WALKER COUNTY ALABAMA AND
D. ROOSEVELT AND THE NEW DEAL
Ruth Teaford Baker
There are a few senior
citizens living who remember the Depression years. Most all
of the older generation heard tales told in their families
of those hard years. The loss of savings and the utter fall
of the financial institutions in this country left a huge
void in the work world. How to pull the economy back from
this deep pit?
President Franklin D.
Roosevelt created a national program and the Congress
approved it in 1935. The name was changed in 1939 to the
Work Progress Administration (WPA). This work/relief agency
was one of the most important of the New Deal.
It provided the vast numbers
of unemployed in this country a job, an income, and self
respect. Between the years of 1935-1943, the WPA provided
about 8 million jobs. The cost over the 8-year period was
about 11 Billion dollars. A low
amount considering the enormous job accomplished.
In the towns, it was used in
street building and repair, sewer construction, and other
infrastructure building. Municipal projects included
schools and recreation facilities to meet the needs of the
The New Deal as such, created
a host of new federal agencies. These were popularly known
as the “alphabet” agencies because they were referred to by
their initials. These were charged with a variety of tasks
intended to offer economic relief, recovery, and reform. A
handful of these agencies were created to put people to work
on public projects. Young people were especially targeted
in an effort to provide employment and job training while
improving American communities.
Three of these “alphabet”
agencies better known to the people of Walker County are:
CCC: Civilian Conservation Corps. It was created by
Congress March 31, 1933, under the Unemployment Relief Act
to employ young men to work in reforestation and wildlife
CWA: Civil Works Administration. It was created in
November, 1933, to provide emergency jobs for 4 million
unemployed Americans through the winter. Subsequently taken
in under the WPA.
WPA: Works Progress Administration. As I have written
above, it was created by federal executive order to employ
people on public works projects. (These were very varied.)
Most all natives of Walker
County have heard about these projects. I remember the
Sewing Room, The camp of young men in the CCC, and the farm
works, such as making mattresses.
Townley, across from the Grusin
Store, and in a building I only recall as a part of the
buildings where Mr. Ed King had a business, was the location
of a sewing room. If anyone can remember these rooms in
other communities, I would love for you to write your
stories for me.
The CCC Camp was past the
Boshell Store and Will
Boshell home just off the
railroad track. There are faint memories of talk about
their escapades. I do know that a local doctor caught a
truck loaded with barrels of body waste
dumping off a bridge on Terrapin Creek. A big
hulla-balloo followed and it was
stopped. I never heard where they went from there.
Every community had a
mattress-filling place. Our place was at the Center Hill
Church here in this community where I live. The church has
been long gone, but the memories linger on. Other
recollections of this church were its all-day preaching,
singing, and eating at noon.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was
revered by most Americans for his strong leadership in the
New Deal concept and its part in pulling the country out of
a tailspin of economic woes.
I ask for your stories of
those days. You may not have lived them, but most families
have their own tales about the past. If you don’t write
them down, they will be gone forever. I have said these
words many times, and you, the readers, have repeated to me
many times that you wish you had written all those stories
from your past. This is a labor of love for us all to get
our collective family history on paper to preserve it.