{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json","@type":"sc:Manifest","@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/54302aad-590a-4592-8007-f02b5933851a/manifest","label":"Rural_Rehabilitation","metadata":[{"label":"Title","value":"State Agency Finding Aid: Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, 1935-1955"},{"label":"MARS ID","value":"78"},{"label":"Digital Collections","value":["Legacy Finding Aids Collection"]},{"label":"Identifier","value":"Rural_Rehabilitation"},{"label":"Digital Format","value":["application/pdf"]},{"label":"Hosted By","value":["State Archives of North Carolina"]},{"label":"Metadata Creator","value":["Cusick, Aaron"]},{"label":"Type","value":["Text"]},{"label":"Notes Public","value":"If you have questions about this collection, please contact the State Archives of North Carolina at archives@ncdcr.gov."},{"label":"Source","value":"Rural Rehabilitation Corporation Records. State Archives of North Carolina"},{"label":"Language","value":["English"]},{"label":"Description","value":"The North Carolina Rural Rehabilitation Corporation began as part of  the effort to assist the state's farming population, which was badly  hurt in the years before and during the Great Depression.  Since many  farmers could no longer afford to purchase seed, equipment, livestock,  or provide transportation of produce to markets for themselves or their  sharecroppers, many small farmers and tenants were left with no way of  feeding their families and nowhere to go.  In January 1929 Governor O.   Max Gardner asked the Department of Agriculture at North Carolina State  College to help develop a program to make the state as self-sufficient as possible in food and feed, and in December the Live-At-Home program  was launched in all counties, providing advice and encouragement toward subsistence farming.  In February 1933, with 25% of the population on  relief, the Emergency Relief Garden Program was begun, to encourage everyone in the state to have a garden.  Each county was to appoint a  garden supervisor to encourage gardening, begin community farm gardens, supply donated produce to relief families, and provide such families  with the necessary seed, fertilizer, and pesticides to have their own gardens.  Also in 1933 Governor J.C.B. Ehringhaus authorized a survey of farm  tenant families in eleven counties to be submitted to the Federal  Emergency Relief Administration (FERA).  A rehabilitation plan to help  destitute farmers achieve self-sufficiency was developed from results  of the survey and was put into effect on 1 April 1934, to be administered  by the Rural Rehabilitation Division of the North Carolina Emergency  Relief Administration (NCERA).  The Rural Rehabilitation Committee was  appointed as an advisory board, with the state administrator of NCERA  as ex officio chairman; a vice-chairman designated from the other  members; one representative each from the NCERA, from North Carolina  State College of Agriculture and Engineering, and from the Vocational  Division of the State Department of Education; and any other members   recommended by the NCERA.  Local committees of from three to seven  members were to be appointed in each county, and there were to be ten  district organizations with farm supervisors and home economists.  According to the plan, at least 5,000 tenant families on relief  would be resettled on land purchased for cooperative farms, approximately  200 families per \"farm colony.\"  Farms would be cultivated cooperatively  for three years, with houses, farm buildings, livestock, and equipment  to be initially advanced by the government and secured by liens on  land and property.  Individual tracts would then be assigned to each  family and half the produce charged in rent, which would go toward  purchase of the land.  Produce paid as rent would go to relief  families, not sold in competition with other farmers.  Cooperative  ownership of equipment, livestock, canning facilities, etc., would be  encouraged.  Provision would be made for both white and negro families.  In 1934 the emphasis was on securing share-cropping or labor  agreements for over 18,000 stranded tenant farmers and requiring that  each of over 30,000 families on relief must cultivate a garden.   Unfortunately some of the land provided was very poor, and few farmers  had access to work animals.  About 1,000 horses and mules were  distributed through chattel mortgages or made available communally for  plowing.  Sixteen canning centers were set up.  In July 1934 the North Carolina Rural Rehabilitation Corporation  (NCRRC) was incorporated as a non-profit, non-par value stock company,  in accordance with a standard form issued by the Rural Rehabilitation  Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.  