Harry A. Slattery

Harry A. Slattery (1887-1949), born in Greenville, South Carolina, was US undersecretary of the Interior in 1939-40 and gave his name to the Slattery Report, which proposed to develop Alaska through immigration. The proposal, which included the settlement of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria, was never implemented.

Slattery was also administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), appointed by Roosevelt on 26 September, 1939.

Slattery's papers are held in the Duke University Libraries.

Slattery attended Mount Saint Mary's College in Maryland, Georgetown University and George Washington University. As part of government efforts to indict big business for the exploitation of the country's natural resources, he was involved in Senate investigations of the Mulhall exposure during Wilson's administration and the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921. The 1944 controversy between the REA and the Department of Agriculture over the administration of REA led to a Senate investigation. Slattery was involved in the passage of a federal coal and oil leasing measure, federal water power legislation, Alaska coal and home rule acts, and rural electrification legislation. He was a member of the National Power Policy Committee, the Energy Resources and Land Committees of the National Resources Planning Board, the Interbureau Coordinating Committee, the Federal States Relations Committee, the Society of American Foresters, the National Press Club, the Missouri Athletic Club, and Delta Theta Phi Fraternity.

External references

[Register of the of Harry A. Slattery Papers http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/slattery/inv/]

[Electricity for Rural America: The Fight for the REA http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-6805(198124)55%3A4%3C582%3AEFRATF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C]

[History of Rural Electrification http://www.co-mo.coop/youthtour/Rural%20Electric%20History06_07.pdf]