Erosion

Dust, Drought, Depression, and War No. 22

While the Great Depression is usually associated with windblown erosion, many areas of the United States had for decades suffered from soil erosion of disturbed soil by rain. Much of this loss was from cultivated and abandoned fields and overgrazed pastures and ranges¹  while unsustainable logging practices stripped mountain watersheds and wreaked havoc on mountain wildlife and fisheries with local economies, once self-sufficient, finding themselves in decline.²

Typical eroded road near proposed Mammoth Cave National Park and CCC Camp # 4,
Tom Jones, September 12, 1934

By the 20th century, generations of mismanagement had badly damaged much of the nation’s land resources and watersheds.  Removal of forest growth, grasses, and shrubs, and breaking of the ground’s surface by cultivation, overgrazing and trampling by livestock, the building of roads, mining, etc., created conditions that resulted in accelerated soil erosion far beyond what had previously taken place under natural conditions.³ In the South, constant cultivation of cotton and tobacco had damaged soil, robbing it of nutrients needed for crops to grow well and making it more susceptible to erosion.⁴

Outskirts of Tupelo, Mississippi, with structures and erosion, Walker Evans, March 1936

In 1934, Arthur E. Morgan, head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, said that surveys showed that “in the period of settlement—a little over a hundred years—one-half of the good farmlands of the Tennessee Valley had been quite ruined by soil erosion (water)” and that in some of the hill sections of Georgia the land had already washed away so badly that some counties had lost half of their farm population.⁵

Erosion. Stewart County, Georgia. Arthur Rothstein, February 1937

On May 1, 1935, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 7027 establishing a new federal agency to be known as the “Resettlement Administration” (RA). Its mandate included initiating projects associated with soil erosion, stream pollution, seacoast erosion, reforestation, forestation, and flood control.⁶  The RA was involved in a variety of activities during its two years of existence and had absorbed similar New Deal programs.

1930s Resettlement Administration poster, Bernarda Bryson

American farmers had been particularly hurt by the 1930s economic downturn.  Hit by both the Great Depression and plummeting crop prices, often with debt accumulated over many years, “many, if not most faced serious problems of soil erosion, worn-out land, drought, and floods.”⁷

Erosion south of Franklin, Heard County, Georgia, Jack Delano, April 1941

1. Bennett, Hugh Hammond, and William Ridgely Chapline. “Soil Erosion A National Menace .” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, April 1928. Internet Archive. Accessed October 1, 2021. https://archive.org/…soil erosion.
2. Martin, Brent. “Forest Removal in the Georgia Mountains.” Georgia Forest Watch. New Georgia Encyclopedia, July 18, 2003. Accessed October 1, 2021. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/…georgia-mountains.
3. Bennett and Chapline.
4. Bishop, RoAnn. “Agriculture in North Carolina during the Great Depression.” Originally published as “Difficult Days on Tar Heel Farms.” Tar Heel Junior Historian. NCpedia, 2010. Accessed October 1, 2021. https://www.ncpedia.org/…great-depression.
5. Smith, J. Russell. “The Drought—Act of God and Freedom.” Survey Graphic 23, no. 9, September 1934. https://exit78.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/surveygraphic23survrich_420.pdf
6. Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Executive Order 7027 Establishing the Resettlement Administration.” The American Presidency Project, May 1, 1935. Accessed October 1, 2021. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/…resettlement-administration.
7. “Resettlement Administration (RA) (1935).” Living New Deal, October 20, 2020. Accessed October 1, 2021. https://livingnewdeal.org/…resettlement-administration.

This post is part of a continuing series of posts exploring the almost 16 years between the crash of the stock market and the end of World War 2—no limits, no specific focus.

Posts already prepared—both published and scheduled—are listed at Dust, drought, depression, and war – the posts.