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The Tennessee Valley Authority was set into action by President Franklin Roosevelt on May 18, 1933. The purpose of Roosevelt’s programs, collectively known as the New Deal was to set in place programs to attempt to lift the country out of a devastating Depression. In addition to providing much needed jobs to individuals all over the country, the Tennessee Valley Authority sought to bring electricity to the residents of the Tennessee Valley as well as brining a much needed irrigation source to the area. The area known as the Tennessee Valley is the area directly around the Tennessee River, so the Authority worked to harness the natural energy of the river in order to provide the area with power. Like much of the country in the midst of the Depression, residents did not have electricity running to their homes and businesses, so the project would work to better the area and provide the much needed power. The residents of Tennessee Valley were quite poor and even referred to as the "Forgotten Americans". No wonder electricity was lacking in the valley. Roosevelt’s TVA rectified this notion by remembering these forgotten individuals and helping them in rebuilding the area. After the TVA brought electricity to the valley’s residents, the once forgotten Americans began to grow financially strong and their average incomes increased considerably. Apart from producing electricity, the TVA worked to control the river itself, which was prone to flooding every year causing great deal of damage to the land and the towns along the river’s destructive path. Houses and crops were ruined when the river broke its banks and came tearing into the valley. The TVA built dams in an effort to control the river and stop this devastating flooding. The control of flood also gave rise to the avenues of irrigation. During depression the farmers suffered a lot due to the lack of water and resulting crop failures. This lead them to sink deeper and deeper into debts. The farmers till then followed the old methods of irrigation inherited from their ancestors. The new agricultural irrigation techniques however soon caught their fancy. Before the TVA developed the system of dams in the valley, the river was quite difficult for boat captains to navigate. After the projects were completed, the river navigation was made a good bit easier, allowing the area to become more widely traveled, therefore bringing more money into the Tennessee Valley. There were many beneficial natural effects of the Tennessee Valley Authority also. The project helped in controlling and preventing forest fires. The workers replanted trees to rebuild the forest that had been cleared for various reasons. Thus wildlife was encouraged to converge in the newly minted forests, just as fish had been encouraged to populate the new bodies of water after the construction of dams. The timing of Tennessee Valley Authority was crucial in this country’s history. It not only provided jobs to thousands of Americans who were unemployed at the time, but improved the life for the residents of the Tennessee Valley.
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