Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Figures, anything happening outside of your provincial state that helped the country didn't count for 💩.

FDR tried a lot of different measures to ease the Depression left to him by (R) Herbert Hoover, who did jack💩.

Lifting peoples' spirits was not the least of his efforts. The TVA was on of his best efforts.

You are one parochial mfr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority

Even by Depression standards, the Tennessee Valley was in dire economic straits in 1933. Thirty percent of the population was affected by malaria. The average income in the rural areas was $639 per year (equivalent to $11,947 in 2024),[34] with some families surviving on as little as $100 per year (equivalent to $1,870 in 2023).[34]

Much of the land had been exhausted by poor farming practices, and the soil was eroded and depleted. Crop yields had fallen, reducing farm incomes. The best timber had been cut, and 10% of forests were lost to fires each year.[29]

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act (ch. 32, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 73–17, 48 Stat. 58, enacted May 18, 1933, codified as amended at 16 U.S.C. § 831, et seq.), creating the TVA. The agency was initially tasked with modernizing the region, using experts and electricity to combat human and economic problems.[35] TVA developed fertilizers, and taught farmers ways to improve crop yields.[36] In addition, it helped replant forests, control forest fires, and improve habitats for fish and wildlife.

The Authority hired many of the area's unemployed for a variety of jobs: they conducted conservation, economic development, and social programs. For instance, a library service was instituted for this area. The professional staff at headquarters were generally composed of experts from outside the region. By 1934, TVA employed more than 9,000 people.[37] The workers were classified by the usual racial and gender lines of the region, which limited opportunities for minorities and women. TVA hired a few African Americans, generally restricted for janitorial or other low-level positions. TVA recognized labor unions; its skilled and semi-skilled blue collar employees were unionized, a breakthrough in an area known for corporations hostile to miners' and textile workers' unions. Women were excluded from construction work.

TVA immediately embarked on the construction of several hydroelectric dams, with the first, Norris Dam in upper East Tennessee, breaking ground on October 1, 1933. These facilities, designed with the intent of also controlling floods, greatly improved the lives of farmers and rural residents, making their lives easier and farms in the Tennessee Valley more productive. They also provided new employment opportunities to the poverty-stricken regions in the Valley. At the same time, however, they required the displacement of more than 125,000 valley residents or roughly 15,000 families,[8] as well as some cemeteries and small towns, which caused some to oppose the projects, especially in rural areas.[9][39] The projects also inundated several Native American archaeological sites, and graves were reinterred at new locations, along with new tombstones.[40][41]

The available electricity attracted new industries to the region, including textile mills, providing desperately needed jobs, many of which were filled by women.[5][42] A few regions of the Tennessee Valley did not receive electricity until the late 1940s and early 1950s, however. TVA was one of the first federal hydropower agencies, and was quickly hailed as a success. While most of the nation's major hydropower systems are federally managed today, other attempts to create similar regional corporate agencies have failed. The most notable was the proposed Columbia Valley Authority for the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, which was modeled off of TVA, but did not gain approval.[43]