As a self- liquidating finance corporation, it would handle all the business  activities of the division, including the purhase and sale of property  and the lending to clients.  Members of the board of directors were  also the stockholders and included the state administrator of NCERA,  the chairman and four members of its board, the state directors of  vocational education and of agricultural extension, the president of  the State Federation of Demonstration Clubs, the regional director of  the Land Policy Section of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration,  and the regional rural rehabilitation adviser from Atlanta, Ga.  The  primary purose of the corporation was \"to rehabilitate individuals and  families as self-sustaining human beings...\"  It was empowered to enter into commitments and projects in support of this goal and to organize or assist in organizing any related corporations or cooperative  organizations.  A corporation with many of the same officers and board  members was the Self-Help Corporation, established in 1935 to  encourage cooperatives.  The Advisory Board continued to advise the leadership and staff of  the Rural Rehabilitation Division.  The division's four executive  assistants supervised work in the following areas: rehabilitation of  individual farm families in place; development of rural work centers and  self-liquidating work projects; rural homemaking; and relocation of  stranded population.  Work projects, such as the propagation of  scuppernong grapes, building inexpensive housing, and packaging of seeds, were intended to be income-producing, so that start-up costs could  be repaid in a reasonable time.  In May 1935 the General Assembly recognized the NCRRC as a state  agency and also created a State Board of Rural Rehabilitation, composed  of three members appointed by the governor to four-year terms after the  initial staggered terms.  The board was to supervise and regulate the  operations of limited-dividend and nondividend rehabilitation  corporations in the state, to facilitate the development of planned  rural communities.  It also was to study rural conditions and farm  tenancy throughout the state to identify rural areas that had  unhealthful and unsanitary conditions; prepare programs for correcting  such conditions; collect and distribute information about rural  development; recommend and approve areas in which rural community  projects by limited-dividend and nondividend corporations might be  undertaken; and cooperate with local officials and planning commissions  in the development of community projects.  In the first part of 1935, President Roosevelt announced the  replacement of FERA with two new federal agencies: the Works Progress  Administration (WPA), supplying work for the able-bodied unemployed, and  the Resettlement Administration (RA) to oversee rural rehabilitation  programs and the resettlement of low-income families.  The General  Assembly designated the NCRRC to be the successor agency to NCERA,  which was to cease operating in December.  However, the Resettlement  Administration took over the NCRRC in August, and its field staff was  cut back in September.  Contact was lost with many clients, records were  not maintained, marketing plans failed, crop liens and chattel  mortgages were not paid off and canceled.  Because of the failures in record-keeping, it was almost impossible  to determine the financial status of the corporation, and NCERA's  liquidating staff ordered the liquidation of NCRRC's 1935 accounts.    District administrators were made corporation agents, and collectors  were appointed in each district.  All were bonded and granted powers  of attorney.  Salaries and travel were paid from corporation funds.   Many of the mules and other farm animals were repossessed, and work  began on clearing titles to livestock and land.  In April 1936, the Resettlement Administration returned management of  the corporation to the Board of Directors, although it kept control of  assets.  In 1937 the RA was taken over by the U.S. Department of   Agriculture and  became the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which   continued to work closely with the state's Rural Rehabilitation   Corporation toward the goal of enabling farm families to achieve self-sufficiency.  The FSA was enjoined to use the NCRRC property    inherited from the Resettlement Administration for the \"purposes of the   North Carolina Rural Rehabilitation Corporation [as] selected and   designated by the [State] Board of Directors of the said corporation.\"    These assets were to revert back to the corporation in 1950, and   legislation enacted that year ensured that they did.  