DYESS
Named for W. R. Dyess, first WPA administrator in Arkansas, the town was founded in 1934 as an agricultural cooperative project. The community consisted of 500 individually operated farms, each with about 20 to 40 acres, using a lease-mortgage arrangement. Business and public services were cooperatively owned and operated by the community

Farm Tenancy: A Program
By Lawrence Westbrook
The Nation
January 9, 1937
Vol. 144, No. 2, P. 39-41

After a few months' treatment the Dyess settlers were so improved in appearance and morale that they did not seem to be the same people. Their capacity and desire for work were noticeably increased. Their children, when sent to nearby public schools and placed in classes with children from local non-colony families, led their classes. It would be hard to find more convincing evidence both of the fundamentally worth-while stock of these people and of the deterrent effects of poor health.
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Resettled farmer and family. Dyess Colony, Arkansas.
Rothstein, Arthur, 1915- photographer.
CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 Aug.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection,
LC-USF34-T01-000429-D DLC (b&w film dup. negative)

Ben Shahn, Untitled (Dyess Colony, Mississippi County, Arkansas), October 1935

Ben Shahn, Untitled (Dyess Colony, Mississippi County, Arkansas), October 1935

Ben Shahn, Untitled (Dyess Colony, Mississippi County, Arkansas), October 1935