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A2021
DEFRESSED AF.EAS - A BLIND ALLEY OF RELIEF
by
John N. Webb and Malcolm Brown
Division of Research
Work Projects Administration
lOOM v
There are scores of American communities in which relief
has Become the most important single source of income,, Loosely
speaking, relief has replaced the major industry of these comimui-
ities; more accurately, the decline or collapse of the major
industry has created an economic vacuum which relief has had to
fill.
Imperceptibly, the meaning of relief has changed in
these communities0 The temporary carry-over-during-hard-tirnes
meaning has ceased to have any significance; the community frame¬
work has come to depend so largely upon relief income that reduction
or removal of this source promises to Bring swift collapse of the
whole structure,, In these communities relief has entered a Blind
alley from which neither retreat nor egress seems possible at the
present time.
To some persons, this change in relief from a temporary
to a semi-permanent function in the economy of depressed areas
v/ill appear as a sad comment,cry on social progress. To others, it
will seem no more than a confirmation of the prediction that govern¬
ment coddling leads inevitably to the moral collapse of the needy,,
But to relief officials, and to an increasing number of critical
observers, the extraordinary role of public assistance in many of
our communities is a social problem of the first magnitude, a
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problem for which as yet there appears to be no solution.
Known under a variety of names, such as "depressed areas,"
"stranded towns," "black spots," "ghost towns," and "problem areas,"
a few of the afflicted communities have received some public attention
in recent years. The predicament of the Pennsylvania anthracite coal
field, for example, is generally well known. Familiar, too, are
the special problems faced by New Castle, Pennsylvania, whose
obsolete strip-mills would normally be idle; or of eastern Oklahoma;
the origin of the Joads; or of the worked-out copper country on
Lake Superior, For obvious reasons, however, the vocal elements
in the depressed areas incline toward reticence about their real
plight, so that the existence of dozens of depressed areas is
still not general_y known. Nor is the full scope of the depressed
area problem always fully realized even where public attention has
been directed to the outward manifestations,
Spotting the De-pressed Areas. Identification of all of
the depressed areas in the country is a slow and difficult process
because the data on which identification turns are too few; or
they are lacking in comparability from area to area; or are out of
date. The returns of the 1940 Census will go far toward removing
these handicaps. Meanwhile, judging from the existing and none-too-ade¬
quate da.ta available, such as can be derived from the incidence of un¬
employment and relief, industrial trends, and local surveys, there
are some 50 distinct, economically homogeneous, depressed areas.
These areas include more than 500 counties, and they are distributed
over o3 states. It should be noted here that the effect of the
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National Defense Frogram could not "be taken into account at the
time these areas were identified*, It is already clear that some
important revisions will "be necessary as soon as the effects of
defense activity can he measured#
Depressed agricultural areas are the most important
single group within the total,, accounting for about 40 percent of
the depressed area population. Included here are such well-known
problem areas as the Appalachian and Ozarks Highlands, the Great
Flains, and the Great Lakes cut-over area. Except for its fringes,
however, a fourth familiar agricultural area, the cotton South,
is largely excluded by the experimental criteria used, Both unem¬
ployment and relief data for this particular area are markedly
inadequate reflections of the situation existing throughout the
1930'so
Extractive-industry communities contributed 30 percent of
the affected areas. Foremost in this group were eight separate
coal fields, scattered from Pennsylvania to Colorado. In addition,
there were three metal-mining communities and two oil fields; and
there were five separate lumber regions as widely separated as the
Gulf Shore and Puget Sound.
Surprisingly enough, a part of the remainder of the
affected populations is dependent upon the trade and service indus¬
tries. Several of these areas are resort centers; for example,
Key West, Florida, More important, though, are the trade and service
centers for depressed or derelict hinterlands; for example, Cairo,
Illinois. But the largest single element in the 30 percent remaining after
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agriculture and the extractive industries are taken into account is
manufacturing. Among the dozen or more manufacturing centers are
those specializing in steel, textiles, tobacco, or clay products.
In the aggregate, the identified areas contained a popula¬
tion of 13,000,000 persons, about one-tenth of the total population
reported in 1940. In 1935 these areas accounted for nearly one-fifth
of the United States total relief load, roughly twice their proportion¬
ate share on a population base. In November 1937 these areas
reported 1,340,000 out of the total of 7,800,000 unemployed workers;
that is, about 17 percent of the unemployed were concentrated among
less than 10 percent of the population.
The most striking characteristic of these areas, and the
one by which they may be most easily identified, given adequate
data, is excessively persistent unemployment. Superficially, depressed
areas appear to be simply the places where the depression struck
hardest and lasted longest. It would be a mistake, however, to
accept too readily this simple distinction. Actually, depressed
areas are pockets of unemployment created over a considerable period
of time by the progressive contraction of the economic base upon
which the community rests. A brief review of more important factors
in the development of depressed areas should make this point clear.
