Looking for Recovery and Reform in the TVA initiative

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was the biggest single project coming out of Roosevelt’s New Deal. It was established to regenerate the Tennessee Valley which covered 100,000 square kilometres and cut through seven different states. Farming was difficult: the region was prone to flooding and soil erosion (which wasn’t helped by the farmers who cut down trees and failed to use fertilisers without a thought about soil erosion). And it was also prone to drought. It was also a poverty stricken region, most of it was without electricity, indeed only 3% of its farms had electricity. The average income was just 40% of the national average.

Roosevelt toured the region and saw its problems first hand. But such was the scale of the problem that no one state could tackle it whilst it had proved very difficult for states to cooperate with each other. So, Roosevelt set up the TVA which, though it cut across the powers of state governments, did so in order to help the region as a whole. And though it cut across state powers, it involved ordinary people in the planning, taking part in the decision-making process that would affect their lives. Cooperatives were encouraged to sell their farm produce, even electricity. Roosevelt called it a ‘democratic partnership’. It was a clear reform of the way government had previously operated.

The TVA organised the building of 35 dams to control the flows of the Tennessee River. This helped prevent flooding whilst ensuring the land could be irrigated, and they also helped provide electricity. Power stations were built at the dams providing cheap electricity to farmers and towns, and industries such as light engineering moved into the area to take advantage of the cheap power. A new 650-mile waterway linking the major river systems also gave improved access to shipping. Whilst measures were also taken to improve the quality of the soil so that it could be farmed again. The use of fertilisers was encouraged (which as electricity had been brought to the region, could be produced locally). The TVA even set up ‘test demonstration farms’ to show that a change in farming would bring benefits.

In doing all this, the TVA created thousands of jobs in developing the scheme and left the region attracting jobs in those factories that were being built as a result of the cheap power. The land was improved and much less prone to flooding and soil erosion so that farming could be profitable. Undoubtedly it helped the region to recover and a whole lot more, the region could not have been what it is today without the TVA.

Roosevelt referred to the work of the PWA and the TVA as ‘priming the pump’, the government was providing the fuel to get the economy running again. As more and more people had money to spend, sales of basics, like food and clothing rose, shopkeepers benefited and also farmers and manufacturers. Once the pump was ‘primed’, the economy would be able to run itself again (with a few regulations to make sure it ran smoothly). And when opening a dam in 1940, Roosevelt, by way of addressing criticism that he was damaging American democracy by by-passing state powers, said: ‘This is a demonstration of what a democracy at work can do.’ He could have added that America needed the reform in order to recover.