• The Brains Trust
• First New Deal
• Three R’s
• Alphabet soup
• Industry and Agriculture
• Second New Deal
• Supreme Court
• Decline of the New Deal
• Dr ‘Win the War
• Assessing the Impact of the New Deal

• “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people”
• Recognition of the need for activism rather than passivity and long term change
• The First New Deal –
1933-34

• Included Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell and
Adolf Berle, all professors at Columbia University.
• Wrote speeches and developed plans based on need for government action in order to stimulate recovery of economy.
• Demonstrated an understanding of the scope of the problem

• Relief – emergency help for the destitute.
• Recovery – need to get the economy going again.
• Reform – need to address structural problems in American economy and society.
• Relief, Recovery and Reform were not always separate categories – programmes often served more than one aim.

• Before the New Deal: very patchy and limited welfare provision
• State rather than Federal responsibility (need for ` relief AND reform)
• Rapid response - Federal Emergency
Relief Administration (FERA) allocated $5 million within two hours
• Every State created relief agencies
(previously only eight states had them)

• Direct relief – food etc.
• BUT overall aimed to create jobs not distribute hand-outs
• May 1933- Dec 1935 created
20 million jobs, and distributed $3.1 billion in federal funding
• First instance of federal involvement in direct relief
• Three strands of job creation
• Construction projects/beautification projects
• Projects for professionals (writers, painters etc)
• Production of Consumer goods (production for use) usually goods which were then distributed to the needy – canned goods, bedding etc.

• Nov 1933-March 1934
• short term agency to provide jobs – Nov 1933 –
March 1934
• Spent $200 million funding
4 million jobs
• Public Works of Art Project
Dec 1933 – June 1934
• Controversy often arose over artworks produced

https://youtu.be/XCJLEEvfMnA

• Young unmarried men; conservation, maintaining and restoring forests; stemmed from FDRs interest in conservation
• Popular programme – values of the outdoors/frontier myth/ physical strength/ independence
• Segregated facilities for African-American
Indian Reorganization Act, 1934 (‘Indian New Deal’)
• Gave back autonomy/ self-government to Indian tribes
• Indian Emergency Conservation Works: Improved land on
Reservations; taught carpentry/ surveying/ technicians: 85,000
Native Americans joined the IECW

• Fast moving – modelled on emergency programs
• Economic and psychological impact
• Jobs not hand-outs –more expensive to fund than relief/ more long term benefits/ less dependency or shame
• Work that create a sense of patriotism and pride in
America – Art works and building works.

• Emergency Banking Act, 9 th
March 1933
• 13 th March – 70% banks reopened, deposits exceeded withdrawals (closed since February)
• In the first of his ‘fireside chats’ reassured the
American public that the reopening banks were safe.
• Banking Act of 1933 ( Glass-Steagall Bill)
• Acted quickly; restored confidence and stability; ensured that small deposits were safe; established government control and authority over the banking sector

(NIRA) June 1933
• Created the National Recovery Administration
• Fair competition was key
• Roosevelt’s key economic advisors believed that unrestrained competition had helped cause the depression
• Involved workers in development of industrial codes/
‘democratization of the workplace’
• Stated the right of workers to form unions/ Required that standards on max working hours, minimum pay and fair working conditions be established
• Approved 557 basic industrial codes in two years – covered 90 % of the nations industrial capacity – but difficult to police/enforce.
• Very unpopular ( ruled unconstitutional in May 1935 – set back for
Federal government attempts at Industrial regulation.)

• Set aside $3.3 billion for public works
• Direct attempt to stimulate economy through injection of federal funding
• Authorised federal loans and grants to dates for public works projects/ Focused on the construction of transport projects – roads, bridges, highways etc.
• Projects included Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, Lincoln
Tunnel in New York, Overseas Highway connecting Key West to the Mainland also public schools, and warships for the Navy
• Slow – long lead in time for projects.

