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Excerpt from Norvelt and Penn-Craft, Pennsylvania, Subsistence-Homestead Communities of the 1930s The coal region of Westmoreland and Fayette counties in western Pennsylvania is located on the hilly terrain of the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains. The coal bed underneath the surface is complemented by a topsoil rich in lime and suitable for farming. Superceding an agricultural tradition begun in colonial times, the coal-mining industry developed in the late nineteenth century. Americans who had lived in Pennsylvania for generations were joined by more recent immigrants from Eastern Europe to extract bituminous coal needed to fuel America's industries. Farmland gave way to coal mines and coke ovens, and towns with regular rows of two-story frame dwellings were constructed by coal companies to house the growing work force. When the coal industry faltered in the 1920s, western Pennsylvania-particularly Westmoreland and Fayette counties-was hard hit. As broad-reaching relief efforts, the New Deal-era communities of Norvelt and penn-craft were planned to provide a new way of life. Built as subsistence homesteads, the communities were designed to give each family a few acres of land to farm for their own consumption. Cooperative farms and industries were developed to provide employment. Physically, the new towns stood in stark contrast to the company towns. Using curvilinear streets, multiple house plans, and historic building traditions, Norvelt and penn-craft are conspicuous in the landscape as carefully planned communities. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
In 1933, the town of Norvelt became the fourth of 99 planned subsistence homestead communities subsidized by the federal government as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act for dislocated miners and industrial workers. The American Field Service Committee was recruited to implement and build the subsistence project and established a work camp in the summer of 1934. More than 1,850 people applied for 250 lots, and the first 1,200 homesteaders helped build their own homes on a lease-to-purchase agreement. Homes were equipped with a grape arbor, 3.4 acres of land, and chicken coops. Cooperatively, homesteaders established community garden plots and raised livestock, hogs, and chickens. A format of cultural, political, and religious expression was provided to the residents, and through vintage photographs Norvelt: A New Deal Subsistence Homestead celebrates the remarkable life transformation the homesteaders were able to experience during the town's formative years.
The survival of indigenous communities and the first European settlers alike depended on a deeply cooperative style of living and working, based around common lands, shared food and labor. Cooperative movements proved integral to the grassroots organizations and struggles challenging the domination of unbridled capitalism in America's formative years. Holding aloft the vision for an alternative economic system based on cooperative industry, they have played a vital, and dynamic role in the struggle to create a better world. Seeking to reclaim a history that has remained largely ignored by most historians, this dramatic and stirring account examines each of the definitive American cooperative movements for social change - farmer, union, consumer, and communalist - that have been all but erased from collective memory. Focusing far beyond one particular era, organization, leader, or form of cooperation, For All the People documents the multigenerational struggle of the American working people for social justice. With an expansive sweep and breathtaking detail, the chronicle follows the American worker from the colonial workshop to the modern mass-assembly line, ultimately painting a vivid panorama of those who built the United States and those who will shape its future. John Curl, with over forty years of experience as both an active member and scholar of cooperatives, masterfully melds theory, practice, knowledge and analysis, to present the definitive history from below of cooperative America.
Of the many recipients of federal support during the Great Depression, the citizens of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, stand out as model reminders of the vital importance of New Deal programs. Hoping to transform their desperate situation, the 250 families of this western Pennsylvania town worked with the federal government to envision a new kind of community that would raise standards of living through a cooperative lifestyle and enhanced civic engagement. Their efforts won them a nearly mythic status among those familiar with Norvelt’s history. Hope in Hard Times explores the many transitions faced by those who undertook this experiment. With the aid of the New Deal, these residents, who hailed from the hardworking and underserved class that Jacob Riis had called the “other half” a generation earlier, created a middle-class community that would become an exemplar of the success of such programs. Despite this, many current residents of Norvelt—the children and grandchildren of the first inhabitants—oppose government intervention and support political candidates who advocate scrutinizing and even eliminating public programs. Authors Timothy Kelly, Margaret Power, and Michael Cary examine this still-unfolding narrative of transformation in one Pennsylvania town, and the struggles and successes of its original residents, against the backdrop of one of the most ambitious federal endeavors in U.S. history.