CHAPTER 25
The New Deal
1933 – 1939
“We are going to make a country in which no one is left
out.”
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
“Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives
in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a
Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
A singer, songwriter, poet and activist, Guthrie
sang simple folk songs, far cry from the
bombast of today’s rock ‘n’ roll. Guthrie was
born in Oklahoma in 1912. The dust storms
and Great Depression forced him to move to
California in the ’30s, and inspired much of his
work. He wrote songs addressing social
injustice and economic slavery, but added
humor to keep his material from sounding
preachy.
After an association with the American Communist Party in California, Guthrie
moved to New York, where he collaborated with fellow folk musician Pete Seeger.
Guthrie continued to use folk music as tool for political commentary for 20 years,
singing in support of unions, farmers and migrants. The memorable piece “This
Land Is Your Land,” was written as an answer song to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless
America.” The blacklisting of the ’50s saw Guthrie fall out of favor, and in 1952, he
became ill. He was later diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, a rare, hereditary
fatal degenerative nerve disorder. His music was rediscovered in the mid-’60s,
and Guthrie was awarded the Conservation Service Award by the U.S.
Department of the Interior in 1966. As he lay dying, a then-unknown folk singer
named Robert Zimmerman, later known as Bob Dylan, made a pilgrimage to his
bedside. Guthrie died in 1967, leaving behind a lasting musical legacy.
FDR’s 2nd Bill of Rights [1944]
 The right to a useful and remunerative job in the
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industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food
and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his
products at a return that will give him and his family a
decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to
trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair
competition and domination by monopolies at home
or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to
achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of
old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.
New York Times [page A-1]: March 24, 2005
Report Says Medicare Is In Poor Fiscal Shape
“In their annual report to Congress, the trustees of the Social
Security and Medicare programs said the long-term financial
condition of the Social Security System deteriorated slightly over
the last year.
But the trustees emphasized that Medicare’s financial outlook was
“much worse than Social Security’s” and predicted that the monthly
Medicare premiums paid by almost all Americans who are 65 and
older would rise by 12 percent next year after a 17 percent increase
this year.”
Rexford Tugwell’s 1946 World Constitution
The establishment of executive, judicial, and
planning institutions
 To maintain peace
 To establish equality
 To protect and enlarge liberty
 To increase well-being and reduce personal hazard
 To develop resources
 To facilitate commerce and communication
 To organize mutual assistance among peoples
 To lay imposts and taxes
 To provide a monetary system
 To establish mutual credit institutions
 To establish common weights and measures
 And in general to assure the progress of mankind.
Bibliography
Saul Alinsky, John L. Lewis [1949]
Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and
War [1995]
Paul Conkin, The New Deal [1975]
Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic
[2004]
John Patrick Diggins, The Rise and Fall of the American Left [1973]
James Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and
Okie Culture in California [1989]
Nelson Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther [1995]
John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath [1939]
Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished
Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever [2004}
Studs Terkel, Hard Times [1970]
Chapter Review
 Compare and contrast the first two years of the New Deal with
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the New Deal after 1934.
Explain the 3 “R’s” of the New Deal – relief, reform, recovery.
Explain how the Social Security Act and the Works Progress
Administration were examples of the move of the second New Deal
toward goals of social reform and justice.
Describe the economic and political impact of the New Deal on
women and minorities.
Explain Roosevelt’s “court packing scheme.”
Explain the long-term legacy of the New Deal for American politics
and life.
