“Make
Your Own Mattress:” served as a program developed by the United States
Department of Agriculture in the Fall 1940 to eliminate a cotton surplus from
the South. The USDA targeted Sherburne
County as a potential location to benefit from the program. Although small in economic impact, it provided
some aid to local families.
According
to reports from Washington. D. C., an over-abundance of cotton hit the market
in the fall of 1940. The Agriculture
Adjustment Administration, a depression era program to help farmers, created
the “Make Your Own Mattress” program to reduce the cotton surplus.
The
preliminary plans reported by the Sherburne County Star News, noted an
undisclosed warehouse will store cotton and “good grade ticking” so that
individuals might sew their own mattresses.
The government developed the program for low income, rural families in
Minnesota. Income could not exceed $500
for a family of four and households received one mattress for two household
members, not to exceed three of the mattresses.
Adult
family members paid a fee of one dollar to cover the cost of needles and
thread, the newspaper reported. The
families worked in the warehouse as a team to sew their own mattresses and take
them home. The County Extension Office
and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration provided trained instructors to
supervise the manufacturing process.
Although
a minor event in the greater activities of the Agricultural Adjustment
Administration, the “Make Your Own Mattress” program serves as another example
of the multitude of Depression Era economic experiments to aid Sherburne
County. Although smaller than the WPA or
the CCC, “Make Your Own Mattress” and other AAA projects certainly provided
significant aid to the county.
