Records from the Great Depression
Cath Madden Trindle
REA-Rural Electrification Administration
1935 NARA RG221
The Rural
Electrification Administration was created by Executive Order 7037 of May 11
under authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, approved
April 8, 1935, (49 Stat. 115).
Before the onset of
the New Deal, only 10 percent of areas outside cities had electricity.
The REA encouraged farmers to join cooperatives formed with the purpose
of bringing electricity to the farming communities. The REA then granted
low-cost loans to the cooperatives.
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| Rural electrification. San Joaquin Valley, California by Dorothea Lange |
In 1938 a requirement was added that those borrowing under the REA
would use materials and supplies produced in the United States. The intention
was to supply jobs in all phase of the project from manufacture of materials to
creating the electrical infrastructure to running the cooperative itself. By
1939 417 rural electric cooperatives serving 288,000 households had been
established. The main opponents of the REA were electric companies that
felt that the Co-ops had an unfair advantage over traditional companies.
On July 1, 1939, REA became a part of the Department of Agriculture under
Reorganization Plan 11.
As of 1940 only 40% of
farms were electrified, but the program continued and eventually there was a
98% success rate.
Among the successful California Cooperatives was the Surprise Valley Electrification Corp.which was formed in 1937. Other
cooperatives still in place today are the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, the Anza Electric Cooperative, and the Valley Electric Association, Inc.
Perhaps your family was involved in the forming of a co-op.
The REA annually published a Report of The Rural
Electrification Administration. There are snippets from these
reports online, a search on WorldCat might help you locate them in a nearby
library. These reports might supply details about emerging cooperatives.
Look also for records of the cooperatives themselves in local archives,
historical societies and cooperative headquarters.
Have fun watching the
New Deal propaganda films for the REA:
Then learn more about
the REA and their records at:
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