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Reprinted from Social Forces
Vol. 13, No. 4, May, 1935
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14 1941
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OPPORTUNITIES FOR RURAL RESEARCH UNDER THE
CI FERA*
E. D. TETREAU
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
THE rural research set-up of the Fed¬
eral Emergency Relief Administra¬
tion provides for cooperation with
the State Emergency Relief Administra¬
tions and Colleges of Agriculture and Ex¬
periment Stations. Its object is to make
possible the prosecution of special in¬
quiries on rural relief and rehabilitation
problems on a nation-wide scale; to provide
advice and assistance to the Administra¬
tors and the Rural Rehabilitation Offi¬
cers of the State Emergency Relief Adminis¬
trations with regard to any rural research
work they may wish to undertake, and to
assist them in the conduct of rural surveys;
and to enable cooperating agricultural col¬
leges to obtain data of unusual value and
timeliness as a part of their program of re¬
search in rural social organization.1
* Abstract of talk by E. D. Tetreau before the
Agricultural Economic and Rural Sociology Section
of the Association of Southern Agricultural Workers,
Atlanta, Georgia, January 31, 1935.
1 On August 15, 1934, a mimeographed circular
entitled "A Plan for Cooperative Rural Research,"
signed by Corrington Gill, Assistant Administrator
of the Federal Emergency Administration, was sent to
State Emergency Relief Administrations and Univer-
Understanding of the deep-lying nature
of the causes of unemployment, on the
one hand, and of the necessity for quick
moving and effective administration in
dealing with actual want and suffering on
the other hand, lies at the root of this
plan for the coordination of the research
activities of emergency administrations
and of established rural research institu¬
tions. While recognizing that the need
for research in the fundamentals of social
organization has not abated, but has
rather greatly increased, those who are
responsible for this plan have seen that a
great deal of fundamental research can be
planned and carried on so that single parts
or phases of it may be completed in short
order and the results used to check or guide
administrative policy.
sity and College executives. This plan was a con¬
tinuation, with some elaboration, of the informal
plan already in operation. According to its provi¬
sions, rural sociologists or agricultural economists
were to be appointed as State Supervisors of Rural
Research in twenty or more states in so far as satis¬
factory arrangements might be perfected. They were
to have charge of rural research in their states under¬
taken by the Federal Emergency Relief Administra-
RURAL RESEARCH UNDER FERA
Similarly, the plan of cooperative rural
research recognizes the need for research
developed on local initiative and planned
to handle problems that require local
study, analysis, and solution. This kind
of research requires an intimate knowl¬
edge of problems faced by administrators
and a first-hand acquaintance with local
conditions. It also requires great care
in the selection of subjects for investiga¬
tion, since the results should not only be
useful but should be attainable within a
reasonable length of time and yet should
be significant to rural social theory and a
contribution to principles of rural social
organization.
This brief paper sets forth in merest out¬
line a number of subjects for research,
which have promise of immediate useful¬
ness in a number of states and which also
tion and were to be responsible for the preparation of
local reports on such studies. It was also intended
that they should furnish advice to the Rural Re¬
habilitation officer of the State Emergency Relief
Administration, and that they assist him in the con¬
duct of rural surveys. In order to facilitate this work
each supervisor was to be provided with one or more
full time assistant supervisors.
While the duties of both the supervisor and the
assistant supervisor should be confined to rural re¬
search it was expected that this work should be made
as useful as possible to the State Administrator and
that they should be attached to his staff in research
and advisory capacities. Workers for Federal re¬
search projects were to be provided at Federal ex¬
pense excepting in such instances as where states
might conveniently provide professional and techni¬
cal workers on a state basis. Surveys and projects
set up with particular reference to the needs of Stat^
Administrations were to be provided with workers
and materials at state expense. The use of the plan
was entirely optional with State Emergency Relief
Administrations and was subject to mutually satis¬
factory arrangements with the executives of Experi¬
ment Stations and Agricultural Colleges.
Cooperative research according to the provisions of
this plan is now being carried on in twenty-four
states. It is planned to increase this number to meet
the requirements of the Federal Research Program and
the needs of the State Administrations.
are important from a regional as well as a
national point of view but which do not
lend themselves easily to the superficial
census-taking survey method of investiga¬
tion. These subjects are presented with
the hope that they may stimulate experi¬
ment station workers, and others who may
have the opportunity to do research, to
make selections which fit the needs ol
their particular states and localities or
prepare a similar list reflecting problems
in their own states and regions. The
subjects are here enumerated without
comment:
i. Influence of local relief policies on relief
loads.
а. Influence of local government on local poli¬
cies for the administration of relief.
3. Break-down of community ties of unem
ployed families and the reintegration o
families being rehabilitated into commun¬
ity life.
4. Classification of relief families with respect
to their capacities for self-support.
5. Case studies of relief families, evidently
suited to do farm labor but not to manage
an enterprise, in order to determine the
most desirable and most feasible forms of
self-support which should be worked out
for them.
б. Studies of laborers', croppers', and tenants'
families to find those qualified for farm
ownership, in order to devise ways of as¬
sisting them along the "ladder" toward
ownership. Close attention should be
given to the conditions of the farming
region in which these families are located.
7. Standards of living among relief families.
8. The r61e of supplementary employment in
farm economy and in family support.
