President Roosevelt created numerous New Deal “alphabet agencies” to help lift the economy and American families out of the Great Depression. The Farm Security Administration (“FSA”) was a multifaceted agency that provided emergency relief, resettled struggling farmers, restructured farm loans, and promoted soil conservation. The FSA also built homestead projects like this one in West Virginia that included a school, a health center, and a vocational training program. FSA homesteads offered stability and a new start to the families of displaced agricultural and industrial workers.

The homestead program benefitted from guidance by the agency’s expert staff, as well as the enthusiasm of supporters like the powerful Bankhead political dynasty of Alabama. Other politicians opposed the program, labeling it as “socialism” or government intrusion into local affairs. Partly in response to these criticisms, the FSA expanded its photography program to "introduce America to Americans.” The “Great Depression” is an abstraction, but the FSA photographers showed people struggling and recovering; people who previously remained unseen.