The enabling potential of accounting is explored through an investigation of record keeping practices attending the rural rehabilitation program introduced during the New Deal in 1930s USA.  The attempts by a progressive government agency to encourage the adoption of accounting on a substantial scale through 'supervised credit' are analysed through concepts of supervision.  The accounting techniques applied by rural families under supervision are discussed and their rehabilitative impacts are assessed.  It is shown that accounting featured prominently in what has been identified as the most significant attempt to address rural poverty in American history.  The administrative functioning of supervised accounting generated controlling and directing impacts on the target population.  However, the educative supervision attending accounting practice generated emancipatory effects.