University Press of Florida, 1993

In no area of American society did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal more radically alter the political and economic landscape than in the nation’s farm life. The myriad of programs enacted by the government “represented a new policy of government intervention in the business affairs of individual farmers,” as one observer has remarked. “They marked a turning point from a free to a highly controlled economy.” The very governmental agencies charged by Congress and the President to restructure American agriculture eagerly set out to persuade American citizens that farmers and farm workers were severely distressed. In one such effort, farm policy administrators went into the picture business.