No Place Like Home The Settling of Jersey Homesteads, New Jersey

Experimental communities became, except for their odd designs, ordinary communities __ Even Arthurdale and Hightstown, once so controversial, were remembered only because of the controversy.But a few people remembered, remembered well.They were the homesteaders, the living clay in the great exhibit.To them Cahaba and Dyess and Arthurdale represented not only an experiment but their homes.To them the story of the New Deal communities was really a story of one community, their community.Thus, beyond ideas, policies, administrators, bureaus, the story of the New Deal communities was really many varying stories -one for each individual community.Paul K. Conkin, Tomorrow a New World: The New Deal Community Programs Roosevelt, New Jersey, located midway between Philadelphia and New York City, was founded in 1936 as Jersey Homesteads.Changing its name in 1945 to memorialize President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the town was the product of its times, combining political maneuvers, dreams, and risk-taking to produce a history and character unlike that of any other community.Roosevelt carries its own personality and mythos, born at its founding and influenced by the interactions of both residents and visitors over the years as well as by geography and politics.But what is it exactly that sets Roosevelt apart from other towns?How was its "sense of place" created, and what makes it an anomaly?If not already aware of Roosevelt's existence, only serendipity would bring it to one's attention today.The approach to the town begins at the New Jersey Turnpike junction near Hightstown.Located only four miles east of 24 COMMUNAL SOCIETIES Hightstown, Roosevelt is worlds away in terms of character, history, and layout.This shift in ambiance is noticeable as one departs from the Turnpike, a modern-day transportation artery, and enters Route 571, a journey to a past, simpler life.After passing through a small commercial hub, the two-lane country road winds past orchards, corn fields, homes, and a lake.Eventually, a small sign indicates arrival in the town: "Jersey Homesteads Historic District Est.1937 [sic] Borough of Roosevelt."Jersey Homesteads was the first triple cooperative community in the United States, combining agricultural, industrial, and retail cooperatives into a single New Deal endeavor.It was conceived by Benjamin Brown, a Jewish entrepreneur who envisioned a Utopian colony that would serve as a model for the country; a cooperative community built out of the hard work and collaboration of its residents, self-sustaining after a minimal amount of initial government support.Jersey Homesteads was the only one of more than ninety New Deal New Towns that specifically targeted a homogenous group with a strong religious identity~in this case urban Jewish garment workers.It was also a town that would maintain its reputation over the next sixty years as a special community, different somehow from those around it, attracting the offspring of its original settlers, a plethora of artists, and families in search of a tight-knit community.While the Jersey Homestead cooperatives failed within the first three years of the project, and the town has been influenced by the forces of change that occur over any given time period, Roosevelt has maintained an identity tied to its unique founding sixty years ago.As part of a larger government aid program in the 1930s, Jersey Homesteads was the subject of intense federal debate.Democrats asserted that such programs were crucial for assisting the urban poor and held up the project as a model Utopian village in which, with some support from the government, people would learn to take care of themselves and each other.Republicans countered that such programs were glorified experiments in Communism serving only as bottomless pits for federal moneys (see Figure 1).Locally, settlers were the target of discriminatory practices and name-calling by residents of near-by towns.As a planned community, Jersey Homesteads was based on the English "Garden City," which eventually was incorporated into the Resettlement Administration's plans for "New Towns"-small, self-sustaining, suburban, environment-friendly communities surrounded by woods or farm land.Roosevelt today is still considered an important model of architectural design and urban planning, combining the goals of the Garden City and New Town movements with a particular architecture-a combination of United States International with German Bauhaus.The town also continued the tradition of the Jewish-American agricultural movement that had taken root at the turn of the century.