The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Fall 1987, Volume 33, Number 4
Thomas L. Scharf, Editor
Book Notes
The Salvation Army Farm Colonies.
By Clark C. Spence. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1985. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. 151 Pages. $19.95.
One of the little known efforts to solve urban misery at the turn of the century was the Salvation Army’s farm colony program. Three urban poor farms were established, one each in California, Colorado and Ohio. This new, well researched volume by one of the most distinguished western historians, Clark Spence, examines the broad movement and the history of the specific communes. In the end the experiment failed and the Salvation Army redirected its efforts to save the urban poor away from getting them out of the cities, to the urban programs which most of us think of when we hear of the Salvation Army.