In 1939 the legislature authorized the Rural Rehabilitation  Corporation to create a fund of $325,000 to be used for loans to county  boards of education for erecting and equipping vocational buildings  for the teaching of agriculture and home economics.  Such loans were to  be made through the State Board of Education.  Another $25,000 was  authorized for loans to students of \"rural social science\" or social  work, at the University of North Carolina.  In 1953 the General Assembly ratified the status of the NCRRC as a  state agency and enlarged its board of directors to nine members.   Serving ex officio were the commissioner of agriculture, the director  of the Cooperative Agricultural Extension Service of North Carolina  State College, the director of the Division of Vocational Education  within the State Department of Public Instruction, and the North  Carolina director of the Farmer's Home Administration (FHA).  The  remaining five members were to be named by the governor, initially for  staggered terms, then for terms of three years.  The same act canceled  the corporation's capital stock and made it a nonstock corporation.  In  addition to previously mentioned powers, the board was to regulate its  own affairs and finances, including the contracting and purchasing of  supplies, equipment, and services; to adopt its rules and bylaws; and to  create and name appropriate officers and committees.  Per diem travel  and subsistence allowances were granted the board of directors in 1963  and 1965.  In 1955 the Rural Rehabilitation Law of 1935 that had created the  State Board of Rural Rehabilitation was repealed.  The corporation,  however, continued to use its assets to foster self-sufficiency, often  working with other agencies to provide loans to individual families and  small businesses.  In 1971, as part of state government reorganization,  the North Carolina Rural Rehabilitation Corporation was transferred to  the Department of Agriculture.  Their purposes, as outlined about 1978,  included participation with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's Farmer's  Home Administration in making loans to qualified rural families for the  purchase, enlargement, and improvement of family farms; cooperation with  N.C. State University and the N.C. Dept. of Commerce to finance seafood  and other food processing plants in rural areas; and assisting rural  young people by helping upgrade recreational and educational facilities  and financing special programs of the Future Farmers of America.  By  the 1990s the corporation was primarily assisting with FHA loans and  with loans made by the North Carolina Agricultural Finance Authority.  REFERENCES:  P.L., 1935, cc. 314, ss. 1, 2.  P.L., 1935, c. 459.  P.L., 1939, c. 241.  P.L., 1941, c. 307.  S.L., 1951, c. 155, ss. 1, 2.  S.L., 1953, c. 724, ss. 1, 3.  S.L., 1955, c. 190.  S.L., 1963, c. 1005.  S.L., 1965, c. 190.  S.L., 1971, c. 864, s. 9.  G.S. 137-31 through 137-43 [1990].  Badger, Anthony J.  NORTH CAROLINA AND THE NEW DEAL.  Raleigh: Division    of Archives and History, 1981.  Pp. 40-50.  Lefler, Hugh T., and Albert Ray Newsome.  NORTH CAROLINA: THE HISTORY OF    A SOUTHERN STATE, 3rd edition.  Chapel Hill: University of North    Carolina Press, 1973.  Pp. 615-616.  North Carolina Emergency Relief Administration.  EMERGENCY RELIEF IN    NORTH CAROLINA: A RECORD OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND THE ACTIVITIES OF    THE NORTH CAROLINA EMERGENCY RELIEF ADMINISTRATION, 1932-1935.     Edited by J.S. Kirk, Walter A. Cutter, and Thomas W. Morse.  Raleigh,    1936.  ---.  PIONEERING IN RURAL REHABILITATION IN NORTH CAROLINA.  Edited by    Walter A. Cutter.  Raleigh, 1935.  Legislative Reference Library.  NORTH CAROLINA MANUAL, 1937.  Compiled    and edited by H. M. London.  Raleigh, 1937. P. 64.  North Carolina Rural Rehabilitation Corporation.  \"Purposes and      Objectives:  North Carolina Rural Rehabilitation Corporation.\"     [ca. 1978].  Typed document, supplied by the agency.  Rural Rehabilitation Record Group.  \"Summary of Conditions and    Transactions,\"  [September 1936].  North Carolina State Archives. Corbitt, David Leroy, ed.  PUBLIC PAPERS AND LETTERS OF OLIVER MAX   GARDNER, GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1729-1933.  Raleigh, Council of   State, 1937.  Pp.17-18."},{"label":"Digital Characteristics","value":"1 page"},{"label":"Format","value":["Finding aids"]},{"label":"Rights","value":"This item is provided courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina and is a public record according to G.S.132."},{"label":"Source Collections","value":["Rural Rehabilitation Corporation Records. 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