Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

During the worst days of the Great Depression in the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a series of new and innovative ideas to combat America's economic crisis. The programs, collectively known as the New Deal, offered relief and recovery to several groups and institutions that had been particularly hard-hit by the Depression, including farmers, youth, banks, industry, and workers. One of the most innovative accomplishments of the New Deal was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which became law on May 18, 1933, during the first 100 days of Roosevelt's initial term in office.

The TVA offered recovery and relief to an agriculturally devastated region in southern Appalachia, which incorporated seven southern states within the water tributaries of the Tennessee River system—an area encompassing approximately 40,000 ...