Chapter 34
Review
The New Deal
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert
Hoover on the way to FDR's
inauguration, March 4, 1933
With little in common but their top hats,
Herbert Hoover and Franklin D.
Roosevelt ride to Roosevelt's
inauguration on March 4, 1933. (Library
of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Bank Holiday
• March 6, 1933 an emergency measure by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, closing all U.S. banks.
• During the Great Depression, runs on the banks by depositors seeking
their savings caused many banks to fail because they did not have
enough cash on hand to meet the unexpected demand.
• When these banks failed, depositors lost their money, and depositors at
other banks panicked and demanded their money.
• Following the holiday, which stopped this vicious cycle, FDR called
Congress into special session.
• They passed the Banking
Act of 1933, which set up
government agencies to examine bank records,
allow only those solvent to reopen, and regulate
the banking system thereafter.
• By April 1, 1933, most of the nation's banks were operating and back to
normal.
The Three R’s
• Relief
• Recovery
• Reform
100 Days
• The Hundred Days is the title often given to the
first congressional session of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's administration, March 9 to June
16, 1933.
• To address the crisis of the worsening
depression, the president convened Congress in
special session and launched the New Deal with
an avalanche of bills designed to stabilize the
economy, create jobs, and bolster flagging local
relief efforts.
The New Deal
• 1933-39, umbrella label for a wide range of programs adopted
by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to offer relief and stimulate
economic recovery from the Great Depression of the 1930s.
• In his speech accepting the presidential nomination at the 1932
Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt declared, "I pledge ...
myself to a new deal for the American people."
• In a session of Congress called the Hundred Days, numerous laws
were passed creating programs and policies to promote economic
activity and reduce unemployment.
• Although they did not end the depression, these measures and
others relieved hardship for many and established a commitment on
the part of the federal government to deal with American economic
problems.
• The New Deal promoted competition in politics and economics
and increased the popularity of the Democratic party.
• Prosperity was not achieved, however, until World War II, when
military and private spending increased, creating a demand for
workers and goods.
CCC
Civilian Conservation Corps
• 1933, a New Deal agency created to
relieve unemployment among young men
during the Great Depression.
• Workers in the CCC promoted soil
conservation, planted millions of trees,
constructed small dams, cleared forest fire
hazards, and undertook irrigation projects.
• By 1942, when it was disbanded, some 3
million men had received work in the
program.
FERA
• 1933 an act that created the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration. Part of the New Deal, the
FERA provided relief for the needy and
unemployed by giving direct aid to the states.
• It received an initial fund of $500 million from the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation for crisis
relief.
• When Congress passed the Social Security Act
of 1935, the work of the agency was completed.
AAA
Agricultural Adjustment Act
• 1933, law passed by Congress to raise the prices of
grain, milk, and other crops and to restore the
purchasing power of American farmers to pre-World War
I levels.
• The intent was to restrict production by giving a subsidy
to farmers, who would then reduce the amount of staple
crops they grew.
• By 1936 the farmers' share of the national income had
increased substantially, but the law was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the case of
United States v. Butler (1936).
• Further legislation by Congress restored some of the
act's provisions, encouraging conservation, maintaining
balanced prices, and establishing food reserves for
periods of shortages.
HOLC
• Home Owners’ Loan Corporation:
Designed to refinance mortgages on
nonfarm homes, it ultimately assisted
about a million badly pinched households.
• The agency bailed out banks and relieved
middle classes homeowners
Father Charles Coughlin
• Roman Catholic priest and radio broadcaster.
• Coughlin spoke to millions in his weekly radio programs,
which began in 1926 as sermons for the Shrine of the
Little Flower church in Michigan, but later became
tirades on political issues.
• Originally an admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he turned
against him and made bitter attacks on him and his
policies.
• He became an anti-Semitic extremist in the 1930s,
expressing sympathy for European fascists.
• Popular for a while, he gradually lost his followers. In
1942 the Roman Catholic church ordered him to cease
his political activities, and he became a parish priest.
Senator Huey P. Long
• A demagogue and virtual dictator of the state of
Louisiana, Long became governor in 1928 on a populist
platform of "every man a king."
• Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930, Long, called the
"Kingfish," at first supported President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's New Deal.
