Working for the Farm Settlement Administration
MacLachlan briefly describes the work she and her husband did for the Farm Security Administration during the mid-1930s. Because of his graduate work in sociology, MacLachlan's husband was asked to come organize a farming community that was being developed for unemployed workers from Atlanta. The community was located in Pine Mountain, Georgia, and the MacLachlans helped to organize the school. Later in the interview, MacLachlan explains that it was during these years that she and her husband were particularly attracted to radical politics and issues of social justice.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Emily S. MacLachlan, July 16, 1974. Interview G-0038. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
Then, the Rosenwald people came by and wanted somebody to go to
one of the farm resettlement administration projects that was opening up
down in Georgia between Columbus and Atlanta at Pine Mountain, Georgia,
near Warm Springs. They were trying to take the unemployed carpenters,
electricians, painters, out of the city of Atlanta, put them on forty
acre farms, under the resettlement administration. And so, we went down
there. In the nine months, Sept.-June 1935-36 I think that Horace
Hamilton was a little disappointed that John Maclachlan did not stay
with him at the department at Raleigh, but the people offered us more
money. I think they offered us three thousand dollars, which was great
wealth.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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What was the position that he held?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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They wanted John to set up the school, to organize the school. They got a
brilliant young architect from Dallas design the houses and supervise
their building. He later became a very famous architect and is still
living, has his architectural firm in San Antonio. O.Neil Ford. Then,
the social worker was Joe La Rocca. He's high up in social
services administration work in Washington now. These three young men
were idealists, they were enthusiastic, they had in mind something like
people who are organizing communes today. They wanted this to be run by
the people.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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Were these going to be white farmers?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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They were all white. It was not integrated.
- HUGH BRINTON:
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Never thought about that.
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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No, never thought about that.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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Really?
- EMILY S. MACHLACHLAN:
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And it was supervised by the welfare administration in Atlanta.
