[1] The program was created to provide low-rent homesteads, including a home and small plots of land that would allow people to sustain themselves.

The subsistence homesteading program was based on an agrarian, "back-to-the-land" philosophy which meant a partial return to the simpler, farming life of the past.

[5] According to Liz Straw of the Tennessee Historical Commission, the most controversial were those rural communities of long-unemployed miners or timber workers whom opponents of subsistence homesteading thought unlikely to thrive without better job opportunities.

[4] In response to the Great Depression, the Subsistence Homesteads Division was created by the federal government in 1933 with the aim to improve the living conditions of individuals moving away from overcrowded urban centers while also giving them the opportunity to experience small-scale farming and home ownership.

"[7] The homesteads were organized to combine the benefits of rural and urban living - communities meant to demonstrate a different path towards a healthier and more economically secure future.

Milburn Lincoln Wilson, then belonging to the USDA's Agricultural Adjustment Administration, was selected by President Frank D. Roosevelt to lead the new Division under Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes.

Initially, the cost of the houses was not to exceed $2,000 and the homesteads would fall under the administration of the Division and local non-profit corporation created specifically for the community.

[10][11] Eleanor Roosevelt took personal interest in the project, and became involved in setting up the first community, Arthurdale, WV after a visit to the stranded miners of Scotts Run.

Nonetheless, as of 2011, some communities, such as Arthurdale, West Virginia, in which Eleanor Roosevelt was personally involved, maintain an active memory of the program.