MOD 10THE NEW DEAL

▪ 1932▪ American’s blamed Hoover

▪ 4 years of Unemployment, Hoovervilles, bank failures, crop failures, Bonus Army, soup lines

▪ Hoover’s Laissez Faire policy

▪ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

▪ (FDR)

▪ confident, “can do attitude”

▪ FDR was a distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt

▪ 5th Cousins

▪ Understood America’s troubles

▪ “This nation is asking for action, and action now. This great nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.”

▪FDR organized a “brain trust”▪ Advisers, professors, lawyers

▪“New Deal” for the American people▪ Alleviate problems of the Great Depression

▪ Three general goals

▪ Relief for the needy

▪ Temporary

▪ Recover the economy

▪ Long term

▪ Reform the financial sector

▪ Long term

▪“

▪ The Hundred Days

▪ FDR takes action, first 100 days of office

▪ Pass New Deal Legislation

▪ Expand Govt’s role in economy / daily lives

▪ The 100 Days lasted from March to June 1933

Fireside ChatRadio talks about issues of public

concern, explaining in clear,

simple languagePresident talking directly to

American people

Instill confidence in public

Relief (helping the poor and unemployed

to survive)

Recovery (getting the economy going

again) and

Reform (changing things so a depression

could never happen like that again).

FIRE SIDE CHATS

▪ Changed the image of the First Lady▪ Became a political figure in America

▪ Eyes and ears for Franklin

▪ Led a campaign to end the lynching of African Americans

▪ Other social programs

▪ Her political rivals even admitted she was the best first lady

▪ Franklin and Eleanor met in law school

▪ Distant Cousins

▪ Regulating Banking system

▪ bank holiday ▪ Closed all banks to prevent further withdrawal

▪ Emergency Banking Relief Act,

▪ Treasury Department to inspect the nation’s banks

▪ Some banks left open

▪ Some banks remained closed (unable to pay their debts)

▪ Glass-Steagall Act

▪ which established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

▪ FDIC

▪ insured account holders up to $5,000 and set strict standards for banks to follow (today = $100,000

▪ Federal Securities Act:

▪ Required stock info to be accurate and truthful

▪ SEC – Securities and Exchange Commission

▪ Regulate Stock Market

▪ Agricultural Adjustment Act: (AAA)

▪ Raised crop prices by lowering production

▪ Paid farmers to not farm… what? Yes it still happens to this day

▪ Reduce food supply, increase price of crops

▪ Crop prices put more money in farmers pockets

▪ Tennessee River Valley Authority (TVA)

▪ Build dams in Tennessee

▪ Created jobs, flood control, hydroelectric power

▪ CCC – Civilian Conservation Corps put young men to work

▪ Men ages 18 to 25 worked building roads, parks, planting trees (200 million trees in Dust Bowl areas)

▪ By 1942 three million men worked for the CCC

▪ PWA – Public Works Administration ▪ NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act)

▪ The PWA provided money to states to construct schools and community buildings

▪ CWA – Civil Works Administration

▪ built 40,000 schools

▪ 50,000 teachers in rural America

▪ FHA – Federal Housing Administration

▪ provided home loans, home mortgages and repairs

▪ HOLC – Home Owners Loan Corporation

▪ Federal loans to homeowners who faced foreclosure

▪ FERA – Federal Emergency Relief Agency

▪ provided $500 million in direct relief to the neediest Americans

▪ Helped people buy food, gain confidence

Repaired business in Childersburg, Alabama

▪ Liberals & Conservatives React▪ Deficit Spending – spending more money than the government

was making

▪ Liberals (left) felt FDR’s program was NOT doing enough

▪ Conservatives (right) felt that government intervention was TOO much and interfered with our free market economy

▪ New Deal did not end the Great Depression

▪ Supreme Court Reacts

▪ NIRA – unconstitutional

▪ Violated checks & balances

▪ AAA – unconstitutional

▪ Agriculture is a local matter

▪ FDR – Packed the Supreme Court

▪ “Court Packing”

▪ Nominated 7 new Supreme Court Judges

▪ Father Charles Coughlin

▪ broadcast radio sermons slamming FDR

▪ He called for a guaranteed annual income and nationalized banks

▪ Huey Long

▪ was a Senator from Louisiana who was a constant (and effective) critic of FDR

▪ Long was setting up a run for president

▪ A lone gunman assassinated Long at the height of his popularity in 1935

Coughlin

▪ Second New Deal / 2nd 100 days▪ More extensive relief for farmers &

workers

▪ Helping Farmers

▪ Soil Conservation & Domestic Allotment Act

▪ Paid farmers for cutting production of soil-depleting crops

▪ Farm Securities Administration (FSA)

▪ Helped tenant farmers become landowners

▪ Helped immigrant farmers

HELPING WORKERS▪ Works Progress Administration (WPA)

▪ Helping urban workers was critical to the success of the Second Hundred Days

▪ The WPA set out to create as many jobs as possible as quickly as possible▪ Artists, writers and photographers

