Editing Farm Security Administration (section)

==Origins==
[[File:Allie Mae Burroughs print.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Walker Evans]] portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs (1936) taken for the Resettlement Administration]]
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| caption1 = [[Arthur Rothstein]]'s ''[[Farmer and Sons Walking in the Face of a Dust Storm]]'', a [[Resettlement Administration]] photograph taken in [[Cimarron County, Oklahoma]], in April 1936
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| caption2 = [[Dorothea Lange]] photograph of an Arkansas squatter of three years near Bakersfield, California (1935)
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The projects that were combined in 1935 to form the Resettlement Administration (RA) started in 1933 as an assortment of programs tried out by the [[Federal Emergency Relief Administration]]. The RA was headed by [[Rexford Tugwell]], an economic advisor to President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]].<ref name="kliou" /> However, Tugwell's goal moving 650,000 people into {{convert|100000000|acre|km2}} of exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress.<ref name="kliou">{{Cite web|title=Farm Security Administration |work=Novelguide |access-date=2013-09-01 |date=2003 |url=http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/dah_03/dah_03_01471.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714203052/http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/dah_03/dah_03_01471.html |archive-date=July 14, 2011 }}</ref> This goal seemed [[socialism|socialistic]] to some and threatened to deprive powerful farm proprietors of their tenant workforce.<ref name="kliou" /> The RA was thus left with only enough resources to relocate a few thousand people from {{convert|9|e6acre|km2}} and build several greenbelt cities,<ref name="kliou" /> which planners admired as models for a cooperative future that never arrived.<ref name="kliou" />

The main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-stricken Dust Bowl of the Southwest.<ref name="kliou" /> This move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst.<ref name="kliou" /> The RA managed to construct 95 camps that gave migrants unaccustomed clean quarters with running water and other amenities,<ref name="kliou" /> but the 75,000 people who had the benefit of these camps were a small share of those in need and could only stay temporarily.<ref name="kliou" /> After facing enormous criticism for his poor management of the RA, Tugwell resigned in 1936.<ref name="kliou" /> On January 1, 1937,<ref name="lkj">{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/096.html |title=Records of the Farmers Home Administration [FmHA&#93; |publisher=Archives.gov |access-date=2012-10-26}}</ref> with hopes of making the RA more effective, the RA was transferred to the Department of Agriculture through executive order 7530.<ref name="lkj" />

On July 22, 1937,<ref name="ikjh">[http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/egd_01/egd_01_00057.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100116075207/http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/egd_01/egd_01_00057.html|date=January 16, 2010}}</ref> Congress passed the [[Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act]].<ref name="ikjh" /> This law authorized a modest credit program to assist tenant farmers to purchase land,<ref name="ikjh" /> and it was the culmination of a long effort to secure legislation for their benefit.<ref name="ikjh" /> Following the passage of the act, Congress passed the Farm Security Act into law.  The Farm Security Act officially transformed the RA into the Farm Security Administration (FSA).<ref name="kliou" /> The FSA expanded through funds given by the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.<ref name="kliou" />