The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration: New Deal Public Works, Modernization, and Colonial Reform

Honorable Mention, Living New Deal Book AwardAn important New Deal program that shaped the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States Thisbook explores the history and impact of the Puerto Rico ReconstructionAdministration (PRRA), the most important New Deal agency to operate in PuertoRico and the largest created for any United States territory. Geoff Burrows demonstrateshow the PRRA improved living conditions across the island in the wake of destructivehurricanes and the Great Depression, while at the same time producing areformed, strengthened, and lasting colonial relationship between Puerto Ricoand the United States.Using previously untapped archival sources and a wide rangeof primary and secondary texts, Burrows follows the agency from its founding byPresident Roosevelt in 1935 to its ending in 1955, situating its public worksprogram in both Puerto Rican and New Deal contexts. The PRRA built theCaribbean's first modern cement plant; implemented widespread ruralelectrification through the building of seven hydroelectric dams; constructedhurricane-proof houses, schools, and hospitals; and improved transportation andcommunication across the island. Puerto Rican engineers, planners, andofficials took a leading role in these initiatives, which provided them socialmobility and transformed the island's economy from agricultural to industrial. The first institutional history and critical examination ofthe agency, ThePuerto Rico Reconstruction Administrationengages questions about the New Deal's global reach. It investigates how NewDeal agendas refashioned U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico and indirectlycontributed to the island's current debt crisis and response to recent naturaldisasters such as Hurricane María.

• | Author: Geoff G. Burrows
• | Publisher: University of Florida Press
• | Publication Date: Apr 30, 2024
• | Number of Pages: 248 pages
• | Binding: Hardback or Cased Book
• | ISBN-10: 1683404130
• | ISBN-13: 9781683404132