The Arthurdale Community School: Education and Reform in Depression Era Appalachia by Sam F. Stack, Jr.

Arthurdale, West Virginia, about 15 miles southeast of Morgantown, is a community built in 1933 by the Subsistence Homesteads Division of the U. S. Department of Interior, part of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal." It was the very first of 34 communities designed to provide families with a decent home and enough land to provide basic subsistence and Eleanor Roosevelt visited it. Like some of the other homestead communities, Arthurdale was created in hopes to served displaced and unemployed area coal miners. Most of these communities are still pretty vibrant, although many homesteads have changed hands, and many homes have been remodeled. The school was created to be the center of the community, and its ideals included John Dewey's disdain for competition and a desire to make education relevant to the Appalachian experience. "No one is better qualified to guide us through the complexities of the Arthurdale experiment than Professor Stack." -- Richard Angelo. "It is a much-needed