How They Develop. To begin with, depressed areas have a
local economy which is disintegrating. The most important cause is
usually a basic segment of industry which, after a long history
of increasing difficulty, received its fatal stroke from the depression.
By the middle of the 1930's the economy upon which the depressed
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communities formerly rested had in most cases undergone such severe
deterioration that it could scarcely he restored hy national recovery
to "normal" predepression levels. Since 1930 these communities have had
to carry not only the average burden imposed hy cyclical decline
generally, hut in addition, the specific and chronic burden of their
own ailing industry. Depletion and erosion of soil, loss of markets,
technological obsolescence, and the emigration of industry are
examples of the chronic difficulties faced by these communities
entirely aside from the nation-wide depression.
Such difficulties are by no means new on the American
scene. During the past 100 years many an American community has
seen its economy destroyed by the shifting patterns of economic
interrelations. But in the past such communities could usually
recoup their fortunes by shifting with the long-term trends into
an expanding industry. New Bedford, Massachusetts, for example,
shifted from whaling to textile; South Bend, Indiana turned its
wagon industry to manufacturing automobiles. In Oklahoma, Tulsa's
nearby oil wells ran dry years ago, but Tulsa continues as an oil-'
financing and supply center. It might even be said that constant
readaptation to changing conditions is the rule to which depressed
areas are the exception. In these communities the process of re-
adaptation has somehow gone awry.
No community waits until its old economic base is gone
before seeking a new one. The community records of most depressed
areas show a conscious, organized effort to bring in new industries
long before the decline of the basic industry has reached a critical
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stage. But for a variety of reasons, these efforts come to nothing;
the much sought-after industry decides to locate elsewhere despite
the offers of subsidies in the form of tax rebates, guarantees against
labor difficulties, free land, and local stock subscriptions. Only
the runaway garment manufacturer, the high pressure promoter, and
the crack-pot inventor are likely to take advantage of the perennial
"land a new industry" campaigns that are so characteristic of
depressed areas.
With little or nothing to show for their efforts to
attract new industries, but with a fatal optimism about the future
of their community, the fortunes--of the typical depressed area
remained tied to a single and declining basic industry. As the
depression deepened, the chances of escaping eventual collapse
became less and less probable. Investors who failed to be persuaded
by the "land a new industry" campaigns of the prosperous 1920's
were not likely to come to the rescue during the 1930's
• t But this predicament, too, is not one that is restricted
to the depression of the thirties. Scores of American communities
have, in the century past, outlived one function without being
able to develop another. Frior to the recent decade, however, the
surplus populations of such communities moved on to areas of expand¬
ing activity. Many a ghost town in the western gold fields remains
today a mute reminder of the prosperity of the 1880's. When the
diggings ran out, the population simply decamped to the last man.
Between 1890 and 1930 some 45 less-favored Kentucky counties ex¬
ported pupulation so rapidly and continuously that they not only
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balanced their extraordinary fecundity, but actually decreased the
gross papulation size. Even as late as the 1920's half the popula¬
tion of numerous central Georgia counties were able to move on to
greener fields when the boll weevil upset the cotton economy.
Since 1929, however, this self-healing remedy of migra¬
tion has failed. The general disappearance of job opportunities
has not only checked the successful transfer of surplus workers
from declining areas but has often reversed the flow. As a result,
redundant workers for the first considerable period of time find
themselves stranded in large numbers within areas where opportunity
is gone, and apparently gone for good.
The preliminary returns from the 1940 Census place special
emphasis upon population losses in the Great Plains States under
the impact of drought, mechanization, and increasing farm size.
But such responsiveness to economic adversity has become the ex¬
ception rather than the rule. Among the 50-odd areas tentatively
identified as depressed areas, less than a dozen lost population
during the decade; in the remainder, migration ran a losing race
against natural population increase. Several of the areas actually'
showed a marked increase above the expected rise from natural
causes suggesting a flow to, rather than away from, areas of con¬
tracting economic opportunity. In all, the 50-odd areas gained
700,000 persons during the decade, an increase of 5.7 percent
against 7,0 percent for the country as a whole.
The Necessity of Relief. The noose has been drawn tight.
The depressed communities have neither been able to revive their
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basic activity nor to supplement it. Nor have they been able to
export their surplus workers to their more prosperous neighbors.
And thus, with the normal means of readjustment denied them, one-
third, one-half, and sometimes two-thirds of the people were forced
to depend on relief as their principal means of livelihood. After
some years now they are .still on relief, and barring some as yet
unforeseen development, they will continue to depend on relief
within the predictable future.
