Ch 15 Study Guide
Section 1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
1. Why was FDR elected in 1932? What personal characteristics of his seemed to appeal to
the general public?
2. What were the three major goals of the New Deal?
3. Why did FDR engage in a series of "Fireside chats" with the American people?
4. How did Congress and the president attempt to save the banking system in 1933?
5. In general, how did liberal and conservative critics differ in their opposition to the New
Deal?
6. Why did people regard FDR's court-packing scheme as a threat to the constitutional
principle of separation of powers?
7. What did Father Coughlin, Dr. Townsend, and Senator Huey Long dislike about the New
Deal?
8. How did FDR change the role of the federal government during his first term as
president?
Section 2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
1. What role did Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt play in her husband's administration?
2. Who were the groups that now made up the "New Deal Coalition?"
3. How might the Second New Deal help sharecroppers, migrant workers, and other poor
farmers?
4. What were the major provisions of the Wagner Act of 1935? Why could it be called the
"Magna Carta of Labor?"
5. What were the three areas covered by the original Social Security Act of 1935?
6. Why might the Social Security Act be considered the most important achievement of the
entire New Deal era?
Vocabulary:
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath New
Infrastructure
Dorothea Lange
Section 3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
1. What opportunities were available for women during the New Deal period? What
limitations still existed at the time?
2. Why was the "Black Cabinet" important to FDR's administration?
3. How did the New Deal discriminate against African-Americans?
4. How did the Great Depression and the New Deal affect Mexican-Americans?
5. How was the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 a challenge to prior government treatment
of Native Americans as laid down by the Dawes Act of 1887?
6. How did New Deal policies affect organized labor?
7. Why did the CIO use sit-down strikes? How effective were they?
Vocabulary:
Deal Coalition
Frances Perkins
Mary McLeod Bethune
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
Section 4: Culture in the 1930s
1. What purpose did movies and radio serve during the Great Depression?
2. What New Deal programs supported artists and writers in the 1930s? Why did the New
Deal fund these projects?
3. What were the themes of the plays, books, and paintings/murals of this period?
4. How did the literature of the time reflect the issues of the Depression?
5. What were the main benefits of government support for art and literature in the 1930s?
Vocabulary:
Gone With the Wind
Federal Art Project
Woody Guthrie
Section 5: The Impact of the New Deal
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Why did industrial production drop again and unemployment go up once more in 1938?
Why was the New Deal over, in reality, by 1939?
What impact did the New Deal have on the role and structure of the federal government?
How did the Social Security system represent a change from past government policies?
In what ways was the New Deal a success? a failure?
Identify the New Deal programs that are still in place today.
Vocabulary:
Deficit Spending (pg. 492)
Keynesian economics (pg. 492)