The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Astray, Especially in a New Jersey New Deal Settlement Named for FDR

Nick Gillespie | June 30, 2009

USA Today has an interesting story (with video) of Roosevelt, New Jersey, a town which got its start in 1936 as a New Deal-financed cooperative. Though the story is ostensibly positive ("New Jersey community offers lessons for today's economy") and stresses the not-insignificant fact that the place still exists, the lessons it gives seem pretty dreary from a government perspective:

[New Deal officials] constructed a town for 200 garment-worker families (selected from a pool of about 800 applicants). Each family paid $500 - about a year's rent in New York—to become a member of the cooperative.

Proponents included Albert Einstein; detractors included William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal, which called the project "Boondoggle Manor."

Almost immediately, [resident] Ticktin says, "the dream collided with reality."

There were many problems, including opposition by the New York-based garment workers union and a recession in 1937.

Above all, photographer and local resident Edwin Rosskam observed in a 1972 memoir that the workers were inexperienced in managing a factory in such a cutthroat industry and more concerned about their own wages and working conditions than the factory's success.

Each worker thought he knew best, Rosskam wrote, and "idealist cooperators were few. You didn't think people would strike against themselves. But they did."

The farm was no better. Most of the factory workers were unwilling to till the soil for a lower wage, according to a 1942 federal study. Many weren't good at it. "My father used to say that most of them didn't know which end of an onion to put in the ground," says Shirley Marcus, 75.

After the town's original vision collapsed (and, apparently, the government stopped funding it directly), people did stick around. Long enough for what one former mayor considers some sort of public-sector karma:

Like many municipalities, Roosevelt (the town's name was changed after the president's death in 1945) has put in a request for some federal stimulus money: $540,000 to paint and shore up its 75-year-old water tower, and $1.3 million to reline the water pipes. With a population of about 950, that would come to about $2,000 per resident.

"Things are coming full circle," says Mike Hamilton, a former mayor. "This town was created as part of a government stimulus package."

It's an interesting slice of American history, and one that underscores the inefficiency (if not always total ineffectiveness) of government action.

Jesse Walker looked at the utopian roots of select suburbs here. And Amity Shlaes discussed failed agricultural collectives during the New Deal here.

Comments

|6.30.09 @ 9:18AM|#

Lesson? There is no lesson, here.

Xeones|6.30.09 @ 9:20AM|#

Agree with Brooks -- is it still a lesson if no one learns from it?

BakedLenny|6.30.09 @ 9:21AM|#

I don't know, that water looks awful scummy...

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 9:22AM|#

"The new town, originally named Jersey Homesteads, was unlike anything America had seen before: an "agro-industrial cooperative,""

Wrong. The Puritins set up something like this before they discovered it did not work. Some people have a hard time learning from history.

"designed to refocus an American dream shaken by a crisis in capitalism."

It wasn't a crisis in capitalism It was a crisis in the government's intereference in capitalism.

|6.30.09 @ 9:25AM|#

Above all, photographer and local resident Edwin Rosskam observed in a 1972 memoir that the workers were inexperienced in managing a factory in such a cutthroat industry and more concerned about their own wages and working conditions than the factory's success.

Ya think? But I'm sure it will work much better in the auto industry.

BakedPenguin|6.30.09 @ 9:28AM|#

Wrong. The Puritans set up something like this before they discovered it did not work.

There was also a voluntary cooperative in upstate NY in the 19th century (near Seneca, IIRC) that went bust.

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 9:31AM|#

BakedPenguin,

It looks like USA Today needs to do more research before they publish a story.

KingShamus|6.30.09 @ 9:37AM|#

"The Forgotten Man" did a nice job detailing the very iffy results of the agricultural co-ops. Rex Tugwell was a well-meaning socialist busybody.

Sound like anybody we have on the political scene today?

BakedPenguin|6.30.09 @ 9:39AM|#

DHS, but that would take work. And possibly dilute the narrative.

Also, I couldn't find anything about NY. Maybe I was thinking of New Harmony, IN.

|6.30.09 @ 9:43AM|#

Garment workers aren't good farmers? Shocking.

Libertroll|6.30.09 @ 9:43AM|#

Hey just because something might not have worked in the past, that's no reason it might not work again. This sounds like a really great experiment, and it's sad that it didn't work out, but we can learn from the lessons of it and make a better one ! Maybe the people invovled just didn't try hard enough or there wasn't enough funding for it. No one said justice and progress are easy!

Thanks guys, just my two cents.

|6.30.09 @ 9:48AM|#

just my two cents.

And worth every penny.

Rich|6.30.09 @ 9:54AM|#

Libertroll, did you attend More Science High by any chance?

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 9:58AM|#

"No one said justice and progress are easy!"

Please explain how this was either justice or progress.

Libertroll|6.30.09 @ 10:02AM|#

Y'all bitches just got LIBERTROLLED.