• As the 1936 election approached, he spoke of mounting
a challenge to Roosevelt for the presidency using the
slogan of "Share Our Wealth."
• Long was assassinated in the marble corridors of the
state capitol in Baton Rouge by the son of a political
opponent; the assassin was slain by Long's bodyguards.
Dr. Francis Townsend
• Physician and advocate of social change. Townsend,
who practiced medicine in southern California during the
Great Depression, became convinced of the need for a
national old-age pension.
• He launched the Townsend Plan in 1933, calling for
pensions of $200 monthly to be financed by a 2 percent
sales tax.
• Citizens over sixty would be eligible only if they spent the
money within a month and promised not to look for work,
thus, Townsend reasoned, stimulating the economy and
freeing jobs for younger workers.
• The movement gathered an enormous following in the
form of Townsend Clubs, but with the passage of the
Social Security Act in 1935 and the gradual improvement
of the economy, the movement dissolved.
NRA
• The National Recovery Administration was designed to organize the
stabilization and revival of the nation's economy; Under NRA
supervision, each sector of the economy was to develop an
industry-wide code, setting standards for
production, prices, and wages. These codes would
have the force of law and would be exempt from
antitrust provisions.
• The program received general support at first. Businesspeople saw
it as a chance to formalize the trade association agreements that
had flourished in the 1920s but were difficult to enforce under the
economic pressures of the depression.
• Labor pinned its hopes on Section 7, which required that
each code specify maximum hours, minimum wages,
safe working conditions, and (under Section 7a)
workers' right to organize.
NRA code
The National Recovery Administration
was Roosevelt's main vehicle to restore
industrial recovery during his First One
Hundred Days. Headed by General Hugh
Johnson, the NRA's goal was to mobilize
management, workers, and consumers
under the symbol of the Blue Eagle;
establish national production codes; and
get America moving again. (Collection
of David J. and Janice L. Frent)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
PWA
•
•
•
Created by Title II in the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 1933, became the
first national peacetime effort to create jobs.
This New Deal program spent over $6 billion to shore up the nation's infrastructure
while combating unemployment.
Under Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes's direction, the PWA constructed or
refurbished highways, dams, low-cost housing, airports,
warships, and other public projects. States and municipalities provided
•
supervision in some cases, but all had to respect PWA guidelines.
No PWA projects could use convict labor or work employees more than thirty hours a
week.
• Congress required that human labor be used "in lieu of
machinery whenever practicable" to maximize employment. By
the close of 1933, thirteen thousand federal projects and
twenty-five hundred locally supervised projects were under
way.
•
The PWA earned a near spotless reputation for good management, and Ickes used
every avenue to guarantee Afro-Americans their share of positions at all levels.
Critics, however, complained that Ickes planned too cautiously, thereby delaying
projects and new jobs.
Soil Conservation and Domestic
Allotment Act 1936
• Withdrawal of Acreage from production
• Paying farmers to plant soil conserving
crops, like soybeans
• Or to let their land lie fallow
• Emphasis on conservation
Dustbowl
• The southern part of the Great Plains plagued by
frequent dust storms, particularly during the
1930s.
• These storms, resulting from drought and
unwise farming methods, caused severe
environmental damage to areas of Kansas,
Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
• John Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of
Wrath (1939) depicts the plight of the "Okies" —
migrant farmers fleeing the dust bowl.
• 350,000 migrated to California
Dorothea Lange photo of migrant
mother and child
Dorothea Lange became one of the most
famous photographers of the Depression.
Her photo of a migrant mother and her
children at a migrant camp in Nipomo,
California, captured the human tragedy
of the Depression. Seeking jobs and
opportunities, over 350,000 people
traveled to the state, most finding few
opportunities. (Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Four families from the Dust Bowl in Texas in an overnight roadside
This 1937 image by Dorothea Lange, a photographer with the Farm Security
Administration, pictures migrants from the Texas Dust Bowl gathered at a roadside
camp near Calipatria in southern California. (Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Federal Securities Act
• 1934, measure creating the Securities and
Exchange Commission to supervise licensing of
stock exchanges.
• The act provided a program of regulatory control
over the purchase and sale of stocks and bonds
to prevent a recurrence of the stock market
crash of 1929.
• Regulations established standards for the
conduct of stock brokers, the control of
unrestricted speculation, and the illegality of
false advertising.