It might seem that the eventual dependence of these
areas on relief as the principal source of income was so clearly
foreshadowed by the state of their local economies at the beginning
of the depression that steps would have been taken to cushion the
final -shock. Actually, however, the important distinctions between
these areas with their disintegrating industries, and areas where
distress was almost solely the result of the cyclical downswing
was not realized until after a great deal of unnecessary damage
was done, In fact, it may be questioned whether the distinction
is fully realized today when there is talk of a solution in terms
of national defense activity.
For a period of four years at the start of the depression
the depressed areas were left to struggle with their problems as
best they could, like most communities, they attempted to feed
the unemployed out of funds raised locally and voluntarily; but
these attempts were more futile and the amounts raised even more
meager; and certainly the results were far more disastrous.
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The conditions of the depressed areas during this early
depression period were utterly fantastic.. . First the banks had
failed; many of the depressed areas had lost every bank long before
March 19?-?. Next came foreclosures and evictions; so many homes
were repossessed and torn down to avoid taxes and to raise cash
at salvage sales that, ironically enough, most of the depressed
areas have been and still are suffering from acute housing short¬
ages. Then the whole local tax structure collapsed. The grocers,
the butchers, who in extending credit to old customers really
provided an early and involuntary form of outdoor relief, failed
by the hundreds and either departed or Joined the ranks of the
needy. Empty stores with gaping windows lined the main streets.
Again and again in early congressional hearings on
relief legislation conditions in some of these areas were cited
to show how unrealistic it was to expect localities to care for
their needy citizens: children unable to attend school for want
of shoes, families reduced to one poor meal a day, dispossessed
households living in packing bo^-es and foraging the community
dumps for food.
Slowly, inexorably, whole communities sank into complete
bankruptcy. It is difficult to think what might have happened in
these areas had not Federal assistance finally arrived in the form
of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and, for these areas
\
particularly, the Civil Works Administration, But outside assistance
came to these areas on the same basis as to all others, with the
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strong emphasis on the temporary and emergency nature of the assist¬
ance to the able-bodied unemployed, who presumably would soon return
to self-supoort. It was in this way that relief came to take over
the major burden of support in these areas, and having taken up
the burden, finds no way to lay it down again. However temporary
relief may be in other places, it has nothing of the temporary in
it so far as depressed areas are concerned. It was a one-way street
along which relief traveled into these areas and the end of the
street is closed.
Two Depressed Areas. In order to give a more definite
content to this general discussion of relief in depressed areas,
two specific instances may be cited. The first, an agricultural
community in the Oklahoma Ozarks, and the second, the southern
Illinois coal field.
Latimer County. Oklahoma. Latimer County, Oklahoma is
about 150 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, and one county removed
from the Arkansas line. Back in 1910 the county supported 11,300
•oeoole either on farms or in a few scattered coal iainos3 By 1920
the population had increased to 13,900.
After 1920 the small coal mining industry was paralyzed
by competition vi th oil. At the same time, soil erosion began to
t^ke a heavy toll of the land's productivity, and large fa.rms
began to absorb the smaller acreages. For 15 years the peoole
waited for oil drilling crews to bring in a pool under their
cornfields, but the strike never came. Population began to decline;
between 1920 and 1930 population decreased 20 percent.
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During the first years of the depression many of the
emigrants returned and population rose rapidly until 1933. Al¬
though out—migration was resumed after 1933, the population in
1940 was still 10 percent above that of 1930,
The relief figures speak eloauently of economic conditions
in Latimer County?
In 1933, 49 percent of the population
received relief.
In 1935, the figure had risen to 69 percent.
In 1940, the county's WPA employment was,
relative to the population, three and
one-half times as large as the average
for the country as a whole, and there
was a long list of persons waiting
assignment.
In 1940, two-thirds of the population
received Federal Surplus Commodity
grant s.
The Oklahoma State Planning Board has classified the
entire county as "generally submauginal for crops, necessitating
the retirement of land from cultivation." The county has grown
so poor that it can scarcely support a town any longer; and its
farm villages are gradually dissolving and merging into the over¬
crowded countryside.
With the population movement in approximate equilibrium,
with a soil low in prodtictivity, with its one industrial prospect
- mining - of little account, the continued existence of Latimer
County's people depends upon relief income. Nor is it possible to
see how this county can benefit from the current rise in activity
brought about by the Defense Program.
