The Great Depression and the
New Deal
Chapter 33
AP
Who was FDR?
• Wealthy New Yorker
• Harvard
• Columbia Law
School
• Values:
– Civic duty
– Competitive
athletics
– Public service
FDR?
• Anna Eleanor
Roosevelt
• Democrat
• NY State Senate
• Asst. Sec of Navy
• Dem candidate for
VEEP in 1920
• 1921 – Polio
• Gov. of NY
What were FDR’s achievements as
governor of NY?
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Reform
Unemployment insurance
Strengthened child labor laws
Tax relief for farmers
Pensions for the old
Depression – increased public works
Temporary Emergency Relief
Administration
The Election of 1932
Inauguration Day 1933…
How did FDR restore confidence?
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Inaugural message…
Roots of New Deal…
Fireside Chats…
“Bank Holiday”
Emergency Banking Act…
FDIC…
Fireside Chat
What was Keynesian Economics?
• John Maynard Keynes
• To get economy going:
– Lower taxes
– Spend money
– Run up deficit
• “pump priming”
• Gov’t could step aside and cut
expenses
• Let private business take over
“Prime
the
Pump”…
The Economy Act?
• FDR had promised to balance the
budget
• Asked Congress to cut gov’t
salaries, pensions, and take steps to
reduce deficit
• Legalized light beer and wine
• 21st Amendment
What were the key components of
the First Hundred Days?
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Civilian Conservation Corps
Gold Reserve Act
Federal Emergency Relief Act
Tennessee Valley Authority
Agricultural Adjustment Act
National Industrial Recovery Act
Federal Securities Act
What was the TVA?
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Hydroelectric network
Cheap electric power
Flood control
Recreational facilities
Soil conservation
Improved social and economic well-being
of underdeveloped region
Stringing Rural
TVA
Transmission
Line
What was the AAA?
• Producers received subsidies to take
acreage out of production
• Tax on food processors – financed
subsidies
• Cost passed on to the Am. People in
terms of higher costs
• Goal: parity to restore farm prices at 19091914 levels
How successful was the AAA?
• Successes:
– Raised farm income
• Failures:
– Hurt tenant farmers and sharecroppers
– Negative affect of crop destruction
• Southern Tenant Farmers Union
– Opposed evictions
– Strikes to raise farm wages
What was the National Industrial
Recovery Act?
• Reflects back to trade assoc. of Hoover era
• Public Works Administration - $3.3 billion –
Harold Ickes – priming the pump
• Drafted codes for fair competition
– Set production limits
– Prescribed wages
– Forbade price cutting and unfair
competitive practices
– NRA administered codes
Why did organized labor like the
NIRA?
• Section 7a
–Prohibited employers from
discriminating against union members
–Affirmed workers legal right to organize
and bargain collectively
Why did the NIRA bog down?
• Too cumbersome
– Code violations
– Used to restrain competition and keep
prices high
• Unpopular
– Small businesses said it favored large co.
• Declared unconstitutional
– Gave regulatory powers to the Pres that
should have gone to Congress
– Regulated commerce within the states
How did the American people
respond to the New Deal?
• Very popular
• 1934 election – Democratic party
increased its majority in Congress
Why was Roosevelt challenged
from the Right and Left?
• Business leaders saw the New
Deal as a threat to capitalism
• Right  too far left
• Left  not far enough
Who Challenged from the Right?
• American Liberty League - Al Smith (grew
conservative) - Top corporate figures - U.S.
Chambers of Commerce
• Called New Deal extravagant, socialistic, and
unconstitutional.
• Roosevelt's style of governance was compared
to that of Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini.
• New Deal programs restricted individual
freedom  Socialism
• FDR was a “traitor to his class”
Al Smith
The
American
Liberty
League
Father Charles Coughlin
• Radio priest with an
audience of 40 million
• Royal Oak, Michigan
• At first supported New
Deal
• Later called FDR “a
great betrayer and liar”
• Anti-Semitic
• Wanted to nationalize
the banks
• National Union of Social
Justice – supported by
urban middle class
Who Challenged from the Left?
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Upton Sinclair
Francis Townsend
Huey Long
American Labor
Upton Sinclair
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Ran for Gov. of California – 1934
EPIC – End Poverty in California
$50/month pension for all poor over 60
Government run system of production
Won the Democratic primary
Lost in close election
Francis Townsend
• California retired
physician
• $200/month to all
retirees over 60
• Must spend the
entire amount in 30
days
• Help elderly and
stimulate the
economy
Huey Long
• LA Governor – political machine –
controlled the state
• 1932 Senator
• Share Our Wealth
• 100% tax on all incomes over
$1million
• Appropriation of all incomes over
$5 million
Every Man a King
• Give every
American a
comfortable
income, house,
car, old –age
pension,
education
• Aspired to the
presidency assassinated
Labor Movement
• Unemployment councils organized by the
communist party
• Marches and rallies demanding public
works and relief
• Minneapolis – Teamster strike – violence
against the workers unites the people
• San Francisco – general strike in
response to violence against the
Longshoremen
• Power of labor solidarity and mass protest
How did FDR respond?
