Lesson 4 -
Alphabet Agencies and Court-Packing
Outcomes (SWBAT)
o Describe several of the New Deal initiatives passed during FDR’s terms
o Evaluate the effectiveness of FDR’s New Deal
Activities
1.
2.
3.
4.
Alphabet Agencies worksheet. Give students 15 minutes to take down
information from their Howarth text. Include text on New Deal
agencies for them to peruse.
Court-Packing. Go through this bit of history.
FDR DBQ. Student time to work on these. Due for marks tomorrow.
post-lesson responder quiz
Materials
1.
2.
3.
4.
Alphabet Agencies worksheet
Court-Packing sources and questions
FDR DBQ’s
post-lesson responder quiz
History 12
Ms. Lacroix
Name __________________________________
FDR ALPHABET SOUP
Match it all up… write the name of the correct New Deal Agency with the
corresponding photo or cartoon
History 12
Ms. Lacroix
Name __________________________________
FDR ALPHABET SOUP - KEY
Match it all up… write the name of the correct New Deal Agency with the
corresponding photo or cartoon
Agricultural
Adjustment Act
National Recovery
Administration
Social Security Act
Tennessee Valley
Authority
Public Works
Adminstration
Federal Emergency
Relief Administration
Civilian Conservation
Corps
Works Progress
Administration
Home Owners Loan
Corporation
History 12
Ms. Lacroix
Name ___________________________________
FDR and the New Deal – DBQ
Source A – oral history – interview with WPA worker
Interview with Chris Thorsten, Iron Worker
Interviewee: Chris Thorsten
Birth: 51 years ago, on board a fishing boat moored to a dock in New Orleans
Ethnicity: Scandinavian
Education: No formal education
Occupation: Iron Worker
Location: Union Hall, 84th Street, New York City
Date: January 31, 1938, 1 PM to 3 PM
Interviewer: Arnold Manoff
Interview Excerpt: "Is your job dangerous?"
You ain't an iron worker unless you get killed... Men hurt on all jobs. Take the Washington
Bridge, the Triboro Bridge. Plenty of men hurt on those jobs. Two men killed on the Hotel New
Yorker. I drove rivets all the way on that job. When I got hurt I was squeezed between a crane
and a collar bone broke and all the ribs in my body and three vertebrae. I was laid up for four
years.
Excerpt from the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writer's Project
Collection, Transcript #22032106.
Source B – graph of unemployment in 1930s America
Source C – from text “Nothing to Fear” by historian Adam Cohen, 2009
“Roosevelt’s critics like to point out that the Ne Deal did not end the Great Depression.
Although it took World War II to restore the unemployment rate to where it had been
before the Great Crash, the New Deal did produce steady economic improvement. The
nation’s total production increased significantly between 1934 and 1936. By 1937, the
gross national product reached 1929 levels. Unemployment had fallen to 14% in 1937,
still high, but far below the rate of March 1933. Just as important, for people who
remained unemployed, New Deal programs were providing a safety net. Most of the 20
million Americans who received relief from the FERA at its height, and the millions
who took CCC, CWA, or WPA jobs, would have been destitute if the nation had stuck
by its Hoover era principles.
“It’s his baby now!”
Paragraph response (6)
To what extent was Franklin Delano Roosevelt successful in dealing with the
Great Depression through the legislation offered in his “New Deal”. Refer to
each of the sources, including an assessment of their reliability when answering
the question.
Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937
The provisions of the bill allowed the President to appoint one new,
younger judge for each federal judge with 10 years service who did not
retire or resign within six months after reaching the age of 70 years.
Source A – letter to President Roosevelt, 1937
Excellency:
Just a word of commendation from one of 30 million who believe in you.
Your desires and wise conclusions concerning revamping the judicial system is a reform that
should long ago have been achieved-- but could not be for the reason that reaction has been in
the saddle.
Certainly vitalizing the Supreme Court is a subject all men have a right to disagree upon-- but
the disagreements come from representatives of 'economic royalists" who want no reform that
is not re-formed in their favor.
The voters in three successive elections increasingly gave YOU their endorsement. You are
"on the green light". Go ahead and free wheeling to you!
And that Child Labor amendment. DO, please, keep behind it and give the kids the right to
enjoy the blessed irresponsibility of childhood-to play, to be educated, to be "just kids" and not
little slaves.
Mr. President-- you've got what it takes. More power to you!
With sincere respect and admiration,
Yours unfailingly,
W-- H--
Source B – letter to President Roosevelt, 1937
Dear Sir,
…You now propose to use that power over a weak Congress to give you an equally weak Supreme
Court. When that has been accomplished you can match Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler both as to
rubber stamp legislatures and rubber stamp courts, and your power in the country will be equal to
their power in theirs.
It may well be that you can afford to forfeit your interest in democratic government for the sake of
being in the saddle when complete dictatorship arrives. It may well be that you consider complete
dictatorship, under your own rule, as being in the interests of the foolish people who elected you and
re-elected you to head the Executive branch of the Federal government. It is difficult to see how any
reasonable person could otherwise interpret your methods of obtaining additional powers by
circumvention of the Constitution rather than by permitting the States of the Union to consider grants
of additional power in the orderly method provided for changing the Constitution when the States so
desire.
Very truly yours,
P-- M-- D-Orlando, Florida
Roosevelt's initiative ultimately failed due to adverse public opinion,
the retirement of one Supreme Court Justice, and the unexpected
and sudden death of the legislation's U.S. Senate champion: Senate
Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson. It exposed the limits of
Roosevelt's abilities to push forward legislation through direct public
appeal and, in contrast to the tenor of his public presentations of his
first-term, was seen as political maneuvering. Although circumstances
ultimately allowed Roosevelt to prevail in establishing a majority on
the court friendly to his New Deal agenda, some scholars have
concluded that the President's victory was a pyrrhic one.