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President Franklin Roosevelt set the Tennessee Valley Authority was into action on May 18, 1933. This was part of a set of programs known as the New Deal that attempted to lift the country out of a devastating Depression. It sought to provide much needed jobs to individuals all over the country and electricity and irrigation to the Tennessee Valley. Since the area of the Tennessee Valley is directly around the Tennessee River, the Authority planned to generate power by harnessing the natural energy of the river. Due to the Depression, residents of Tennessee Valley did not have electricity in their homes and businesses like much of the country. Therefore, the project was to tackle the problem of power as top priority. 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 bringing electricity to the area by utilizing the natural energy of the river, the TVA also succeeded in controlling the floods which used to ravage the area sorrounding the river. This saved the people of the area from the damage that was caused to their crops and houses because of the flood. The TVA achieved this by building dams to control the flow of the river. 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. Even the boat captains benefited from the TVA’s development of the system of dams in the valley. The once difficult to navigate river became a lot easier. It, in turn, gave a boost to the travel industry, 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 Tennessee Valley Authority was an excellent program initiated during a critical time in this country’s history. In addition to providing jobs for thousands of Americans who were unemployed at the time, the TVA worked to better the life for the residents of the Tennessee Valley.
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