• Economy had not rebounded as FDR had
thought it would – rose 25% from 1933
• Millions still jobless
• 2,000 strikes
• SECOND NEW DEAL - more reform –
more relief – social welfare benefits move further to the left
What were the goals of the Second
Hundred Days?
• Expanding federal relief
• Emergency Relief Appropriation Act –
1935
• Works Progress Administration (WPA)
• National Youth Administration
• Public Works Administration
• National Debt doubles – a means to an
end
Emergency Relief Appropriation
Act - 1935
• Granted FDR $5 billion to spend
as wished
• Set up the WPA
• Harry Hopkins
Works Progress Administration
• Relief assistance from federal
government to individuals
• Provided work for the jobless
rather than a hand – out
• 8 years – 8 million people
employed
• $11 billion economy
Public works
• 650,000 miles of
roads
• 124,000 bridges
• 125,000 schools,
post offices, etc.
Field House at LSU – WPA project
Federal Writers Project
• Out of work authors wrote state guides,
histories of ethnic and immigrant groups
• Transcribed handwritten legal documents
from Salem Witchcraft trials
• Interviewed 2,000 ex-slaves
Federal Theatre Project
• Put unemployed actors to work
• Brought live theatre to small town America
Other Work Relief Projects
• National Youth Administration – part – time
work for high school and college youths
• Public Works Administration
– Harold Ickes
– Spent $4 billion on 24,000 building
projects – bridges, college libraries,
Grand Coulee Dam
• FDR reluctantly tolerated deficit spending as
the price of other New Deal Goals
Other Projects
• Artists designed posters - taught painting –
murals
• Historians employed
• Musicians formed symphonies
Why did the Second New Deal turn
left?
• FDR tried to appeal to all – gave up
• Conservative criticism
• Offered a program geared to the needs
of the poor, disadvantaged and
laboring masses
• Feared Coughlin, Townsend, and Long
would have a popular appeal
Resettlement Administraton
• Loans to small
framers to buy
farms
• Allow tenant
farmers and
sharecropper
tilling exhausted
soil to resettle
National Labor Relations Act –
Wagner Act
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1935
Guaranteed collective bargaining rights
Permitted closed shops
Outlawed management spying on unions
and blacklisting union agitators
• National Labor Relations Board created to
supervise union elections and to monitor
unfair labor practices
Social Security Act
• 1935
• Old age pension
• Survivor’s benefits for victims of industrial
accidents
• Unemployment insurance
• Aid to dependent mothers and children,
blind, crippled
• Paid for by taxes on wages
• Established the principle of government
responsibility for public welfare
Revenue Act of 1935
• Raised personal taxes and boosted
taxes on gifts and estates
• Expressed class conscious spirit of
the Second New Deal
What gains were made by labor
during the New Deal?
Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO)
• 1935
• Organized unskilled labor
• Steel workers, auto, rubber, textile mills
• Welcomed all workers regardless of race,
gender or skill
• 1936 steel workers won recognition from U.S.
Steel – wage increase and 40 hr. week
United Auto Workers
• Organized by Walter Reuther
• Struck against GM
• Sit – down strike of Fisher Body in Flint –
1936-37
• GM called in the police, sent spies to
union meetings, threatened to fire workers
• FDR and governor of MI refused to send in
troops
• Feb., 1937 – GM recognized the UAW
How did the American People
respond to the New Deal?
• Election of 1936
– Republican candidate – Alf Landon of
Kansas
– FDR – only issue in the campaign – carried
every state but Maine and Vermont
– Congress – increased the Democratic
margin
What was the New Democratic
Coalition?
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Solid South
Large cities
Midwestern farmers
Urban immigrants
Organized labor
Northern blacks
Women
How did the Supreme Court react
to the New Deal?
• Schechter v. U.S. – NRA
unconstitutional because it gave
legislative power to the executive and
regulated intrastate commerce
• Butler v. U.S. – AAA unconstitutional
– tax used to finance was not
constitutional
How did FDR propose to change
the Supreme Court?
• “Nine old men”
• 6 over 70
• Appoint one new justice for each one over
70
• Excuse – help older justices keep up with
the work load
• Criticized by members of own party for
“court packing”
How was the issue resolved?
• Conservative justices began to
retire
• Appointed 4 new justices
• Social Security, TVA, and Wagner
Act were all upheld
• Weakened FDR’s relationship
with Congress
Evaluation of New Deal?
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Fair Labor Standards Act – minimum wage
Lasting monuments …..
Successful programs …..
Changed expectations ….
Changed government role …