Although shelter was just one part of the larger array of challenges migrants faced, the FSA viewed its provision as a top priority. The Roosevelt administration, Congress and FSA leadership regarded the unhinged population with alarm, worried that lack of stability could lead to radicalisation. For government planners and architects, self-built squatter camps cropping up across the country presented an ungovernable landscape full of moral and physical danger, magnifying the already dire conditions of the Depression. Only the rational delivery of modern shelter units in sufficient numbers could draw people out of these makeshift interstitial communities. To build the camps, the FSA liaised with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and other federal relief agencies. With primary responsibility to construct dams, bridges, hospitals, post offices, and other government buildings, a great deal of architectural and engineering talent was concentrated in the WPA. The CCC maintained an in- house staff of land surveyors, planners and road builders because of its work in constructing state parks, fire roads, retreat camps and other rural facilities. By the end of the decade, the FSA had built up its own stable of architects, engineers, planners and surveyors, managed by a vertical system of national directors, regional administrators, and local camp officials. The FSA deployed a range of measures to ramp up design and construction of migrant camps. Rather than hire one architect or firm for every project, the FSA retained a pool of architects to develop standardised plans around a limited and uniform program of building. While the FSA contracted with private construction companies to build the camps, it retained control of the supply chain of materials in order to reduce costs and speed production. Civil engineers moved from site to site in order to oversee surveillance, grading, utility installation and other site preparations. Many camp services were delivered through mobile rather than stationary means, including dental and health clinics installed in manufactured structures and mounted on trailers.
Yamhill Migratory Labor Camp, Dayton, Oregon. Photographer unknown, 1939. FSA camps varied by region as well as by the approaches of the architects, engineers and construction firms involved. But all camps bore the powerful signature of modern new town planning and rigorous design control popular with the New Deal state.
Tulare County, California. Russell Lee, 1939. Overhead view of an FSA cooperative warehouse supply yard. The FSA controlled its own supply chain, stockpiling precut, prefabricated and modular components for use in camp construction.
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Caldwell,Texas. Russell Lee, 1939. At FSA Camp Caldwell, architects designed a beautiful multiuse facililty out of precut structural materials, corrugated metal roof and plywood floors and walls. The building served as an auditorium, community center, meeting hall and movie house.
Calipatria, California. Dorothea Lange, 1939. FSA Camp Calipatra housed 155 migrant families who moved more frequently for seasonal harvests. Residents lived in wood framed tents wrapped in sturdy burlap canvas. Mobile amenities, such as the dental clinic in the trailer at right, moved between a group of camps in the region to deliver services.The trailer on the left housed the camp manager.
all photographs courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington
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