To our twenty-first-century minds, one of the hardest to fathom New Deal initiatives may be the various planned community programs and migratory labor camps established by the federal government. Operated by a shifting mix of federal administrations, the government funded the creation of around 100 communities plus 85 camps catering to migrant agricultural laborers, many of whom had journeyed west in search of work.
These programs dispensed with the individualism that has so often defined the United States’ culture and economy in favor of a form of collectivism. The experimental planned communities took various forms, but were characterized by shared community spaces and individual family homes and subsistence farm plots available through low-interest government loans.
Many of the communities explicitly tried to revive handicrafts as part of their missions, an approach promoted by Eleanor Roosevelt and other New Deal administrators. Handicrafts, they thought, could be a vital part of economic recovery, while lifting morale and community spirit.
Following the Agricultural Extension Service’s model of providing home demonstration agents to assist rural housewives, the government assigned at least one home economist to each New Deal planned community and labor camp to organize women residents and provide them with advice about efficiently managing their households. Some of these experts also taught formal classes in home economics, which included quiltmaking. A 1942 report on the DSH program noted that “every woman on the projects has had a chance to learn about the most modern ways of canning and preserving foods, preparing balanced meals, furnishing rooms, and sewing.” In addition, the various forms of communal living in these communities and camps enabled informal group quilting activities held at community centers and in clubs that met in homes.
Despite the transient nature of camp life, here too, women made quilts with guidance, equipment, and materials provided by home economists. In addition to their beauty, quilts symbolized comfort and home, no doubt fueling the camp residents’ desire to make, exhibit, and share quilts, along with the very practical purpose of serving as bedcovers.
