The Great Depression

• New Deal Successes• Banking• TVA and CCC• Farmers• Labor

• Backlash• Critics: Huey Long and Father Coughlin• Legislation and anti-union violence• Court Packing case

• Depression Culture• Works Progress Administration• Popular Front

• The Crash of 1929• Financial Panic• Causes of the Great Depression• Consequences of the Crash

• The New Deal• Historiographic Debates• Stages• Election of 1936

KKK Membership

1920 4,000,0001924 6,000,0001930 30,0001980 5,0002008 6,000

The Crash > What Caused the Great Depression?

• Financial panic• Stock market crash• Land speculation in Florida and Southern California• Bank failures• Mortgage foreclosures

• Sales of new goods stagnated after 1926• Unequal distribution of income reduced purchasing power• Depression in farming• Europe’s demand for US goods declines

• Europe defaults on debt payment • Germany stops paying France and Britain• France and Britain stop paying US

• Unavoidable economic cycles or could have been avoided if speculation was curbed and consumption encouraged?

The Crash > Economy Compared to Television, 1929

The Crash > “It’s so nice to have Daddy home all the time now,” Life, 1930

The Crash > “We can do it!” 1931

The Crash > Hooverville, 1933

The Crash > Farmers displaced by the Dust Bowl

The Crash > Deportation of Mexicans, 1931

The Crash > Jobs Listed by Race, 1939

New Deal > Banking Crisis Advertisement, 1931

The Crash > “Fundamentally, the ship was sound,” New Yorker, 1932

The Crash > Popcorn

New Deal > Historiographic Debates

• 1952, Herbert Hoover • New Deal failed because it “attempted to collectivize the American system of life.”

• 1940s-1960s, “liberal consensus” historians• New Deal was a “pragmatic” revolution that expanded the role of the federal government in American life.

• mid-1960s, “New Left” historians• New Deal was fundamentally conservative, it could but failed to redistribute power in American society; it protected American capitalism.

• 1970s-2000s, contemporary historians• New Deal could not have done more than it did, because of conservative Congress, the lack of adequate government bureaucracy, and localist and antistatist political culture.

New Deal > Stages

• 1932 - FDR elected• First New Deal (“the hundred days”)

• 1934 - Strike wave

• 1934 - Leftist Democrats win the majority in congressional elections• Second New Deal (“the second hundred days”)

• 1935 - Supreme Court unanimously declares NRA unconstitutional

• 1936 - FDR reelected in a landslide

• 1937 - Court-packing• FDR proposes but fails to implement unpopular Supreme Court reform

• 1938 - Republicans and conservative Democrats regain seats in the House• As a reform movement, New Deal is over

New Deal > Private FDR Photograph, 1930s

New Deal > Public FDR Photographs, 1930s

New Deal > FDR Giving a Fireside Chat

New Deal > FDR’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

I am certain that on this day my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

New Deal > Song from Thanks a Million, 1935

They started up the NRA to keep the big bad wolf awayThen FDR began to be a headache to the GOPNow that codes are everywhere we’ve got initials in our hairThe farmer’s IOU is O.K. since Congress formed the AAAThe CCC chops down a tree and sells it pronto FOB …The RFC and NHA led millions to the AAAThe AAA has crops it cuts and all of us are going nuts!

---NRA - National Recovery AdministrationAAA - Agricultural Adjustment AdministrationCCC - Civilian Conservation CorpsRFC - Reconstruction Finance CorporationNHA - National Housing AuthorityFDR - Franklin Delano RooseveltGOP - Grand Old PartyFOB - Freight on Board

New Deal > Works Progress Administration poster

New Deal > TVA: Big Ridge Dam, TN

New Deal > CCC Worker Photograph, 1930

New Deal > NRA’s Blue Eagle Photograph, 1934

New Deal > One Hundred Days Cartoon, Lynn Item, 1933

New Deal > One Hundred Days Cartoon, Houston Post, 1933

New Deal > Literary Digest and Gallup polls on 1936 election

January 1936 Gallup PollBy Income

Roosevelt LandonUpper third 41% 59%Lower third 70 30Reliefers 82 18

October 1936 Gallup PollFarmers

Roosevelt 52.6%Landon 42.1%

WomenRoosevelt 51.4%Landon 44.8%

Young People (21–24 Years)Roosevelt 57.4%Landon 38.4%

ReliefersRoosevelt 78.8%Landon 14.0%

Literary Digest Final Poll

Landon 57%Roosevelt 43States for Landon 32States for FDR 16

A.I.P.O. (Gallup) Final Poll

Roosevelt 55.7%Landon 44.3States for FDR 40States for Landon 6On the line 2

Election ResultsRoosevelt 61%Landon 49%States for FDR 46States for Landon 2

New Deal > Percentage vote for Roosevelt in black districts, 1932 and 1936

Farmers > Farm Holiday, 1932 and Archibald Willard, The Spirit of ‘76, 1876

Farmers > Dust Storm Approaching Startford, Texas, 1930s

Farmers > Map of Erosion and Dust on the Plains

Farmers > Traveling from South Texas to the Arkansas Delta, 1936

Farmers > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, March 1936

Farmers > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother series, March 1936

