The REA, rural Oregon, and the Coos-Curry Electric Co-op

Above: In this book (published by Bonanza Publishing, Prineville, Oregon, 1988) we learn from author Rick Steber that "Although power was available in the cities, the rural areas lagged behind until the Rural Electrification Administration was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. The REA provided low-interest loans to cooperatives of rural residents willing to share the costs of bringing power to their homes." Image scanned from a personal copy.

The New Deal brings power to rural Oregon

The Coos-Curry Electric Co-op (Port Orford, Oregon) started its life as the "Coos Electric Cooperative" in 1939. That same year it received a loan of $119,500 (about $2.8 million in 2025 dollars) from the New Deal's REA to start the process of bringing power to rural areas at or near the southern Oregon coast. It was one of 17 electric co-ops in Oregon to receive low-interest financing during the first 20 years of REA, 1936-1956.

New Deal intervention in the electric market was needed because private power companies were wholly uninterested in serving rural areas - a complete market failure that left rural Americans without modern conveniences such as electric lights, washing machines, stoves, and water pumps.

The REA helped create hundreds of rural electrical cooperatives across the nation and most are still in operation today. They provide affordable power to millions of people and highlight the enduring value of New Deal progressivism (other examples include Social Security, state parks created by the CCC, and FDIC to insure our bank deposits).

(Sources: "Coos Electrical Co-Op Has Okeh On $119,500 Loan," Coos Bay Times (Coos Bay, Oregon), November 6, 1939, p. 1; REA, Rural lines, USA: The story of the Rural Electrification Administration's first twenty-five years, 1935-1960; and "About Us," Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative, accessed March 25, 2026.)   

Integrated CCC camps in the Phoenix District

The following photos are from the Official Annual 1936, Civilian Conservation Corps, Phoenix District, 8th Corps Area (Direct Advertising Co., Baton Rouge, Louisiana), and are used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Part of CCC Company 835, at Camp F-19-A, Prescott, Arizona. These young men worked on the improvement of Prescott National Forest.

Above: Enrollees in CCC Company 822, at Camp F-33-A, Mayer, Arizona. Company 822 had work projects involving trail construction, bridge building, and soil erosion control.

Above: The undefeated baseball team of CCC Company 2870, Camp F-18-A, Prescott Arizona. Enrollees in Company 2870 engaged in the elimination of tree disease and had opportunities to learn auto mechanics, welding, mineralogy, and other vocations and skills.

Above: A band in CCC Company 1837, Camp SP-8-A, Kingman, Arizona. Company 1837 did much work at Hualapai Mountain Park (see, e.g., here and here).

Above: Another photo from Company 1837 (see previous photo). Note the older folks. They are probably war veterans who, while normally formed into their own CCC units, have been integrated into a camp of mostly younger enrollees. One can imagine the benefits of such an arrangement, such as the sharing of wisdom and experience.

CCC Integration: A complex history

The photos above highlight that the demographics of CCC camps were more complex than what many modern critics of the New Deal would have us believe (that the CCC was a hard-core discriminatory and segregationist program from start to finish). This is not to say that everything was racially fair and harmonious in the CCC--it existed in Jim Crow America, after all--just that the history needs to be examined and evaluated more carefully, for example, taking into account different ethnic groups and races, regional differences, changes over time, and the variety of reasons why some camps had a degree of integration while others had none at all.

For more photos of CCC integration, this time in the Tucson District of Arizona, see my blog post, "Interesting examples of integration in the Civilian Conservation Corps, from Arizona."

The 1953 National Rural Electric Cooperative Meeting in San Francisco: Fighting corporate greed

Above: A pinback from the 1953 NRECA meeting in San Francisco. Image scanned from a private collection.

Rural Electric Cooperatives Fight Back Against the Greedy Little Hands of Corporate America

At the 1953 meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) in San Francisco, it was noted that private power companies were seeking to takeover certain public dams "to monopolize for themselves the power produced at these valuable hydroelectric resources" ("Fight Is Outlined For Public Power," The Chattanooga Times (Chattanooga, Tennessee), January 30, 1953).

