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

An important New Deal program that shaped the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States This book explores the history and impact of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), the most important New Deal agency to operate in Puerto Rico and the largest created for any United States territory. Geoff Burrows demonstrates how the PRRA improved living conditions across the island in the wake of destructive hurricanes and the Great Depression, while at the same time resulting in a reformed, strengthened, and lasting colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the US. Using previously untapped archival sources and a wide range of primary and secondary texts, Burrows follows the agency from its founding by President Roosevelt in 1935 to its ending in 1955, situating its public works program in both Puerto Rican and New Deal contexts. The PRRA built the Caribbean’s first modern cement plant; implemented widespread rural electrification through the building of seven hydroelectric dams; constructed hurricane-proof houses, schools, and hospitals; and improved transportation and communication across the island. Puerto Rican engineers, planners, and officials took a leading role in these initiatives, which provided them social mobility and transformed the island’s economy from agricultural to industrial. The first institutional history and critical examination of the agency, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration engages questions about the New Deal’s global reach. It investigates how New Deal agendas refashioned US colonialism in Puerto Rico and indirectly contributed to the island’s current debt crisis and response to recent natural disasters such as Hurricane María.

Table of Contents:
CONTENTS List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations xv Introduction 1 1. San Felipe, San Ciprián, and the Election of 1932 19 2. From Relief to Reconstruction 37 3. Para Permanencia 63 4. The Road to Modernization 90 5. Rural Electrification 114 Conclusion: From the New Deal to Today 138 Notes 155 Bibliography 213 Index 225

About the Author :
Geoff G. Burrows is a historian of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Review :
"Burrows makes a groundbreaking contribution to the regional historiography devoted to the study of the Great Depression. For Puerto Rican, US, and Latin American scholars, this study provides a powerful history that clearly explains how the economic havoc experienced by the United States in the 1930s transcended its national boundaries and affected the destinies of the inhabitants of a Spanish-speaking territorial possession in the Caribbean for years after."--H-Net "A well-documented and tightly argued account of a key institution of the New Deal as applied to a colonial territory of the United States. . . . Burrows's painstaking research fills in some gaps in the historical record on Puerto Rico and raises provocative questions about the parallels between the economic crisis of the 1930s and the more recent recession on the island (2006-24)."--Hispanic American Historical Review "Burrows' thoroughly researched and eminently readable study offers a wealth of information and important insights that extend beyond PRAA and the New Deal to include Puerto Rican politics and the "modernization" of the archipelago's economy and infrastructure from the 1930s through the 1950s."--Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies