Eleanor Roosevelt & Arthurdale

Eleanor Roosevelt was never one to wait on the sidelines. When her husband took office in 1933 in the middle of the Great Depression, while millions suffered, she was impatient to help the many in need.  She chose to work on the Division of Subsistence Homesteads, a bold plan to develop communities with work for the unemployed. Mrs. Roosevelt focused her attention on her prototype Arthurdale, near Morgantown, West Virginia. Today that experiment is a town that serves as a museum of the New Deal and Mrs. Roosevelt’s idealism can be seen in the details.