Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal

Sternsher, Bernard, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1964.

Reviewed in The American Historical Review © 1965.

Reviewed in World Affairs.

Excerpt from the inner sleeve:

This book is the first comprehensive investigation, both as to scope and source materials, of Tugwell’s activities in the years 1932 – 1936.

Tugwell served as the last appointed American Governor of Puerto Rico, from 1941 to 1946. He worked with the legislature to create the Puerto Rico Planning, Urbanization, and Zoning Board in 1942. Tugwell supported Puerto Rican self-government through amendment to the Organic Act in 1948. He publicly supported Luis Muñoz Marín’s Popular Democratic Party, the PPD, which wanted a Commonwealth status. As he prepared to retire from the Governorship, Tugwell was instrumental in getting the first Puerto Rican appointed to the job, Jesús T. Piñero, then serving as Resident Commissioner in Washington, D.C. Tugwell also served as Chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico.