As the bank failures of the early 1930s diminished the availability of credit across the United States, the federal government became concerned that food production would suffer if farmers and ranchers could not get loans to finance the purchase of seeds, livestock and equipment. In January 1932, Congress passed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation Act, which included provisions for twelve regional agricultural credit corporations.

A physical inspection of the farm or ranch is an important part of the process of making an agricultural loan. Short-term agricultural production loans are intended to be “self-liquidating,” which means that a loan to purchase feeder cattle will be paid off by later selling those same cattle, nicely fattened up, for a sum large enough to cover the loan, the loan interest, the rancher’s other costs and a reasonable rate of return for the rancher.  Inspectors need to be familiar with the business in order to make informed judgments about the likelihood of loan repayment.

MGHS has a small collection of 105 applications filled out by people seeking to be livestock loan inspectors for regional agricultural livestock corporations in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico.  These three-page applications contain a wealth of information about each applicant, including date and place of birth, address in 1932, name and address of nearest relative, a description of any livestock-related business experience, and references.  The original applications are available at the MHGS library; they have been digitized and placed online in the MHGS Digital Collections.