States Housing Authority (USHA) under the Department of the Interior. At the same time, most of the administration was decentralized to local housing authorities. In 1938, Atlanta's Board of Aldermen created the Atlanta Housing Authority. It would be overseen by a five-member board of commissioners appointed by the Mayor, but otherwise be politically independent from the city. The Board of Aldermen granted the AHA the power of eminent domain and tax exemption, and later delegated to it the task of overseeing urban renewal. Charles Palmer was elected the first chairman of the Board of Commissioners in 1938, and would serve in that position until 1940. Throughout the early period of the AHA's existence, public housing was closely connected with slum clearance. This was especially emphasized by US Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who saw slum clearance as a positive good in itself, regardless of whether the units were replaced with public housing. Nonetheless, at the time it was taken for granted that replacement housing had to be built. In addition, public housing during this period was seen as a tool for shaping the working class into model citizens. In Atlanta as elsewhere, tenants were carefully chosen in order to conform to middle-class values (for example, no unwed mothers). This created communities that were largely homogeneous, mostly consisting of young married couples with children. Only in the postwar era would public housing begin to serve lower-class families, and only gradually would it become associated with the poorest of the poor. After its creation in 1938, the AHA immediately began petitioning Washington for funds to construct new housing. During the three years preceding the war, six new housing projects would be completed. For whites, there was Capitol Homes and Clark Howell Homes. For African Americans, the AHA built Herndon Homes, John Hope Homes, John Egan Homes, and Harris Homes. This amounted to 4,000 housing units accommodating 20,000 people. The total investment was $21 million to that point. City historian Franklin Garrett remarked humorously, "By 1940, federal funds have built considerably more housing in Atlanta than Federal representative William T. Sherman destroyed here in 1864", referring to the Union general who ordered the burning of Atlanta. With the onset of the war, Atlanta (unlike other cities) paused the construction of new public housing. The next complex would not be erected until 1951. Postwar era Slum clearance and the construction of public housing