The New Deal in Idaho

Abstract

MAJOR TRENDS of American history have always developed differently in different regions of the country. In a nation so large, diverse, and increasingly complex as the United States, this is only logical. Certainly the New Deal of the 1930's, one of America's most vast and far-reaching political movements, varied widely in its impact upon various geographical areas. Before the New Deal historical mosaic can be completed, each locale will have to be examined, both for its unique and for its common traits. Idaho, typically western in the frontier orientation of its historiography, is a case in point.' Rural and remote, the commonwealth of Idaho presented a peculiar environment to the basically urban and liberal reform impulse of Roosevelt's New Deal. The 1930 census revealed that, of the state's 445,032 people, only 38,015 lived in cities of 10,000 or more. In fact, Idaho could boast only two such cities, Boise and Pocatello, and only five other communities of over 5,000.2 So the New Deal there would naturally be a rural phenomenon, and it would be closely keyed to the state's major economic interests-agriculture, mining, and lumber. Furthermore, the New Deal there would naturally be chaotic. Gem State politics had always been wide open and free-wheeling, characterized by personal charisma and an incredible factionalism dating back to Populist days. Perhaps the logic of history, geography, and economics predetermined the federal-state distrust and dissension which quickly came to characterize the Idaho New Deal. Like most national happenings, the Great Depression came late to Idaho. True, the state resembled other farming communities