work as well as needed public facilities through more capital-intensive projects, including the construction of several West Virginia courthouses. Thousands of West Virginians worked for these relief agencies, and almost everyone was affected by the Social Security law of 1935. Social Security enabled the state to move away from its antiquated and piecemeal system of poorhouses and local care of indigents, the elderly, and the disabled and to establish a modern system of unemployment relief and welfare. New Deal agencies also sponsored experimental cooperative communities atTygart Valley (Dailey), Arthurdale, and Red House (Eleanor).

Though some work relief projects amounted to little more than leaf raking, others left an enduring legacy. At the beginning of the 21st century, many roads, bridges, parks, airports, government buildings, and public housing facilities built under New Deal programs continue in service. They include Kanawha Boulevard in Charleston and Richwood Avenue in Morgantown; Boreman Hall at West Virginia University; flood-control walls in Huntington; and state parks, including Babcock, Cacapon, Holly River, Lost River, and Watoga.

The New Deal brought about a friendlier legal atmosphere for organized labor, enabling the United Mine Workers of America finally to organize West Virginia coal miners in 1933–34 and increasing the political power of the labor movement in the state. The unionization of coal and other basic industries and the popularity of Social Security and other social legislation associated with Roosevelt’s New Deal assured that West Virginia would be solidly Democratic for decades to come. As U.S. senator, Matthew M. Neely championed the Roosevelt reforms that the more conservative “statehouse” Democrats led by Kump and Holt were sometimes reluctant to embrace. As governor after 1941, however, Neely found that a conservative legislature frustrated his efforts to make the state more liberal.

Though the New Deal helped make the Depression more tolerable and brought needed reforms to West Virginia, it failed to find a path toward enduring solutions to the state’s basic economic dilemmas. The New Deal ended with the coming ofWorld War II.

This Contributing Article, New Deal, was written by Jerry Bruce Thomas