Farmers > Arthur Rothstein, Steer Skull, Pennington County, South Dakota 1936

Farmers > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull on dry sun-baked earth

Farmers > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull, cows grazing in the background

Labor > Wagner Act, 1935: United Automobile Workers poster addressing Ford workers

Labor > Social Security Poster, 1936

Labor > AFL and CIO

AFL

• skilled workers only• by craft• anti-immigrant• native-born white male workers only

CIO

• all workers, including semi-skilled (majority)• by industry• actively recruited immigrants, women, and nonwhites

Labor > A CIO poster quoting FDR

Labor > The rise in union membership

Labor > Compare to 2008

Labor > Sit-down strike in Flint, MI

Labor > UAW organizers Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen pose for press photographers, River Rouge Plant, May 26, 1937

Labor > They were approached by Ford Service Department men

Labor > Ford men attacked

Labor > Reuther and Frankensteen immediately after the incident

Labor > Women’s sit-down strike in a Goody Nut Shop, 1937

Labor > Sit-down strike cartoon, New York World-Telegram, March 1937

Labor > CIO photomagazine, Photo-History, July 1937

Backlash > Anti-Roosevelt cartoon, 1938

Backlash > Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin

• Populist critics of President Roosevelt• Long - Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator; the rich should “share wealth”• Coughlin - Catholic priest,

• Both used radio effectively• Long - the rich should “share wealth” (as Kingfish from Amos’n’Andy show)• Coughlin - sermons, attacked “money changers,” but also socialists

• Both had large following in the early 1930s• Long - 8 million members of Share Our Wealth Clubs• Coughlin - 40 million listeners in 1930

• At first support FDR, then disillusioned• Long - till 1933 as U.S. Senator (Democrat)• Coughlin - till 1935 through sermons on the radio

• Long shot in 1935, used for the main character in Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men• Coughlin turned anti-semitic and conservative after FDR’s reelection in 1936, ordered by his bishop to cease all political activity in 1940

Backlash > Huey Long, My First Days in the White House (1935)

Backlash > Schecter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 1935

• A small company - small firms objected the most to limits on hours and wages

• Charles Evans Hughes for the majority: “Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional power.”

• Congress cannot relegate power to the executive branch, even in an emergency

• NRA infringes on “freedom of contract,” through industrial price and wage codes

Backlash > “Qualifying Test,” New York Herald Tribune, 1937

Backlash > “Step by Step,” Buffalo News, 1937

Backlash > Memorial Day Massacre, May 29, 1937

Popular Front > Orr C. Fisher, The Corn Parade, oil on canvas 1941

Popular Front > Photograph of Diego Rivera’s mural destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller, 1933

Popular Front > Diego Rivera, Man at the Crossroads, fresco, 1934

Popular Front > Scottsboro March announcement, Daily Worker, 1934

Popular Front > Artists who were affiliated with the movement

Orson Welles Charlie Chaplin

Duke Ellington

Frank Capra

Dorothea Lange John Steinbeck

Popular Front > “Here is the artist’s version of an ideal picket. The Disney workers make the ideal striker; there are mighty few labor disputes in which just about every striker can make his own picket sign.” PM (1941)

Popular Front > Life of an animator, as the public imagines it and in reality, without union protection. PM (1941)

Popular Front > “It’s OK for the seven dwarfs to whistle while they work, but not the girls who work for Disney. Discipline is strict. PM (1941)

HUAC > Washington Post cartoon, 1938

Lectures and Midterm:

For example, say you have this essay question on the midterm:

3. Describe the radical movements that emerged in the United States in the late nineteenth century. What were their demands and were they successful?

Part of the answer (your whole answer would obviously be longer):

Populism was one of the radical movements of the late 19th century. Populists fought for farmers’ rights against railroads and banks. Among their demands were the silver standard for currency, 8 hour day, nationalization of railroads… They did not achieve their demands, although some of them (8 hour day) were later implemented by Progressives.

You would also discuss the labor movement when answering this question.

Lectures and Midterm:

All main points of the lecture will be on the midterm, but look for main themes:

Facts in the lecture:The Wizard of Oz may have been an allegory for the silver standard debateUS stopped silver coinage in 1873 (The Fourth Coinage Act of 1873 embraced

the gold standard and de-monetized silver)

For the midterm you need to know the larger point about this:What did Populists want? - Silver StandardWhy did they want it? - To cause inflation so farmers could pay off debtsDid they win? No but some of their demands were implemented later (8-hour

day)

Fact in the lecture:USS Maine blew up because of spontaneous combustion of coal

For the midterm you need to know:The Spanish did NOT blow up USS Maine - it was a pretext for war, used by

the yellow press to ignite support for war with Spain