Abstract:
In 1933, the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression. One of President Franklin Roosevelt's plans to get people back to work was the National Industry Recovery Act of 1933. The act established the Subsistence Homesteads Division in the Interior Department. The purpose was to create towns that would help farmers and industrial workers by moving families to homestead farming communities and planned mill towns. Penderlea, in Pender County, was the first homestead farm project in the nation. Gannon describes the building of Penderlea, what life was like there, and what the town is like in 2007.