The focus of this paper is on the role of accounting in a
comprehensive, state-operated project designed to address
rural poverty. Accounting was deployed in response to an
unparalleled economic and social crisis in the United States
which demanded ameliorative action on a massive scale.
At least three-quarters of a million farm families were obliged
by a federal agency to practice accounting in order to
achieve their rehabilitation. The object population were
small farmers during the 1930s and 1940s and the
accounting they were prescribed was designed to achieve
individual, familial and national betterment. This focus