Small Agriculture: A National Agricultural Library Digital Exhibit

Information Concerning the Purposes and Policies of the Division of Subsistence Homesteads

National Agricultural Library

subsistence homesteads

This bulletin is intended to provide general information concerning the purposes of the Subsistence Homesteads section of the National Industrial Recovery Act and the policies formulated for the administration thereof.

The Division of Subsistence Homesteads is a unit of the United States Department of the Interior, subject to such policies and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe. The Division was organized pursuant to an executive order dated July 21, 1933, and a subsequent order issued by the Secretary of the Interior on December 2, 1933, creating the Federal Subsistence Homesteads Corporation through which the work of the Division is executed.

The text of the National Industrial Recovery Act, Section 208, and the executive and departmental orders will be found on pages 9 and 10 of this bulletin.

The $25,000,000 appropriated for the purpose of carrying out the program of the Division is a revolving fund. Homesteaders' payments, applied against the purchase price of their home, are returned to the fund for use in new projects.

The part of the Federal Government is that of experimenter and demonstrator. Projects are selected with a view to testing varying sets of conditions found in the several parts of the United States and among different types of people.

U.S. Department of the Interior

Division of Subsistence Homesteads

Federal Subsistence Homesteads Corporation

1933