Identifications
 New Deal
 Civilian Conservation Corps
 Harry Hopkins
 Civil Works Administration [CWA]
 Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]
 Agricultural Adjustment Act [AAA]
 Dust Bowl
 Huey Long, John L. Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt
 The Grapes of Wrath
 Mary McLeod Bethune, Marian Anderson
 Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Henry James, Gene Krupa
Concepts
 New Deal -- Relief, Reform, Recovery
 Bonus Army, 1932
 Congress of Industrial Organizations [sit-down v. 1960s
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boycotts]
Fascist government
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC]
Hoovervilles [1991 Border security conference at UCLA and
Brownsville, Texas]
Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC]
Tennessee Valley Authority
Woody Guthrie, Sunset Camp near Arvin
Rexford Tugwell, a World Constitution
Upton Sinclair 1934 campaign for CA Governor, Movie ads
National Labor Relations Board – farmworkers, waitresses,
domestics
Hard Times, by Studs Terkel [“Okies” at Fox Theater in
Bakersfield]
Bonus Marchers
Bonus Marchers battling police in Washington, D.C., in 1932. Police
and military assaults on these homeless veterans infuriated
Americans and prompted Democratic Presidential nominee Franklin
D. Roosevelt to declare, “Well, this will elect me.”
Bonus Army camp in Washington, D.C. Spring 1932
Gen. Douglas MacArthur directs US Army as it evacuates Bonus Army demonstrators
After veterans are chased out with tear gas, the Bonus Army camp was burned
James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens, star of 1936 Olympic
Games in Berlin. [4 gold metals and 2 world records]
The Dust Bowl
Years of over-cultivation,
drought, and high winds
created the Dust Bowl, which
most severely affected the
southern Great Plains.
Federal relief and
conservation programs
provided assistance, but
many residents fled the area,
often migrating to California.
Migrant mother
A sullen mother stares
vacantly between her two
children in a migrant labor
camp in Nipomo, California in
1936. This photograph,
commissioned by the FSA,
came to symbolize the Great
Depression for many people.- courtesy of the Library of
Congress
FDR signs Social Security Act of 1935
FDR signs the Social Security Act in 1935 , establishing a program that would grow
in size and importance in subsequent decades. To the left in a dark suit is Senator
Robert F. Wagner; behind FDR is Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. All three were
influential in shaping an activist federal government that some Americans would later
decry as unnecessary.
The most ambitious of all
New Deal programs provided
was the Works Progress
Administration (WPA). Outof-work artists were
employed by the WPA's
Federal Art Project to
exhibit their works to the
public.
1939 Dorothea Lange photo of Farm Security Administration
migrant workers camp at Farmersville, CA
Dorothea Lange photo of pea workers’ camp in CA, February
1936
John Steinbeck [1902-1968] – 1939 novel Grapes of Wrath won the
Pulitzer prize for literature.
Columbia University’s Rexford G. Tugwell [1891-1979], undersecretary of
agriculture and part of the “brain trust” – new US constitution
Distribution of Income in the United States, 1929–1946
An unequal distribution of
income contributed to the
Great Depression by limiting
purchasing power. Only slight
changes occurred until after
World War II, but other
factors gradually stabilized
the national economy.
Source:U.S. Bureau of the
Census
FDR with a young LBJ ca. 1936
The Tennessee Valley Authority
By building dams and hydroelectric power plants, the TVA controlled
flooding and soil erosion and generated electricity that did much to
modernize a large region of the Upper South.
Wall Street [Stock Market]
John Maynard Keynes [1883-1946] offered alternative economic theories
to those of Hans Morgenthau –spending on public works and relief.
Adolph Hitler speaking at Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, 1935
A Douglas DC-3, first flown in 1935 carrying 21 passengers.
Mexican American workers on strike in CA, 1933
Unemployed marchers at Capitol, January 1932
Newsman Edward R. Murrow [1908-1965], CBS European
bureau chief in London in 1941.
Roosevelt and Hoover riding together to inauguration on March 3, 1933
FDR’s inauguration – “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. .
.”.
Harry Hopkins [1890-1946], head of Federal Emergency Relief
Administration [FERA] in 1933, and later the Works Progress Administration
[WPA].
1936 dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma
Vernon Evans left South Dakota in July 1936 for a new start
A WPA tent theater in San Bernardino, CA in February 1937
Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, the Detroit “Radio Priest” New Deal critic.
