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Utah Resettlement Project records, 1910-1937

Overview of the Collection

Title
Utah Resettlement Project records
Dates
1910-1937 (inclusive)
Quantity
2 boxes, (1 linear feet)
Collection Number
UUS_COLL MSS 146
Summary
Records pertaining to Utah projects of the New Deal resettlement agencies. Included are records from Price River, Green River, Elberta, Blue Bench, Ashley Valley, La Sal, Ivins Bench, Price, and Midvale. The records were obtained from the National Archives.
Repository
Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives Division
Special Collections & Archives
Merrill-Cazier Library
Utah State University
Logan, UT
84322-3000
Telephone: 4357978248
Fax: 4357972880
scweb@usu.edu
Access Restrictions

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

Languages
English
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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 Canyon. 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 southeastern 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 during the 1930s.

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Content Description

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, La Sal, Ivins 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.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

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

Permission to publish material from the Utah Resettlement records must be obtained from the Special Collections and Archives manuscript curator and/or the Special Collections and Archives department head.

Preferred Citation

Initial Citation: Utah Resettlement records USU_COLL MSS 146, Box [ ]. Special Collections and Archives. Utah State University Merrill-Cazier Library. Logan, Utah.

Following Citations: USU_USU COLL 146, USUSCA.

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Administrative Information

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.

Processing Note

Processed in May of 2006.

Acquisition Information

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.

Federal Resettlement Project oral histories, COLL MSS 401

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Land tenure--Utah.
  • New Deal, 1933-1939--Utah.

Geographical Names

  • Ashley Valley (Utah)--History.
  • Blue Bench (Utah)--History.
  • Elberta (Utah)--History.
  • Green River (Wyo.-Utah)--History.
  • Ivin's Bench (Utah)--History.
  • La Sal (Utah)--History.
  • Midvale (Utah)--History.
  • Price (Utah)--History.
  • Price River (Utah)--History.

Finding aid/Register created by Special Collections and Archives
2011

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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