EXHIBITS
Extension, Enterprise, and Education: The Legacy of Co-operatives and Cooperation in Utah: Utah Self-Help Cooperative Board
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Utah Self-Help Cooperative Board
In response to the deepening 1930s economic depression, the State Legislature created the Self-Help Cooperative Board in March 1935. The state Self-Help Cooperative Board consisted of one member named by the state engineer, one by the chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, three members named by the Self-Help Cooperatives, and two named by the presidents of the University of Utah and Utah State Agricultural College (i.e., USU). Joseph Geddes served as the USU appointee.
The Self-Help Board’s goal was to fight unemployment through Self-Help Cooperatives, but it found that the economic problems could not be solved just by putting people to work. In fact, Geddes reflected in later years that “During the first year, the Board’s efforts increased imbalance rather than curing it.” “Economic health,” he said, “could come only as consumer power was increased to absorb the additional productive power we were adding.”[1] In other words, it was also necessary to boost the demand side of the supply and demand equation. Strategies to boost demand included creating a wholesale cooperative and purchasing a gasoline cooperative which could sell products from some of the other Utah Self-Help Cooperatives (for example, coal from the Coalville producers’ Self-Help).
Purpose of the Self-Help Cooperative Board
Notes from Congress on the Co-operative Self-Help Board
