Here are photographs showing the government surplus cotton mattress project at the American Legion Pavilion cotton mattress center on the fairgrounds in Columbus, Kansas. The cotton mattress program was sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture Extension Service, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and the Surplus Marketing
Administration. It was started in February 1940, and had a threefold purpose. First, it was designed to supply cotton materials to rural families who could not afford to purchase mattresses. Second, the program helped to reduce the cotton surplus. Third, the mattress program provided demonstrations through which rural people learned how to make cotton mattresses. Mattresses were made in community work centers under supervision of the home demonstration agent and others trained in mattress making. Representatives from the families participating in the program helped one another in actual construction of the mattresses. Eligible families received material to make one full-size double-bed mattress for each two persons in the family, but the total could not exceed three mattresses to a family. Participating families were excepted to pay for needles, thread and incidental expenses.

Date: 1941