9. Part-time farming in relation to supple¬
mentary employment.
10. Cropper and tenant displacement due to crop
adjustment, and due to other causes. At¬
tention to displacement of croppers and
tenants and their replacement on indi¬
vidual plantations.
11. Changes in landlord-tenant relations.
il. Changes in the tenure status of farm opera¬
tors—especially tenants and croppers—
during the period since the AAA program
has been in operation.
SOCIAL FORCES
13. Changes in the wage and cropper system.
14. Changes in the income of tenants and croppers
due to crop adjustment.
15. Case studies of plantations to ascertain causes
for the thriftlessness and poor management
of the tenant and the cropper and for the
landlord's apparent neglect of the welfare
and security of these families.
16. Case study of an agricultural county, let us
say a cotton county, in order to obtain a
well-rounded appraisement of the effects
of the production control program on the
welfare of individual farmers and farm
workers.
17. Effects of AAA program upon systems of
farming on individual farms.
18. Effects of the production control program
upon the income of individual farmers in¬
cluding tenants and croppers as well as
owners.
19. Effects of agricultural adjustment upon em¬
ployment and wages of agricultural la¬
borers.
aa. Community work centers. What social and
economic factors should be taken into ac¬
count in setting them up? What is a suit¬
able area for such a center? What is the
most desirable organizational structure to
achieve desired results in a given situation?
it. Ways and means of stimulating the move¬
ment of surplus farm population into non-
agricultural industries. Study of migrants
now in urban centers to determine their
present and usual occupations, and their
preparation for these occupations before
and after their departure from the farm.
Relation of their needs to agricultural ex¬
tension and agricultural education.
it. Appraisal of extent to which rural agencies
and institutions offer training and guidance
in satisfactory consumption of what farm
people produce and of the goods and serv¬
ices they can obtain in exchange for their
products. Definition of objectives and
planning methods for attainment of prac¬
tical goals in more adequate and well-
balanced consumption.
In order to more fully illustrate the con¬
tent of studies needed in the solution of
practical administrative problems, the re¬
sults of which might be expected to con¬
tribute to the theory of social organiza¬
tion, the problem of finding laborers",
croppers', and tenants' families qualified
for farm ownership, and of devising ways
of assisting them along the ladder toward
ownership is here briefly discussed.
The needed survey must take account of
the factors influencing the agriculture of
the given locality; the systems of farming
in that locality; local assembling and mar¬
keting facilities; local banking and retail
services available; and social agencies for
education and religion. It will require a
study of those farm owners and tenants in
the selected locality who have successfully
moved upward on the agricultural ladder.
Under what circumstances did they begin
work for themselves? How long were
they farm laborers? How long were they
croppers? How long have they been ten¬
ants? How long since they have achieved
ownership? What is the extent of their
indebtedness? What forms of assistance
have they received from relatives or from
others? How many farms have they oper¬
ated? What were their sizes? Has there
been a progressive movement from small to
large, from large to small farms, or has
the movement been irregular or cyclical?
What systems of farming have they used?
What crops do they prefer to produce?
This study will require insight into the
qualities of the persons who constitute
the families, and an understanding of the
relationships within the families which
appear to have contributed to their suc¬
cess.
It will be necessary to sift local relief
rolls to find families which have within
them the qualities of physical strength, of
mental ability, integrity of character, de¬
sirable personal habits, training in the
technique of successful household and
farm operation, and adaptability, needed
to achieve the results expected. To do
this will require more than statistics on
the number of gainful workers in the fam¬
ily, their usual occupations, and on the
5°5
RURAL RESEARCH UNDER FFRA
number of mules required to set a given
number of families on the road to self-
support, important as these facts are. It
will require research carried on side by
side with experimentation to discover ca¬
pacities to master the intricate tasks of
balanced farming and home-making. One
must also know the attitude which the
responsible members of the family will
take toward obligations, especially those
obligations which run over long periods
of time and require steadfastness of char¬
acter to insure regularity of payments.
It will be necessary to discover ways and
means of placing them on desirable acre¬
ages of land on a long-time tenure basis.
Patterns for financial assistance and super¬
vision must be devised and the extent of
governmental and of local community re¬
sponsibility estimated and set forth in
working terms.
The kind of knowledge necessary to at¬
tack the problem of finding families quali¬
fied for farm ownership is all too inade¬
quately discussed. It would require as
much or more space to indicate the kind
of social knowledge necessary to the social
reconstruction of the individual lives of
those who have been broken in courage
and deprived of hope by the many months
of economic failure and the final desperate
acceptance of relief.
While it must be anticipated that there
will be a small percentage of failures in
any such experiment, the practical purpose
of research is to reduce the percentage to
the smallest possible margin.
It will be seen at once that this kind of
research must be done by social scientists
who can work with the tireless alertness
and patience of the natural scientist among
his test plots, and who possess an unusual
amount of insight and understanding.
The quest for knowledge for its own
sake motivates the true scientist at all
times but the need to solve practical prob¬
lems lies at the root of much of his achieve¬
ment. Just now the social scientist is
required to keep practical considerations
in the foreground, not necessarily forget¬
ting social theory, but utilizing the op¬
portunity which social experimentation
offers to test the results of research in a
program of practical action. This pro¬
gram must necessarily be adjusted to new
facts and be sensitive to the challenge of
new trails in social discovery.