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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was established in May, 1933. The program was a bold one created by the federal government to bring electricity to the rural south at the beginning of the New Deal programs. The authority was responsible for creating 49 dams in seven states. Through the TVA the investment in the program extended beyond the creation of dams. Over the years the program has grown and adapted. Today TVA is one of the top power producers in the United States.

In May 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt had just taken office. Roosevelt was the person who strongly pushed for the TVA. He believed that the only way to bring the country out of the Great Depression was to set up infrastructure. His solution was to create programs …show more content…

Electricity was provided through privately owned and operated companies. These companies thought that to run power lines out to rural places would cost too much money. They also thought that the farmers would be too poor to pay for the electricity, so they would have spent all the money to run the lines for nothing. Roosevelt felt it was important that people that live in rural places have the same accessibility to electricity as people in cities. The electricity could be used for lights, stoves, and other things to make everyday life a little easier. After the TVA was put in place, in 1939, 25% of people in rural towns had electricity.

People supported the TVA because it helped the region and the nation in the middle of the Great Depression. It was set up so that the payments for electricity go to the state in which the power was produced even though it’s a government program. This way the states and the consumers benefited from the program. The program was part of the New Deal, a collection of programs to help the country out of the Great Depression. Programs included things on infrastructure, and in the end the program changed the Tennessee River Valley dramatically and helped the area to take part in the 20th …show more content…

The dams are a very important part of the TVA, producing the electricity that is sold to the distributors. They also create a large percent of the jobs and they had made many lakes that the surrounding areas flourish off of. People who worked on the TVA dams had to take special tests to see what they are qualified to do. These tests were made in cooperation with the United States Civil Service Commission. Jobs in the construction of the dams were temporary, so the workers were trained to do other jobs. “During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1938, approximately 8,000 job training meetings were held with an attendance of 63,071, and 4,034 adult education meetings drew an attendance of

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This information could make an individual question why this research was not conducted earlier? Some other areas of interest that were not mentioned in the video are located on the TVA website which notates that the Tellico dam has a flood storage capacity of 120,000 acre-feet and that it provides a large amount of water surface for recreational activities for the community and tourist that visit each year (Tellico, nd). Tellico is only about forty five minutes away from the town where I live and is always packed during the spring, summer and fall months. Of course, it is not just because of the water activities there are many other reasons to visit this area. One last piece of information that I would like to share is that although this dam does not generate electricity in this location, however, it does flow through a small canal to the Fort Loudoun Dam which helps to drive four of their generators.

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The President signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act into law which enabled the federal government to build dams along the Tennesse River that controlled flooding and also generated inexpensive hydroelectric power. Agricultural Adjustment Act this bill paid commodity farmers to leave their fields unplanted to end agricultural surpluses and in turn boost prices. Another bill passed was the National Industrial Recovery Act, which guaranteed workers to have the right to unionize and bargain together as a group for higher wages and improved working conditions, this also established a federally funded Public Works Administration. The Glass-Steagall Banking Bill and the Home Owners' Loan Act also passed in Roosevelt's

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In Canada, relief camps were opened to help fight against unemployment, which did not happen in the United States. Almost immediately after American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was inaugurated in March of 1933, he began planning his actions to help combat the Great Depression. His first main course of action was to implement the New Deal, a series of domestic programs and legislative reforms seeking to deliver relief, recovery, and reform. Some of the programs put into effect for the New Deal are still in use today. Such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

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First, he passed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which provided assistance to the hungry and unemployed in the way of giving them food, housing support, medicine, etc. The Civilian Conservation Corps helped giving jobs to unemployed people in the American West. The Tennessee Valley Authority added the nation’s power resource base like dam construction for

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Many of the programs and acts improved the quality of life for Americans. The CCC, for example, planted trees to combat soil erosion and maintain national forests; eliminating stream pollution; creating fish, game and bird sanctuaries; and conserving coal, petroleum, shale, gas, sodium and helium deposits. Many of the other programs, such as the PWA and WPA, helped better America. They helped improve the American infrastructure by up keeping and making highways, rivers, dams, and harbors. The TVA specifically helped to control floods in the Tennessee Valley area by building dams (Relief, Recovery, and Reform worksheet).

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This caused a stalemate with the governments economic relationship with the people in that the government didn't do much to improve the economy until Roosevelt came into office . Yet when Roosevelt first came to office the brain trust and him enacted the banking holiday where he shut down all the banks to be put under inspection so when reopened he could reaffirm there after both throughout fireside chats and throughout FDIC which although passed later was immensely important that banks were safe .This one of the first tools FDR used that brought the government back into social and economic affairs so he could undo the cloud of problems covering the depression. In addition to the creation of the NRA to aid the economy , FDR created welfare programs such as the CWA and the CCC. Both programs put people to work on temporary project funded by the government.

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The New Deal was his primary response to the outbreak of the Great Depression. It included an outpouring of new federally-funded work relief programs, commonly referred to by historians as “Alphabet Soup” for their three-letter abbreviations. As illustrated in Document A, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was one of these programs. The TVA hired workers to provide cheap electricity to surrounding areas of Tennessee, as well as to flood-proof the waters of the Tennessee Valley. This community-oriented program aided residents of the Tennessee River Valley area in gaining access to electricity, which was life-changing in terms of food storage, washing clothes, cooking, and more..

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