Huey Pierce Long [1893 – 1935] Louisiana governor – “every man a
king” and “Share the Wealth Program” [from inheritance taxes]
Educator Mary McLeod Bethune [1875-1955], appointed in
1935 to a federal National Advisory Committee to the National
Youth Administration. [January 1943 portrait by Gordon Parks]
Striking Teamsters and police in Minneapolis, June 1934
Frederick Lewis Allen published Only Yesterday: An Informal
History of the 1920s in 1933.
Greta Garbo and John Berrymore in Grand Hotel.
1935 The Littlest Rebel featuring Shirley Temple
Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in 1939 Gone with the Wind.
Amelia Earhart [1897-1937] in Oakland, CA after her 1935 solo flight
from Hawaii. In 1932, first woman to fly solo across Atlantic Ocean.
The Glenn Martin China Clipper flying over the Golden Gate
Bridge on way to Manila in 1936.
The dirigible Akron in June 1932, just before it went down in an
Atlantic storm. Dirigibles were first developed in 1900. The
Hindenburg caught fire and burned in Lakehurst, NJ in 1937
FDR at Pan-American conference in Buenos Aires in 1936 to
finalize his “Good Neighbor Policy”
Charles Lindbergh with Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
at his German villa, July 1936
Germans marching into Paris following June 14, 1940 surrender
I.
Rock Bottom
 Roosevelt experiments when unsure what course to follow,
beginning with a “bank holiday” and the first of his “fireside
chats”
 “First hundred days” sees much legislation enacted, as Alphabet
Agencies are born
 First administration concentrates on immediate relief, conservation,
and regional planning [relief, reform, recovery]
Tennessee Valley
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II.
Economic Recovery
 Agricultural Adjustment Act brings some improvement for some
farmers, but not for tenant farmers
 Dust Bowl aggravates economic problems
 Public Works Administration and its construction jobs only one
example of FDR’s willingness to experiment with central planning
©2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning ™ is a trademark used herein under license.
Dust Bowl
III.
New Deal Diplomacy
 FDR pledges to put “first things first,” namely America
 New president recognizes communist government of
Soviet Union, easing tensions
 FDR also advocates Good Neighbor Policy in Latin
America and tries to remain uninvolved
IV.
Critics: Right and Left
 “Waiting on lefty. . .”
 Some believe FDR has gone too far, while others feel he has
not gone far enough
 Greatest challenge is from Louisiana’s Huey Long, who wants
to redistribute America’s wealth
 Another critic, Father Charles Coughlin, concentrates on free
silver
 Francis Townsend advocates $200 per month pension for all
Americans over sixty
V.
The Second New Deal
 In “Second New Deal,” FDR moves to left to counter
critics
 Social Security Act of 1935 provides “old age
insurance” for Americans
 Wagner Act of 1935 addresses labor problems
 2007 – Labor congressional effort to have “card check”
as a replacement for secret ballots
VI.
The Fascist Challenge
 Hitler and Mussolini are viewed as more threatening to
America
 Americans still desire neutrality and say so, in formal
Neutrality Acts
VII. Mandate from the People
 The 1936 election is landslide victory for Roosevelt
 Voting patterns undergo dramatic shift as African
Americans move into Democratic camp
Presidential Election, 1936
VIII. Popular Culture in the Depression
 Films such as The Grapes of Wrath illustrate problems
facing Americans, who flock to nation’s movie theaters
 Politicians and public figures gravitate to radio
coverage
IX. The Second Term
 FDR’s most serious miscalculation as president is
his attempt to enlarge Supreme Court
 Labor strikes escalate, but owners make concessions to
workers and tensions ease
X.
Losing Ground
 Spanish Civil War divides Americans
 Germany becomes greater threat as Hitler targets
Jews, but America continues to look the other way
 Roosevelt moves toward tighter money policy, but
recession reappears