Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2019/Fall/Section 1/Caleb Carter

Overview
Caleb Carter was interviewed for the Federal Writers' Project in 1939. He lived in Asheville, North Carolina for most of his life, and worked as a mushroom farmer while escaping the pressures of the Great Depression. When interviewed, he was married to his second wife, Mary, but did not have any kids.

Early Life
Caleb Carter was born on July 1, 1893 in Asheville, North Carolina. His father, Frank, worked as a lawyer in Asheville, while his mother, Florence, stayed at home and tended to the house and children. Carter was the middle of three children in the family, with his sister Frances being the oldest and his brother Douglas the youngest. Carter spent most of his early life in Asheville, as he went to private school, then Bingham Military School during his high school years. After spending a few years at different colleges studying various types of engineering, he decided not to graduate, but to move to Georgia so he could work in the naval-stores industry. Later, he moved to Florida for more work opportunities, but ultimately decided to enlist in the National Guard when the United States entered the first World War. He enlisted on June 5 in 1917, but he quickly fell ill and spend weeks in the hospitals. After recovering from his near-death experience, he was able to climb his way up to second lieutenant. For a while, he was stationed at various places in Virginia and was set to sail to France. However, the war ended the day they were to leave, so he was released a few weeks later.

Later Life
Upon returning from the war, he decided to move back to Florida so he could reconnect with his best friends. He found that the real estate business was becoming increasingly popular, so he joined in and quickly made a small fortune. It was in St. Petersburg, Florida where he met and married his first wife, Helen Brooks, in 1923. While Carter had his short burst of success, the oncoming depression quickly ran him out of business. Not only was he left with many unpaid mortgages when people stopped buying houses, but his wife also died in 1926. With nothing left in Florida, he sold his house and returned home to Asheville in 1928 to live with his father.

After being unemployed for some time, he decided to respond to an advertisement in the paper about becoming a mushroom grower. He found success in that business, so he stuck to it. He started his farm in the basement of his father’s house, but was quickly able to buy a 32-acre plot of land. Additionally, he traveled to Pennsylvania, the center of the mushroom industry, so he could study the most current methods of building a mushroom farm. While establishing his business, he got reacquainted with Mary Jane Millender, a childhood friend, and married her in 1934. Carter was able to build a small, loyal customer base for his mushrooms by supplying his mushrooms to local restaurants and grocery stores.

He built nearly everything on his property offers, including the water system and his house that was above the mushroom plant. At the time of the interview, he had been a mushroom farmer for nine years. He planned to continue growing his farm by adding livestock, like cows and pigs, and start cultivating the land. Carter spent the rest of his life working on the farm. He died on May 19, 1974 in Asheville. In 1998, Mary died, and she was buried next to Carter.

Housing Market Surrounding the Great Depression
At the beginning of the 1920s, the housing market in America was booming. The rapid increase of construction of new home units led to a surge of new homeowners that were paying off large mortgages. However, this rise was unsustainable, and the decline of the housing market left thousands of people broke and in debt.

The rapid rise of the real estate industry and housing investments occurred mostly from 1922 to 1925, as housing expanded by nearly 60% during that time. However, after a slight dip, the highest peak of the industry was in 1929. Soon after, the entire market fell rapidly, along with the rest of the economy, and did not stop declining until 1932. The stock market did make a recovery in 1933, but real estate rebounded at a much slower rate since housing remained at a low rate for the rest of the 1930s.

The collapse of the housing market greatly affected everyone involved. Those that were investors were left with large mortgages to pay off, workers of the real estate industry were left without a job, and homeowners were forced to sell their houses to the banks. However, the banks were then left with an overload of unsold and foreclosed houses that remained from the surge of construction. As a whole, the real estate market remained at a low point for nearly two decades.

Depression-Era Farming
When the Great Depression struck, nearly 30% of the population lived and worked on farms. Not only did the depression cause a significant decrease of resources and customers, but the Dust Bowl, that began in 1930, depleted the availability of water that was needed for vegetation production. Additionally, along with the environmental and economic factors that forced farms out of business, crop insurance did not yet exist, so there was no insurance against natural disasters like this. However, many programs that were part of Roosevelt’s New Deal were introduced to aid farmers and reestablish their farms.

The Farm Security Administration was created in 1937, and it provided shelter for migrant families at labor farms. Additionally, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was made to start a federally-sponsored insurance program for farms, and this institution created the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). The FCIC worked to provide insurance policies to farmers, and it still protects farmers from natural disasters today. Along with these acts, the government sold thousands of farms to people as a way of increasing employment and food production rates. Currently, there are federal farm policies from the New Deal that are adjusted every 5 years to combat the changing environment.