RA

The **Resettlement Administration**, or RA, was a federal agency run by the United States that was tasked with relocating urban, and rural, families that were seriously struggling to communities created by the federal government. This administration was up and running between April 1935 and December 1936.

The formation of the RA was founded by Rexford G Tugwell, a economics professor at the Columbia University. During Roosevelt's campaign for presidency in 1932, Tugwell was a well known adviser for the upcoming president and even held a position in the United States Department of Agriculture. Due to the Executive order 7027, President Roosevelt was forced to establish the RA, administering Tugwell as is first, and only, head. Rural Rehabilitation, Rural Resettlement, Land Utilization, and Suburban Resettlement, were the four divisions of the RA.



Tugwell had a goal of moving six-hundred-thousand people from a one-hundred-million acre reserve in hopes of building greenbelt cities. However congress found this plan socialistic and that it threatened to deprive influential farm owners of their tenant workforce. Due to this the RA was only given enough resources to relocate only a few thousand people from nine million acres. But the cities these few thousand were able to build were used as models for a cooperative future that would never happen.

To build relief camps in California for migratory workers, and more particularly refugees from the Dust Bowl in the Southwest, was the main focus of the RA. Many Californians detested this movement due to the many migrants that would be settling among them. The RA was able to construct ninety-five camp from their limited resources that surprised the migrants with clean quarters and running water; they were unaccustomed to these arrangements. Unfortunatley these seventy-five thousand people were a small portion of those who needed a place to stay and could only live in the camps temporarily. Criticism facing Tugwell for the poor management of the RA forced him to resign in 1936. January 1, 1937 shed new light on the RA when, due to executive order 7530 the Resettlement Administration was transferred to the Department of Agriculture.

Many people thoughts of the RA as a New Deal Rural Antipoverty Agency (1935-1937)

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