MAP ACTIVITY Map 24.3 The Tennessee Valley Authority The New Deal created the Tennessee Valley Authority to modernize a vast impoverished region with hydroelectric power dams and, at the same time, to reclaim eroded land and preserve old folkways. READING THE MAP: How many states were affected by the TVA? How many miles of rivers (approximately) were affected? CONNECTIONS: What kinds of benefits—economic as well as social and cultural—did TVA programs bring to the region? How might the lives of a poor farming family in Alabama or Tennessee have changed after the mid-1930s owing to these programs?