The Great
Depression &
The New Deal
1929-1939
The Human Impact of the Great Depression


Subsistence incomes– “We lived lean”; survival primary goal
Marriage and family—marriages/births decreased; “poor man’s
divorce”


Fathers and mothers—fathers more affected than mothers
Psychological impact—shame, self-doubt, self-blame
George Burns and Gracie
Allen; Jack Benny;
marquee for the first
“talkie” The Jazz Singer;
Orson Welles broadcasting
The War of the Worlds.

Programming—radio, a lifeline
One of the Great Plains dust
storms pursues a truck down
the road.

“Black Blizzards”
Dust Bowl
—ecological manmade disaster

Impact of
commercial farming—farm families
replaced by corporate consolidation
and mechanization


Exodusters—hope in California dashed
Cesar Chavez—37 schools;
“following the crops”

Repatriation
—out-migration of Hispanics
An “Okie” vehicle
takes a break by
the side of the
road on the way to
California.

LULAC and ethnic identity—Hispanic civil rights
organization anti-Mexican?

Father Divine and Elijah Muhammed
—afterlife of full equality; Black Muslims: separate nation?

Scottsboro boys—rapes of two white women: one
admitted frame job
END OF READING
The Scottsboro boys and a moment
during their trials.
The Tragedy of Herbert Hoover

Private charity—
overwhelmed by the tremendous
need: only 6% of relief funds

City services—overwhelmed;
states in the red

TERA—New York first state to
even attempt unemployment relief
A was in 1931 (Roosevelt
and that
Hooverville,
governor)
where people
might be
using Hoover
Blankets.
Things will naturally,
eventually correct
themselves.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation—government lending to
banks, insurance companies, railroads: good but not enough—“rescues
banks but not people”

Unemployment relief—a little; Hoover feared the dole would ruin
people’s independence, initiative

Farm Holiday Association—dumping milk; radical ideas gaining
popularity

Communist party—revolution never a danger, but some listening
Veterans of
the U.S.
Army now
part of the
Bonus Army
who went to
Washington
to get their
bonuses
early, but
were forced
out.
The Early New Deal (1933-1935)

Recovery, relief, reform—election in Nov./inauguration in March; flurry in
“100 Days”

Franklin Roosevelt—polio: arrogance
to compassion

The Brains Trust—lawyers, professors
Franklin
and Eleanor
Roosevelt
transformed
the
Presidency
and the
nation.
A Civilian Conservation
Roosevelt
Corps
giving
worker
one of his “fireside
plants trees; Civil Works
chats,”
Administration
such as when he declared a
workers (below) build
“Bank
a sewer
Holiday.”
line. There was no
fireplace in the room where he
delivered his “chats.”

Emergency Banking Act– “Bank
Holiday,” then reopen the solvent, use
“conservators” for the rest


Federal Deposit Insurance
Work relief—CWA, CCC
But CWA workers were also
hired to teach music (right) or
perform or create art as a way
of keeping those skills alive as
well.
The symbol for the Tennessee Valley
Authority and a power plant built by
TVA.

Tennessee Valley Authority—work
relief to revitalize a whole region


Public Works Administration
National Recovery Administration
– “codes of fair
practices” to
control
competition
A restaurant showing
its support of the
National Recovery
Administration.

Schecter decision– “Sick Chicken Case” declares NRA an
unconstitutional over-regulation of commerce

Agricultural
Adjustment
Administration
—producers agree to
limit production/
government pays them
not to produce: prices
go up (flaws,
unconstitutional,
reworked)
END
OF READING
A Second New Deal (1935-1936)

Liberty League—conservative right: million dollars in
Anti-FDR ads

“End Poverty in California”—give poor idle
land, factories: this and below were simplistic solutions

Huey Long– “Share the Wealth” and make “every
man a king” by limiting fortunes

Charles Coughlin—banks
to blame: nationalize them,
inflate currency, spread jobs

Francis Townsend
—pension for 60+ who quit jobs
and spent it in 30 days
Huey Long, the “Kingfish, ” who promised
that every man would be a king. He was a
radical, but Federal government seemed to
be taking responsibility for welfare of all.
Upton Sinclair,
author of The Jungle,
who ran for governor
of California with the
slogan, “End Poverty
in California,” but
smeared and lost
election.

Works Progress Administration—spent billions on wages,
BUT couldn’t compete with private industry: arts, public buildings, etc.
FDR signing the Social
Security Act. The first woman
cabinet member Labor
Secretary Frances Perkins is in
the background.

Social Security—help those who couldn’t help themselves—
aged, infirm, dependent children, unemployed—and maintains
consumption (reaching 65 an accomplishment then)

National Labor Relations Act—Unions not only okayed,
but protected

Roosevelt Coalition—the South, lower rung ethnics and
African Americans, unions: 30 yr. Democratic reign
The American People under the New Deal

Rural Electrification Administration
—farms electrified: 10% 1935 to 90% 1950

African Americans
—party switch from Rep. to Dem.

Mexican Americans
—political inexperience left them
largely untouched by New
Deal benefits
The Boulder Dam
under construction;
Mary McLeod
Bethune was a
member of FDR’s
“Black Cabinet.”

John Collier’s Indian Reorganization Act—tribal life
promoted, assimilation discarded: Indians divided pro and con


CAWIU farm strike—California migrants, Mexicans rise up, put down
Congress of Industrial Organizations—unskilled workers
snubbed by skilled AFLers went their own way
John L. Lewis, the
combative leader of
the United Mine
Workers.
John Collier posing with a
couple of Native
Americans.
Fisher Body workers count down the days during
their sit-down strike; the cast from the movie The
Grapes of Wrath; paintings by Orozco (left) and
Rivera.

Sit-down strikes—effective for
CIO against lockouts, police, scabs


Union gains—near equal player
Rivera and Orozco—New Deal
arts programs

Documentary realism—as it is
The End of the New Deal (1937-1940)

Roosevelt’s plan—pack the courts to
dilute anti-New Deal influence: bad idea

John Maynard Keynes— “pumppriming”: spend way out of depression, tax
to pay debts in prosperity—FDR followed
reluctantly

Recovery abroad—Keynes theory
worked in Europe where they ran up
much larger deficits
British economist John Maynard Keynes
liked the idea of deficit government
spending, thinking that when prosperity
returns taxes can be raised to make up
for the deficit.