Remaking the Agrarian Dream: New Deal Rural Resettlement in the Mountain West

This is the first in-depth account of the federal resettlement program that relocated more than a thousand impoverished families from submarginal dryland farms to federally sponsored irrigated farms in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Montana during the 1930s and early 1940s. Each resettlement community was an agricultural, economic, and social experiment that tested the government's ability to create profitable, self-sufficient farms and communities and the relocatees' adaptability to new technologies, social relationships, and political economy. The history of farm resettlement in the Mountain West demonstrates that humankind can respond rationally to social crisis and economic adversity. Using oral history, weekly field reports, and local newspapers to reconstruct the story of the Rocky Mountain resettlement communities, Brian Q. Cannon adds a new chapter to the history of pioneer farming in the American West.