“Only Thing To Fear”
- America tired of Hoover
-1932 Inauguration Speech
“The only thing we have to
fear, is fear itself”
-Public Relations
-Fireside Chats
FDR spoke by radio to
America on a regular basis
Calmed their fears
In 1932, the presidential election showed that
Americans were clearly ready for a change.
“Only Thing To Fear”
- Lame-duck period
Hoover tried to initiate some
of Roosevelt’s plans
met by stubbornness and
resistance.
FDR accused of letting the
depression worsen so that he
could emerge as an even more
shining savior.
- 20th Amendment
Lame duck period to 6 weeks
(January, not March
inauguration )
A Call to Action
-Progressive programs
Experiment with solutions
Relief, Recovery, Reform
-Group Effort
Eleanor Roosevelt
More political first lady
Brain Trust
Intellectuals who helped FDR
develop policies
The Roosevelt administration
implemented programs to provide
relief to farmers. It also aided other
workers and provided for stimulating
economic recovery. What do you
think the cartoonist means by
Roosevelt’s remark concerning New
Deal remedies?
Frances Perkins
Secretary of Labor
1st woman to hold cabinet position
-1st 100 Days
March-June 1933
Eleanor Roosevelt
A niece of Teddy Roosevelt and a distant cousin of Franklin, Eleanor lost her
parents at an early age and was raised by a strict grandmother.
As First Lady, she often urged the president to take stands on controversial
issues. She became known for speaking out against economic and social
injustice. In presenting a booklet on human rights to the UN in 1958 she said,
“Where after all do human rights begin?... [In] the world of the individual
person: the neighborhood…the school…the factory, farm or office where he
works.”
African Americans
-Mary McLeod Bethune
friend of Eleanor Roosevelt
established “Black Cabinet”
Advised President on education
When the Daughters of the American
Revolution chose not to allow Anderson to
perform in their concert hall Eleanor
Roosevelt arranged for her to perform at the
Lincoln Memorial
-Concert of Marian Anderson at the
Lincoln Memorial
-Roosevelt never fully committed to
civil rights
-African Americans came to support
the Democratic Party
First New Deal
-Deficit spending
Spending money country does not
have (Keynesianism)
-Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933
– FDR Controls the banks
Bank Holiday closed all banks to
prevent withdrawals
Reopened sound banks-those unable
to repay debts stayed closed
-Off of the gold standard
controlled inflation
Congress to buy gold at increasingly
higher prices (1 oz. = $35 v. $21 oz.)
Alphabet Soup - Banking
-FDIC
Federal Depositors Insurance
Corporation
federal insurance for individual bank
accounts up to $100,000
-SEC
Securities and Exchange Commission
regulate stock market
-Federal Securities Act
Truth in Securities Act
required promoters to give sworn
information regarding the soundness
of their stocks and bonds.
Alphabet Soup - Jobs
-PWA
Public Works Administration
Money given to states to create
construction jobs
intended both for industrial recovery
and for unemployment relief
Headed by Secretary of the Interior
Harold L. Ickes
projects that included public
buildings, highways, and parkways
Grand Coulee Dam
- CWA
The Civil Works Administration
provide purely temporary jobs during
the winter emergency.
 frivolous - “boondoggling”)
Alphabet Soup - Jobs
-WPA
Works Progress Administration
provided jobs for unskilled workers,
built many government buildings
-TVA
Tennessee Valley Authority
flood control
hydroelectricity
-CCC
Civilian Conservation Corp
young men age 18-25
Built roads, parks
Alphabet Soup - Labor
-Fair Labor Standards Act
Minimum Wage – 40 cents/hr.
44 hr max/week
ended child labor
-NLRA
National Labor Relations Act/
Wagner Act
monitor unfair management
practices such as firing workers who
join unions
Alphabet Soup - Labor

CIO
Committee for Industrial
Organization
Unskilled laborers unions
Formed by - John L. Lewis,
the boss of the United Mine
Workers
Within the ranks of the AF
of L
The CIO later left the AF of
L and became Congress of
Industrial Organizations
Alphabet Soup - Labor
-
NRA
National Recovery
Administration
most complicated of the
programs
designed to assist
industry, labor, and the
unemployed.
maximum hours
minimum wages
more rights for labor
union members
choose their own
representatives in
bargaining
Alphabet Soup - Labor
- NRA
 The Philadelphia Eagles
were named after NRA
 shot down by the
Supreme Court.
Alphabet Soup - Agriculture
- Dust Bowl
Missouri, Texas, Kansas,
Arkansas, and Oklahoma
forced many farmers to
migrate west
inspired Steinbeck’s classic
The Grapes of Wrath.


The dust was very
hazardous to the health
and to living, creating
further misery.
Resettlement
Administration - removed
near-farmless farmers to
better land.
Alphabet Soup - Agriculture
- AAA
Agricultural Adjustment
Act
millions of dollars to help
farmers meet their
mortgages
- Frazier-Lemke Farm
Bankruptcy Act
suspension of mortgage
foreclosure for five years
voided in 1935 by the
Supreme Court
Alphabet Soup - Housing
- HOLC
Home Owners’ Loan Corporation
refinanced mortgages on nonfarm homes
- FHA
Federal Housing Administration
small loans to householders
It was one of the “alphabetical”
agencies to outlast the age of
Roosevelt.
- USHA
Housing Authority
lend money to states or
communities for low-cost
construction
1st time slum areas stopped growing.
Alphabet Soup – Seniors
-SSA
Social Security Act
> 65 get retirement income
Alphabet Soup – Indians
- Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
(the Indian “New Deal”)
John Collier - Commissioner of
Indian Affairs
sought to reverse forcedassimilation
encouraged tribes to preserve
their culture and traditions
Not all Indians liked it (200 did).
Not Enough Help
-By 1935 the economy has
still not recovered
Depression not over yet
-there is enough relief to
keep people from starving
-some people start to
demand more action
“Eighteen million Americans are so poor
of this world’s goods that they are on
relief ”
New Deal Critics
-Father Charles Coughlin
heavy taxes on the rich to
provide income for all
guaranteed annual income
-Huey Long
“Every man a King”
guaranteed income ($5000),
home and college for all
“Share Our Wealth” Plan
“We owe debts in America today, public
and private, amounting to $252 billion.
That means that every child is born
with a $2000 debt around his neck… We
propose that children shall be born in a
land of opportunity, guaranteed a
home, food, clothes, and other things
that make for living, including the right
to education.”-- Huey Long
Limit income to <$1,000,000
- Dr. Francis E. Townsend
each senior receiving $200
month, provided that all of it
would be spent within the month
guaranteed seniors income
Court Packing
-Several New Deal programs
ruled unconstitutional
AAA, NRA
-Roosevelt proposed adding
new justices
-seen as a threat to checks
and balances
1936 Election
- Alfred M. Landon
run against FDR
weak on the radio and weaker
in personal campaigning
favored parts of
FDR’s New Deal
- Roosevelt won
landslide- 523 electoral
votes to Landon’s 8
FDR won primarily because
he appealed to the
“forgotten man”
End of the New Deal
-”I see 1/3 of a nation ill -housed,
ill-clad, ill-nourished”-FDR 1937
-by 1937, some recovery so gov’t
pulls back programs and
depression returns
-opposition grows to continued gov’t
control-not solving the depression
-international affairs begin to take
precedence
What is this political cartoon saying about
the New Deal and its affect on America?
-New deal has great legacy
WWII Ends the Great Depression