Sampling Rural Rehabilitation Records for Transfer to the National Archives

Abstract

December 194S the Farm Security Administration offered for transfer to the National Archives all the paid-in-full rural habilitation loan folders accumulated in its county offices from the time of the inauguration of the rehabilitation program until the end of 1943. This involved 315,000 loan cases, upward of 500,000 loan folders, and approximately 20,000 cubic feet of records. From this volume the National Archives has selected for transfer to its custody about 600 cubic feet. The method used in selecting, or sampling, the records, and the general character of the loan folders and the program which they document, have attracted the attention of archivists and records officers, and elicited some requests for additional information. The purpose of this paper is therefore to give a brief account of the rural rehabilitation program, describe the records involved, and explain the sampling process employed in the transfer transaction. One of the major aims of the Federal Emergency Relief Appropriation Acts of 1933 and 1934 was to bring relief to needy farmers and their families. In 1933 approximately one million rural families were dependent on public aid for their survival. By 1935 the number was nearly doubled. The relief burden was at first carried by local agencies, but the economic resources of these agencies were soon exhausted, and the Federal Government had to come to their aid. In 1934 a Rural Rehabilitation Division was established within the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The Division was authorized to grant money for rural rehabilitation to the several States, to be administered locally by the State Emergency Relief Corporations. The corporations made loans to farmers unable to borrow from private agencies because they could not offer adequate security for the loans, and grants to families who had become destitute through the operation of natural catastrophes, such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes. Grants were sometimes made to rural families who had been