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The Southern Illinois Coal Field. The second, example of
a depressed area is provided by Franklin, Saline, and Williamson
Counties in the heart of the southern Illinois coal field, the most
important coal-producing center west of the Appalachians. Up to
the turn of the century, these counties comprised a poor and
sparsely-settled farm area. In 1902, large-scale development of
coal production began; for two decades thereafter the area rode
the crest of a long, spectacular boom accompanied by a raoid influx
of population. Trouble began in 1923, when petroleum and non-union
coal began cutting large slices from the southern Illinois market.
In the middle of the 1920's a wave of mine abandonment swept across
the field; immediately thereafter, the surviving operators initiated
a broad program of mechanization to reduce costs. The effect of
mechanization on operating efficiency, that is, man-day output, was
a steady rise so that by 1938 productivity was double that of 1923,
although total output had been cut to one-half. In 1940 the mines
v-'ere emoloying one miner for every four employed in 1923.
Local attempts to solve the tremendous problem of labor
displacement followed the usual pattern of depressed areas. A
"back-to-the-land" movement was much talked about ?s a "common
sense" approach to unemployment, desoite two obvious difficulties;
land was both poor and scarce; and the displaced miner with his
highly specialized training is not readily transferable to agri¬
culture, which among other things reauires capital from the start.
The much more logical shift was the one the miners worked out for
themselves. Jerry-built mines, aptly called "gopher holes," were
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sunk along the outcrop, and from this technically primitive pursuit
a meager income was derived. Few communities have campaigned more
ardently for outside industries. Up to the summer of 1940, however,
these campaigns had netted absolutely nothing.
Migration, the much-vaunted "safety valve" of the
nineteenth century, failed to do much more than offset natural
increase. In 1920, the three counties had 156,000 population; in
1930, 150,000; and in 1940, 140,000. Over the 20-year period popula¬
tion declined 10 percent, while employment in the mines declined by
7? percent. Many of the young workers have left, but many more
should go. Three-fifths of all workers under 25 years were un¬
employed. early in 1939, and. 38 percent of all workers under 25
years had never had a job. A more tragic waste of manpower can
hardly be imagined.
For the older worker, migration is less easy of accomplish¬
ment, and more doubtful of recommendation. Family responsibilities,
Personal possessions, and a specialized occupation tend, to hold the
displaced miner where he is. Bad as it is, the local situation is
known; friends, the church, relief officials, and tradesmen have
been as helpful as possible. The risk of starting over again in a
strange community seems too great as long as any hope remains that
local conditions will improve. And hope dies hard in an area not
yet a generation remo\*ed from.a period of marked-prosperity*
It is not surprising then to find the relief load rising
steadily in these counties from the time Federal, assistance was
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available. In 1933, these counties reported 23 percent of tbeir
population receiving assistance; in 1934, the figure was 30 percent;
in 1935, 33 percent; in 1936, 36 percent; in 1937, 38 percent; and
in 1938, 54 percent» With the beginning of unemployment compensation
in 1939, there was a decline to 50 percent. Tour months ago the
three counties had a WFA load four times the national average for
counties of their size.
The money put into circulation by the public assistance
programs has come to play an increasingly decisive role in holding
these communities together, Up to 1933, when Federal aid began, the
mine payrolls were virtually the only primary source of income,
within the coal field. By 19385 public assistance had not only
taken care of far more workers than were employed in the mines,
but was also paying into the community a sum nearly equal to the
annual payrolls of the mines. It is not an exaggeration, then, to
say that the three counties now have two industries instead of one;
but the second industry is relief.
The Future Prosrect. It is much easier to discuss the
problem of depressed areas and their dependence on relief than it
is to predict what their future course may be. There seems to be
only one assertion that can be made without qualification. In the
immediate future, relief will remain the prop that shores-up their
uncertain foundations. To remove this prop is almost certain to
bring down the whole community structure.
But this is, of course, a very discouraging prospect.
Assistance that becomes an end rather than a means has serious
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implications. It implies permanent adjustment of living standards
and outlook to levels that are not easy to contemplate. However
adjustable human beings may be to temporary adversity, it would be
a serious mistake to think that fundamental changes will not follow
in time. And here is the dilemma of relief. It must be continued
and yet its continuance will eventually defeat its purpose.
The one more hopeful prospect is that some of these areas
will be revived by defense activities. Insofar as this revival is
linked to the emergency defense period, it carries the threat of
another, and probably final, shock at its termination. But far
too many of these areas are outside the probable scope of defense
operations, and here the problem will grow more serious despite
a rise in employment for the country as a whole.
Perhaps the one constructive recommendation that can be
made is that serious attention should be directed now toward re¬
habilitating or depopulating these areas while the general
economic situation is favorable. The great danger today is that
these areas will be forgotten as the national income rises, only
to be remembered again when the tide has turned and an opportunity
for rehabilitative measures has been foregone.