A Homestead Community of the Depression Era

Featuring
Selected Documents
and
Items of Interest
Concerning Penderlea and Its Development

In 1929, the Stock Market fell, banks collapsed, and our nation fell into economic disaster and financial ruin for 10 years--known as "The Great Depression." Farmers lost their farms to foreclosure and millions of despairing Americans found themselves without jobs or money and near starvation.

In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, promising a "New Deal," was elected President and with the help of First Lady Eleanor, persuaded Congress to fund programs to put the nation back to work and stimulate the economy.

"Penderlea Farms" provided nearly 300 farms over 10,000 acres and was the first of many national "New Deal" experimental efforts to establish subsistence homesteading. The community was designed around a school with teaching, an on-site nurse, work shops, hosiery factory and a community store. Each farm was leased for $60.00 per year complete with newly developed indoor plumbing and electricity in the home, a barn, a wash/smoke house, a corn crib, a hog house, a chicken coop, farm animals, technical training and support and was expected to raise the food needed for the family to work together bartering with other farms in the community for all to prosper and become self-sufficient.

Only 10 miles from I-40 near Burgaw, NC, the Penderlea Homestead Museum is a "New Deal" farm restored to its original "Depression-Era" appearance, complete with 1930s furnishings and artifacts and endeavoring to promote national and local farm history in rural North Carolina.