▪ 850 airports

▪ Repair roads

▪ Construct public buildings

▪ Sewing shops

▪ Between 1935-1943, the WPA spent $11 billion to give jobs to 8 million workers

▪ Gave people dignity

▪ The National Youth Administration (NYA)▪ provide education, jobs and recreation for young

people

▪ Young people worked part-time jobs for their schools

▪ National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) ▪ Protected workers

▪ Collective bargaining

▪ Right to unionize

▪ National Labor Relations Board

▪ Wagner Act

▪ Fair Labor Standards Act

▪ Maximum hours a week (40)

▪ Minimum wage (25 Cents/ Hour – 45 Cents/Hr)

▪ Banned hazardous work for 18 year olds

▪ The Social Security Act, passed in 1935, had 3 parts:

▪ Old Age Insurance 65 and older

▪ Retirement plan

▪ Unemployment compensation

▪ Funded by tax payers by federal tax

▪ Aid to families with dependent children and disabled

▪ Federal funds made available to states

▪ First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped women gain higher political positions during the New Deal

▪ Eleanor was influential in her role as advisor to the president

▪ Frances Perkins became America’s first female cabinet member (Labor)

Eleanor &

Franklin

▪ The 1930s witnessed a growth of activism for black Americans

▪ A. Philip Randolph became head of the nation’s first all-black union – the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

FDR appointed over 100 African Americans to positions within the government

▪ Mary McLeod Bethuneheaded the division of Negro Affairs of the NYA

▪ Despite these gains, FDR was never fully committed to Civil Rights

Bethune

▪ Native Americans made advances during the 1920s & 1930s

▪ Full citizenship granted in 1924

▪ The Reorganization Act of 1934 gave Natives more ownership of reservations

▪ Policy was moving away from assimilation towards autonomy

Current locations of

Native American

reservations

▪FDR had wide appeal in the United States, especially in urban areas

▪African Americans, Jews, Catholics and immigrants all supported the popular president FDR & Eleanor campaign by

rail in 1936

MOVIES:

▪ By the late 1930s, 65% of Americans were attending the movies at least once per week at one of the nation’s 15,000 movie theaters

▪ Comedies, lavish musicals, love stories and gangster films dominated the movie industry

Movies provided an escape from

the hardships of the Great

Depression

▪One of the most famous films of the era was Gone with the Wind (1939)

▪Other notable movies of the era included The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

▪Sales of radios greatly increased in the 1930s, from 13 million in 1930 to 28 million by 1940

▪Nearly 90% of American homes owned a radio

Families spent hours listening to the radio

▪FDR communicated to Americans via radio

▪His frequent “Fireside Chats” kept Americans abreast of the government’s efforts during the Depression

▪ Radio captured news as well as providing entertainment

▪ One of the first worldwide broadcasts was the horrific crash of the Hindenburg, a German Zeppelin (blimp), in New Jersey on May 6, 1937

▪ Such immediate news coverage became a staple in society

The Hindenburg caught fire and was utterly

destroyed within a minute Of the 97 people on

board, 13 passengers and 22 crew-members

were killed

▪ The Federal Art Project (branch of the WPA) paid artists a living wage to produce art

▪ Projects included murals, posters and books

▪ Much of the art, music and literature was sober and serious

WPA Art – “Democracy . . .a

Challenge” – artist, date unknown

▪ Painters like Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton, and Iowa’s Grant Wood were all made famous by their work in the WPA program

▪ Photographer Dorothea Lange gained fame from her photos during this era (featured throughout this presentation) Wood’s American Gothic is perhaps the most

famous piece of the era (1930)

Grant Wood’s Fall Plowing, 1931

▪ American writer John Steinbeck received assistance from the Federal Writers’ Project

▪ He published his most famous book, Grapes of Wrath (1939), as part of the program

▪ New Deal helped economy

▪ New Deal did not end Great Depression

▪ FDR hinted at the idea of having a Third New Deal▪ FDR did not have much governmental support

▪ More republicans were being elected

▪ FDR was against Deficit Spending

▪ Economy was improving

▪ People felt the Great Depression was ending

▪ Roosevelt now focused on Germany and Hitler

New Deal Legislation Expands the Historical Role

of Government

Analyze Charts The New Deal is considered by some to be a reform movement. Explain

whether or not this view can be justified, using specific examples from the chart.

▪ New Deal programs greatly increased the size and scope of the federal government / taxes to benefits to the elderly

▪ Though the New Deal did not end the depression it did help economic growth

▪ Rural Americans benefited greatly from the New Deal (TVA and REA)

▪ Welfare State – a government that assumes responsibility for providing for the poor, elderly, sick, disabled and unemployed

▪ In no area did FDR have a greater impact than on the office of the President.

▪ Expanding the role of government

▪ More power to the President $

▪ Style of the presidency (radio)

▪ 22nd Amendment

▪ FDIC – banking insurance critical to sound economy

▪ Deficit spending has became a normal feature of government

▪ Social Security is a key legacy of the New Deal in that the Feds have assumed a greater responsibility for the social welfare of citizens since 1935