Tricky Prickears|6.30.09 @ 10:06AM|#

There are a few coop/mutual housing townships in NJ. Turn down your volume and look at Audubon Park Click "History of the Boro". Bellmawr Park is another (no website).

me|6.30.09 @ 10:14AM|#

There were many problems, including... a recession in 1937.

Damn! A recession inside a depression? It sucked to be them.

|6.30.09 @ 10:17AM|#

For dog's sake, no one has made a 20th Century Motor Corporation comparison yet?

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 10:19AM|#

Tricky Prickears,

Just from the photos I can see on the website of Audobon Park all the houses and buildings look like cookie-cutter uniform bland buildings. Kind of reminds me of Cold War era Eastern Europe. If you want to move there go ahead. I would rather not live in such a place.

Warty|6.30.09 @ 10:36AM|#

There was also a voluntary cooperative in upstate NY in the 19th century (near Seneca, IIRC) that went bust.

There were lots of those all over. The Shakers, the Zoarites, whatever those crazy fuckers at Oeneida called themselves...

Tricky Prickears|6.30.09 @ 10:37AM|#

I would rather not live in such a place.

Neither would I. I lived in the Boro of Audubon for 3 years, and grew up in the neighboring towns of Haddon Heights and Haddonfield(see Elizabeth Haddon). But, I guess my point is just that it is still around. It served its purpose when it was built, and enough people think it's worth it to keep it the way it is (I guess for its historical value). I guess you could say it serves as lower middle class housing, nestled in an upper middle class area. It operates pretty much like a condo complex. You buy the house, then pay monthly fees (includes property taxes). The only difference is that there is a local government instead of a condo association.

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist |6.30.09 @ 10:50AM|#

"The only difference is that there is a local government instead of a condo association."

That *CAN* be a big difference. Apparently you lived there and I did not. If the government functioned like condo association it may have been "government" in name only. It seems a small enough government that it may have functioned in a way that an-caps would describe it as a voluntary community. So long as no one was forced to join and people would be free to leave it could survive in an an-cap world.

Rhywun|6.30.09 @ 10:56AM|#

"The Oneida Community". Crazy indeed. All the crazy cults are out west now, but a surprising number of them did pop up in upstate NY.

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 11:03AM|#

I just read this from the Wikipedia article about the Oneida Community

"Postmenopausal women were encouraged to introduce teenage males to sex, providing both with legitimate partners that rarely resulted in pregnancies."

Honestly, that is not a bad idea in and of itself.

Russ 2000|6.30.09 @ 11:13AM|#

At least the Amish have staying power.

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 11:15AM|#

"At least the Amish have staying power."

The Amish have learned how to make money from tourists

Warty|6.30.09 @ 11:15AM|#

Shit Rhywun, how could we forget the Mormons?

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist |6.30.09 @ 11:23AM|#

I never could understand why they won't drink coffee but they will drink hot chocolate.

Rhywun|6.30.09 @ 11:42AM|#

how could we forget the Mormons?

Indeed. I grew up in Rochester having to listen to endless commercials for their yearly bash where it all started. I always thought it was some Jesus-thing until I was older and you know, looked it up.

johnl|6.30.09 @ 12:08PM|#

The thing about onions is a trick. Both ends go into the ground, which isn't immediately obvious to cityfolk.

Tricky Prickears|6.30.09 @ 12:48PM|#

I didn't actually live within the community itself. But it has a local government much like that of a local township; a mayor, city council, board of ed. etc., and even had their own police up until 2004. But what they do have, which most townships don't, is a Board of Trustees, which is responsible for general maintenance and I'm not exactly sure what else. It was originally built by the Fed to house workers for a government contractor. It was sold (to the residents) shortly after it's completion. Where I live now, further south, is a town called Millville (I live in Vineland). Millville was basically built by a private company called Wheaton Glass basically to house its workers (much like Hershey PA, but a much smaller scale). The houses are all now privately owned.

DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 1:06PM|#

Thanks for the info, it is interesting to have a working model for something even if I personally would not choose to live there.

Cabeza de Vaca|6.30.09 @ 3:00PM|#

BakedPenguin,

There was a group in West Seneca called the Community of True Inspiration. They moved to Iowa and founded the Amana colonies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies

BakedPenguin|6.30.09 @ 3:11PM|#

Cabeza de Vaca, thanks. I'm not sure if it's them I'm thinking of, or the Oneida people mentioned above.

Cabeza de Vaca|6.30.09 @ 3:17PM|#

When the Amana colonies decided to give up communal living in the 1930's. They decided to form a joint stock company with shares divided amongst the community members. The Amana Society Inc. was a very successful corporation. They still make Amana refrigerators & other appliances as a subsidiary of Whirlpool.

Rhywun|6.30.09 @ 6:54PM|#

Weird how these cults always end up manufacturing kitchenware. I bet the Sunbeam Society was really out there.