NRECA noted that "certain vested interests" were seeking to takeover national forests, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Bonneville Power Administration: "We express our vigorous opposition to these proposals which are in effect a barehanded 'raid on the Commonwealth'... we urge that the Congress refuse to transfer our resources or delegate its powers to private corporations or other organizations not subject to democratic control" ("Rural Electrification Group Raps Private Firms' Clamor," Associated Press, in the Vallejo Times-Herald (Vallejo, California), January 30, 1953).

Today, Rural America needs to revive its fighting spirit, and push back against billionaires, corporations, and the super-wealthy investors who are jacking up their prices, buying politicians, and attacking needed services such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and infrastructure for clean water.

The Anti-New Deal Society: Healthcare for the disabled is being cut, so that the super-wealthy can live longer, healthier, and more luxurious lives

Above: The description for this photograph reads: "WPA Recreation leaders conduct social hour for girls group at Arkansas State Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Little Rick, Arkansas, June 1937." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The description for this photograph--taken in Savannah, Georgia, 1936--reads: "Blind person using the Braille writer under supervision of WPA teacher." Photo from the National Archives.

The New Deal Ethos Has Been Replaced by the Cruelty, Greed, and Selfishness of the 1%

Trump, MAGA, Republicans, and their wealthy donors have made massive budget cuts to Medicaid in order to facilitate massive tax cuts for themselves (see, e.g., "Republican Megabill’s Tax Cuts for Millionaires Are Financed by Taking Health Insurance From 4.7 Million People," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 3, 2025).

One result we are beginning to see, from this right-wing Medicaid cut, is the degradation of healthcare for the disabled (see, e.g., "Families Defend Disability Services Amid Medicaid Cuts," Kaiser Family Foundation Health News, March 2, 2026).

This degradation of services is a deliberate decision by the 1%, who control public policy, to prioritize their own luxury, health, and lifespan, over the urgent needs of the disabled.

This is the opposite of the New Deal, where the rich were taxed more, a vast array of services were offered to the disabled, and the seeds of Medicaid were planted.

FDR felt strongly that the disabled had to be taken care of and included in the national life. Here are some of his thoughts on the matter:

• "The objective of a national health program is to make available in all parts of our country and for all groups of our people the scientific knowledge and skill at our command to prevent and care for sickness and disability" (source). 

• "Figures show that there are well over three hundred thousand crippled children in the United States and probably at least an equal number of grown-up people. It is my belief, and I think the belief of the doctors of the United States, that the great majority of these citizens of ours, more than half a million of them, can be restored to useful citizenship if we can give them the most modern, scientific, medical and educational treatment" (source).

• "[We] believe in and insist on the right of the helpless, the right of the weak, and the right of the crippled everywhere to play their part in life- and survive" (source).

• "Our national concern for the handicapped and the infirm is one of our national characteristics. Indeed, it caused our enemies to laugh at us as soft" (source).

• "A generation ago people had scarcely given thought to the terms 'social security'... It is only within recent years that Government has given its attention in a serious, effective way to... Government assistance to the blind and the handicapped" (source).

• "Early in our history, we realized that the basic wealth of our land is in its healthy, enlightened children, trained to assume the responsibilities and enjoy the privileges of a democracy... If any become handicapped from any cause, we are determined that they shall be properly cared for and guided to full and useful lives. How different it is in the lands of our enemies! In Germany and Japan, those who are handicapped in body or mind are regarded as unnecessary burdens to the state" (source).

Unfortunately, we are now living in a fascist America where the rich get preferential treatment and the disabled, among many other non-wealthy groups, are brushed aside further every day, viewed as economic burdens (which is ironic because Medicaid is a much stronger economic driver than tax cuts for the rich - largely because Medicaid dollars end up circulating throughout the economy, whereas the rich often hoard and sit on their extra after-tax income and wealth). 

It would be better--both for our morality and a working-class economy--if we returned to humanity and decency. It would be better if we returned to the New Deal.