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‘Rural’ rhetoric in 1930s unemployment relief schemes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2019

Ronan O’Donnell  and
David Petts
Ronan O’Donnell*
Affiliation:
Durham University
David Petts
Affiliation:
Durham University
*
*Corresponding author. Email: r.p.o’donnell@durham.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the role of particular ideas of the countryside in unemployment relief schemes. While interwar thinking on the countryside has received attention, it has not been examined in the specific context of unemployment relief. This article uses four case studies from North East England, namely the Team Valley Trading Estate (Gateshead), Hamsterley Forest Instructional Centre (Durham), Swarland model village (Northumberland) and Heartbreak Hill (Cleveland). All four projects took different approaches to the unemployment problem, but all used some form of rural rhetoric. The ways in which the projects deployed images of the countryside creatively recombined a wide range of ideas to suit their needs rather than being rigidly confined by particular schools of thought.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , April 2019 , pp. 53 - 69
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Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

Notes

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95 We are grateful to the anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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98 NRO LAR/G/2/2/2/43.

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120 Ibid.

121 Ibid.

122 WYAS WYL150/5623.

123 Ibid.

124 Ibid.

125 The Alnwick and County Gazette and Guardian, 8th September 1939.

126 WYAS WYL150/5623.

127 NRO 513/2/23.

128 WYAS WYL150/5623.

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138 NRO CES 204/1/1.

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