Chapter 33
The Great Depression and the
New Deal
1933-1939
1932 Campaign
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt- “a new deal”
for the Democrats
• Herbert Hoover- Republicans
• FDR’s Brain Trust
• Landslide for FDR- 472 EV to 59 shift
in black vote (New Deal coalition)
• Lame Duck period until March 4, 1933
100 Days
• “the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself” at the inauguration
• 100 Days= momentum to get things
done Democratic Congress
• Relief, Recovery and Reform= New
Deal policies (progressive reforms)
Banking/Money Reform
• March 6: Bank Holiday to reorganize
March 9= Emergency Banking Relief
Act
• Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act to
create the FDIC and off of gold standard
– Ordered all gold turned in for $35/ounce=
INFLATION!
• Goal= restore confidence in system
Jobs
• 25% unemployment in 1933 prime the
pump
• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration
(FERA) with Harry L. Hopkins
– Civilian Works Administration (CWA)
• Work Progress Administration 1935 with
Harry Hopkins
CCC Workers in Alaska,
1939
WPA Mural, by Victor Arnautoff (1896–1979), 1934
The Pedestrian Scene, painted on a wall of Coit Tower in San Francisco, was one of
a series of murals commissioned by the federal government to employ artists during
the Great Depression.
Opposition to FDR
• Radio priest, Father Charles CoughlinSocial Justice
• Louisiana Senator, Huey P. Long (the
Kingfish)
– Share Our Wealth: “every man a king”
• Dr. Francis Townsend- Townsend Plan
New Deal- Industry
• National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)
created the National Recovery
Administration (NRA)- Blue Eagle
– Membership was suppose to be voluntary
– Schechter Poultry vs. US 1935- “sick chicken
case”
• NIRA also created the Public Works
Administration (PWA)- big projects
– Grand Coulee Dam= irrigation and electricity
Grand Coulee Dam Under Construction on the Columbia River, 1939
Located in central Washington State, the Grand Coulee Dam was one of the most ambitious
projects of the New Deal’s Public Works Administration. It is the largest concrete structure in the
United States and the central facility in the Columbia Basin Project, which generates electricity
for the Pacific Northwest and provides irrigation for half a million acres of Columbia Valley
farmland—services that have transformed the life of the region.
New Deal- Farmers
• Overproduction of farm products
• Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) 1933subsidies to farmers (artificial scarcity)
– US vs. Butler 1936
• Soil Conservation and Domestic
Allotment Act 1936- stop erosion
• Second AAA- parity prices
Dust Bowl
• Drought, overproduction, dry farming,
plowing sod on Great Plains= Dust Bowl
• Mass exodus of Okies and Arkies
• Frazier Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act 1934
to stop farm foreclosures- unconstitutional
• CCC planted 200 million trees on prairies
• Indian Reorganization Act (Indian New
Deal) to reverse the Dawes Act- no more
assimilation!
An Okie Family Hits the
Road in the 1930s to
Escape the Dust Bowl
The Extent of Erosion in the 1930s
Note the extensive wind erosion in the western Oklahoma panhandle region, which was dubbed
the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930s. Mechanized farmers had “busted” the sod of the southern plains so
thoroughly that they literally broke the back of the land. Tons of dust blew out of the Dust Bowl in
the 1930s and blotted the sun from the skies as far away as New York
TVA
• Cost of utilities up, Tennessee Valley
hard hit by Depression
• Tennessee Valley Authority: regional
central planning agency
– Hydroelectric power, flood control, create
jobs, education for farmers
– Socialism?
More than twenty dams were constructed on the river’s tributaries as part of a
massive project to control flooding, generate hydroelectric power, and revitalize the
Tennessee Valley region, while also creating jobs for the unemployed. The shaded
area represents the area served by TVA electric power.
Social Security
• Social Security Act 1935: old age pension,
blind, handicapped, delinquent children
payroll tax
• No longer an agrarian society- dependent
on boom and bust cycles
• 1945= 41.9 workers to 1 beneficiary, today=
3.3 to 1
• Part of the Second New Deal (1934-1938)
New Deal- Labor
• National strikes- summer 1934, NRA
unconstitutional
• Congress replaced with National Labor
Relations Act (Wagner Act) to allow for
collective bargaining
– Act created the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB)
– Union membership ↑
New Deal- Labor
• John L. Lewis- Congress of Industrial
Organization (CIO) kicked out of AFL
• Unionized auto workers Flint, Michigan
strike at General Motors
– Sit down strike forced to recognize union!
• US Steel allowed CIO, but Republic Steel
refused (Little Steel Strike)
• Fair Labor Standards Act 1938- minimum
wage, maximum hours
Court Packing Scheme
• Conservative Court- overturned 7 of 9
New Deal programs that came before
• FDR proposed the Judiciary
Reorganization Bill of 1937 (Court
Packing Bill)
– Public opinion against- checks and balances!
• Justice Owen Roberts switched- “the
switch in time that saved nine”
Keynesian Economics
• 2nd term: unemployment still at 15%
• 1937: Roosevelt Recession moved
completely away from balanced budget
• Keynesian Economics (John Maynard
Keynes)
– Planned deficit spending (demand side)
– Created a massive national debt