[Detail] The Grand Canyon. Clarence E. Dutton, 1882.
7) Tennessee Valley Authority
In 1933, the U.S. Government created the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a New Deal program under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Through this program many people were employed during the Great Depression, assisting in the building of dams to create electricity and to control flooding of the valley.
This initiative expedited mapping of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park because the park is within the Tennessee River watershed. Students can use the Geographic Location map to browse maps of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Teachers can facilitate a discussion about the value of the TVA, its influence on the National Park, and how it might have affected the lives of those living in the valley. What were the benefits and costs of this project? If it were your job to approve New Deal projects, would you have approved the TVA? Why or why not? Inform the discussion by searching across all the American Memory collections on Tennessee Valley Authority to find other artifacts related to this project. Other New Deal programs are featured in these online collections:
- America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945
- American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 - 1940
- The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939
- Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941