Public Utility Holding Company Act
• The 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act did away
with holding companies more than twice removed from
the utilities whose stocks they held.
• This "death sentence" ended the practice of using
holding companies to obscure the intertwined ownership
of public utility companies.
• Further, the act authorized the SEC to break up any
unnecessarily large utility combinations into smaller,
geographically based companies and to set up federal
commissions to regulate utility rates and financial
practices.
TVA
• 1933, government agency established by New Deal
legislation as part of a long-range planning project to
bring electricity to rural areas of the Tennessee River
valley in seven states and to conserve the region's
resources.
• The TVA was authorized to build dams to control flooding
of the Tennessee River and power plants for the
production and sale of electric power.
• Republican Senator George Norris of Nebraska
supported the plan, which helped prevent flooding and
rebuilt eroded farmland in Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and
Georgia.
FHA
• Federal Housing Administration: Set up
to speed recovery and better homes.
• Building industry was to be stimulated by
small loans to householders, both for
improving their dwellings and for
completing new ones.
• Outlasted the age of Roosevelt
Social Security Act 1935
• A law providing for a system of old-age insurance for
workers at age sixty-five and survivor benefits for
children or spouses of insured workers who die before
age sixty-five.
• The act was a central element in the New Deal program
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• The Social Security Administration, part of the
Department of Health and Human Services, administers
the system.
• Money for the pensions is collected from a Social
Security tax taken out of workers' and employers'
earnings.
• The act also provided that money be returned to the
states so they could set up systems of unemployment
insurance.
Social Security poster
Enacted in 1935, Social Security has
been one of the most enduring of all
New Deal programs. This poster urges
eligible Americans to apply promptly for
their Social Security cards. (Library of
Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
National Labor Relations Act
• 1935, New Deal legislation prohibiting unfair
labor practices against unions and granting
organized labor the right of collective bargaining.
• It also outlawed discrimination against union
members and forbade the use of blacklists.
• The act created the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) to help settle union-management
disputes over unfair labor practices.
• Often called the Wagner Act because it was
written by Senator Robert Wagner of New York,
the act was amended in 1947 by the Taft-Hartley
Act.
Fair Labor Standards Act
• 1938, a law establishing a minimum wage
and a maximum workweek for employees
engaged in interstate industries.
• Also known as the Wages and Hours Act,
it abolished child labor and established
time-and-a-half pay for overtime work.
• The law has been amended many times
since its enactment.
20th Amendment
•
•
•
•
•
•
Section 1 The terms of the President and Vice-President shall end at noon on the 20th day of
January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the
years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of
their successors shall then begin.
Section 2 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin
at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Section 3 If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect
shall have died, the Vice-President-elect shall become President. If a President shall not have
been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have
failed to qualify, then the Vice-President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have
qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor
a Vice-President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the
manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such persons shall act accordingly until
a President or Vice-President shall have qualified.
Section 4 The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from
whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall
have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the
Senate may choose a Vice-President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon
them.
Section 5 Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of
this article.
Section 6 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to
the Constitution by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from
the date of its submission.
21St Amendment
• Section 1 The eighteenth article of amendment to the
Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
• Section 2 The transportation or importation into any
State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for
delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation
of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
• Section 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall
have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution
by conventions in the several States, as provided in the
Constitution, within seven years from the date of
submission thereof to the States by the Congress.
Packing the Supreme Court
• Roosevelt upset with the ultra conservative
Court ruling against 7 out of 9 of his New Deal
programs.
• Wanted to add six new justices to weed out
those over 70.
• Both Republicans and Democrats called foul.
• Eventually time allowed Roosevelt to appoint
nine new justices through death and retirement.
– Only one to do so since Washington
Keynesianism
• New Deal programs actually hurting
economy again through gouging
paychecks.
• John Maynard Keyes (British) theory for
getting out of the depression was for
planned government deficit spending
Hatch Act
• 1939, law forbidding federal executive
employees from participating in and contributing
to any presidential or congressional election
campaign.
• Designed to combat political corruption, the law
imposed stiff penalties on any person who used
political influence on federal officeholders.
• Amended in 1940, the act further included state
and local employees whose salaries were paid
for, even partially, by the federal government.
• It was also called the Federal Corruption
Practices Act of 1939.
The End
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