In July of 1932 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York, accepted the party’s nomination for
president, and vowed a crusade against the Great Depression declaring, “I pledge you, I
pledge myself, a new deal for the American people.” After winning a landslide victory
against Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933
and in the next one hundred days would astound the nation and regain its confidence by
enacting myriad economic and social programs aimed at lifting the country out of the
Great Depression. But while he was greeted with open arms by a demoralized people and
a willing Congress in 1933, many of Roosevelt’s programs would eventually come under
fire from the public, the legislature and the Supreme Court. After a failed attempt to
reorganize the Court in order to make it more sympathetic to his programs and an
economic downturn, the New Deal had come to an end by 1939.
There are many aspects of the New Deal that are open for debate: Was it radical
or conservative in its nature? Did it succeed in ending the Depression? Was the federal
government involved too much in business and industry? Was Roosevelt on target with
some efforts and misguided on others? What programs should or should not have come to
fruition? These questions and many more have been discussed at length by historians,
politicians and scholars, all of who have the benefit of present knowledge, hindsight and
innumerable evaluations by others. What is often overlooked is the contemporary
evaluation of the legislation and the individuals that gave rise to it. But the New Deal is
more than just legislative history, because it was more than just a series of legislative
acts. As much as it was an initiative for social and economic change, the New Deal was,
at its most basic, a public relations campaign designed to restore the confidence of and
motivate action from an American people who felt, along with a sense of hopelessness,
that they had been abandoned by its government, primarily its president.
It is the presentation and reception of the New Deal programs on which this site
focuses. There was a battle being waged between 1933 and 1937, not only against the
Depression, but a struggle to define government, Washington and the president in a new
way. More than the success or failure of the New Deal, its perception by the public and
the media would impact the future of government and the extent of its involvement in
numerous areas of American life. The battle was fought on several fronts; with speeches
and fireside chats FDR took the New Deal directly to the American people; the print
media, on editorial pages and with political cartoons, influenced public opinion; in the
public sphere individuals and corporations saw first hand the New Deal programs and
their successes and failures; in the government, through debates and legislation the New
Deal was supported or dissolved. This site includes samples from every arena regarding a
few major events and legislation and can be viewed in two ways:
Through the <a href> Chronology—Use the timeline to explore the events and
individuals, reviewing the primary sources along the way. (Change font?) Some events or
acts can be viewed in depth, with background and a sample of media. This site focuses on
<a href> the prologue, the first one hundred days, the banking crisis, the National
Industrial Recovery Act, and the Judicial Reorganization plan of 1937. Other events
featured on the timeline provide a brief summary of the legislation.
In the <a href> Galleries—Follow the Great Depression through one medium,
speeches, cartoons, editorials or legislation. (Change font) This allows you to see how
public opinion changed over time and how the New Deal, as a whole, was approached by
different media.
The site also includes some background on the New Dealers, individuals who
made the plan a reality and access to the legislation itself.
As one of the first presidents to interact freely with the media and use radio as a means to
persuade and calm the public, FDR provided a abundance of material to be reviewed.
Unfortunately, the scope of this project is limited, but it should provide a glimpse into the
people and events of the Great Depression as well as valuable primary materials that
allow the audience to form its own opinion, based on the unadulterated facts. Again, it is
not the goal of this site to evaluate the New Deal or its sponsors, but, using examples
from the Roosevelt administration, to engage in an active discussion regarding two of the
most important political questions of the twentieth century: How do we define the role of
government? and Who defines it?