Agriculture Adjustment Act (1933)
• Created the Agriculture Adjustment Agency (AAA)
• Paid subsidies to farmers to let land lie fallow and to kill off excess livestock; aimed to let land recover and to raise prices for agricultural products.
• Disadvantaged small farmers and sharecroppers. Prices did increase, but so did costs. (Ruled unconstitutional Jan 1936)
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
• Massive investment into area of desperate poverty – investment in rural electrification, flood control, reforestation in order to create jobs and stimulate local economy. Modernize the TVA area.
• Experiment in public ownership of utilities - perception by many that privately owner utilities were corrupt and selfish.
• TVA was criticised as a socialist exercise by those uncomfortable with government ownership of utilities.

• Quick and desperate.
• Focused on addressing emergency needs, but reflected a need to address the deeper structural problems which had brought about the Great Depression
• Ideology – need for greater government involvement in the economy.
• Popular – in 1934 midterms Democrats increased numbers.
• Limited impact? – GNP inched up slightly but 10 million
Americans were still unemployed in 1934.

• Less based on ‘emergency’ response; Greater focus on long term economic recovery - move away from recovery and relief to focus on reform
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
• Massive attempt at Federal stimulation of economy.
• In total spent $13.4 billion, and provided
8 million jobs between 1935-1943
• Controversial program
• Simultaneously accused of having both a fascist and a socialist agenda
• ‘stamping out’ American individualism

• Addressed problems of old age, widows and orphans, unemployed
• Frances Perkins – first woman in the
Cabinet – Labor Commissioner
• Served on the President’s
Committee on Economic Security
• Recommendations became the
Social Security Act (SSA)
• Social welfare provisions including pensions and unemployment insurance

• Established in 1935 under Rexford Tugwell
• Aimed to address the problems of the rural poor who had been overlooked in first New Deal
• Resettled several thousand homeless drifters
• Green cities eg. Greenbelt,
Maryland
• African American provision was segregated, creating poorer communities

• Backdrop to the achievements of the Second New Deal was challenge by the Supreme Court
• May 1935 Supreme Court ruled the National Recovery
Administration (NRA) was unconstitutional
• January 1936, Supreme Court ruled that The Agriculture
Adjustment Act was unconstitutional
• Other cases pending – challenges to the Wagner Act,
TVA and Social Security Act

• November 1936 – overwhelming victory for Roosevelt in election (27.5 million to
Landon’s 16.7 million) –second term highlighted general disagreement with the Supreme Court
• Feb 1937 - Judicial Reform Plan; also known as the ‘Court packing’ plan
• Strong resistance – from the Supreme Court itself, and from the American public who saw this as an attempt to bypass the system of checks and balances of American government
• By 1941 four SC justices had retired and another two had died. Seven out of the nine SC Justices were Roosevelt appointees

• Recovery not secured – Loss of momentum after 1936 - growing disquiet with deficit spending; pressure to reduce government spending
• 1937 Roosevelt cut Government spending hoping private investment would take its place
• Private investment failed to materialize – ‘Roosevelt recession’ – sharp downturn in the economy
• Industrial production fell more than a third between Aug
1937 –May 1938
• 19 October 1937 stock prices plunged
• Unemployment quickly reached 10 million again (had been just over 7 million in 1937)
• Many urged Roosevelt to be more fiscally conservative

• But in April 1938, $3.75 billion spending programme, based on deficit spending.
• 1938 midterm elections – sizable gains for the
Republicans
• Growing importance of foreign affairs took time and attention away from any further extension of the New
Deal. Outbreak of war in
Europe in 1939
• Roosevelt - Dr New Deal was replaced by Dr Win the War’

• Psychological impact – growth in confidence and patriotism
• Lasting infrastructure legacy
• Long term impact
• initially Social Security was limited and conservative but it established the principle of welfare provision in the US – today the biggest item of Federal expenditure is Social Security
• Often limited to white men, therefore had the biggest impact in this demographic

• Successful in terms of relief; some success in terms of reform which would have long-term impact – e.g. social security
• Less successful in terms of recovery:
US economy was rescued by war – by
1942 the US had achieved full employment
• BUT – what was the war other than deficit spending on a massive scale?
• 1930-40 National Debt increased by $27 billion
• 1941-45 increased by $215 billion

Next week…