DCUSH Test: Depression & WWII

Positive Effects of New Deal on Women

Work Progress Administration: Clerical + Teaching jobs

• Frances Perkins: First female cabinet member

• Eleanor Roosevelt: weekly newspaper column fought for women’s rights to advocate New Deal

• Unions

Challenges of New Deal for Women

• Employment Limitations: Civilian Conservation Corps

• Lower minimum wages

• Social Security

Positive Effects of New Deal for African Americans

• Jobs (WPA & CCC)

  • Farm Security Administration: Buy land and farm

• More representation: “Black Cabinet”

• Cultural Representation: Federal Art Project = artists, writers, musicians

  • WPA: Record slave narratives and folk songs

• Unionization for workers

Challenges of New Deal for Africans

• Failed to include African Americans in some acts & systems

  • SS benefits (Southern farmers, sharecroppers, cooks, maids), National Recovery Act (White people = jobs first, higher wages), AAA (payments given to white landowners who often kicked off sharecroppers)

• Segregation persisted: “redlining” from Federal Housing Administration

  • CCC: White jobs first

Positive Effects of New Deal for Mexican Americans

Farm Security Administration (FSA): housing, food, and medicine for migrant farm families (camps to prevent violent attacks.) Civilian Conservation Corp and Works Progress Administration: hired millions of unemployed Mexicans

Challenges of New Deal for Mexican Americans

-Discriminatory business practices and policies: Cesar Chavez’s father was evicted from his farmland because the president of the bank, who owned the surrounding land, refused to give him a loan. - Deportation: Deported from California to Mexico and left without work because of the policy “do not hire a Mexican if a white man is out of work. - stripped many American-born Mexicans of their citizenship, creating a disconnect between Mexicans and their American identity by labeling them as “illegal aliens.”  - property was sold off for transportation expenses

Positive Effects of New Deal for Laborers

- Wagner Act (1935): Labor unions have the right to organize workers - Fair Labor Standards Act: minimum wage (25-30 cents/hour) & max hours (40 hour/week) → Increased membership

Challenges of New Deal for Laborers

Wagner Act: Did not allow farmers and farm workers to organize

Huey Long

Democratic party senator of Louisiana: Share Our Wealth

did not go far enough heavily tax the rich redistribute wealth to guarantee every family a minimum income of $2000 Social security free education and training Capping salaries to $1M Argued Roosevelt was protecting big business and the wealthy.

Father Charles Coughlin

 Leader of National Union for Justice + Priest with a widely listened to radio broadcast

government ownership of all banks inflation to relieve the indebted national minimum wage blaming the Jews and Communists.

Dr. Francis Townsend

Physician and public health officer

Stimulate the economy by requiring money be spent within 30 days 2% sales tax  paying people 60 and over $200 monthly.

American Liberty League

Conservative Business Leaders

• National Recovery Administration (NRA) and Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) violated states’ rights and private property rights

• Social Security promoted socialism in capitalist US

Hubert Hoover’s Response to Great Depression

• No “direct relief” = rugged individualism: self-sufficient + hard work + determination

• Assistance to big business: Reconstruction Finance Corporation = stabilize financial institutions → "trickle down" jobs + wealth to workers and consumers

FDR’s Response to Great Depression

New Deal: Gov. programs with heavy deficit spending to help the financially vulnerable

Buying Stock on Margin

investors purchase stocks by paying only a small percentage of the total value and borrowing the remaining percentage from brokers or banks.

• → stock prices fell and brokers demanded investors to immediately pay back the loaned money owed

• → massive stock market bubble during the Roaring Twenties

FDR Court Packing

two programs were deemed unconstitutional → FDR wants to choose Justices

• threat to checks and balances

• → Congress rejected the plan 

The Bonus Army

Veterans march in Washington DC b/c denied bonus promised for fighting the war

• → Hoovervilles: Quick-made homes

  • →Hoover sent troops to the Hoovervilles to spray tear gas, and arrest them

    • → costed him reelection 1932

FDR’S First 100 Days

Three month special session of Congress where FDR rapidly get passed a series of 15 major bills designed to counter the effects of the Great Depression

•  Emergency Banking Act: Closed all of the nation's banks & ordered inspections 

• Fireside Chats: To restore public confidence and prevent further bankruptcies

• Civilian Conservation Corps: putting young men to work maintaining forests and planting tree

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

agency that provided jobs for young men

• rehabilitating natural resources across the US

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

• Helped reduce bank failures

• Separated commercial and investment banking

• Stabilized the banking system by insuring bank deposits

• Social Security 

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

• Too many crops, not enough money to buy

• → paid farmers to grow less crops in order to recover the agricultural economy

Tennessee Valley Authority

Created thousands of jobs + Provided impoverished Tennessee regions services

• provided flood control

• hydroelectric power

• improve public morale

• → were insufficient to really turn the economy around

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Regulates and stabilizes stock market

• Investor Protection: from fraudulent practices and ensuring they received accurate and truthful information about securities being offered for sale.

• Market Regulation: oversees stock exchanges and brokerage firms

New Deal Criticisms

 Deficit Spending: spending more money than the government receives in revenue

• Liberals: ND did not go far enough to reform economy

• Conservatives: FDR spent too much $ on relief and controlled business by socializing the economy 

During the 1930s, black voters overwhelmingly switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party because…

benefited from New Deal economic policies that provided relief during the Great Depression.

Mexican American Experience

• Denied jobs and loans

• Deported from California

  • Massive Raids

  • Stripped of citizenship

  • Lost property when sold for transportation costs

 

African American Experience

• Poverty: pay for taxes, food, or clothes

  • refused jobs and basic necessities from aid

• targets of violence: lynching, police brutality, and segregated housing and employment.

Quarantine Speech

Speech that advocated for “quarantining” aggressive nations by peace-loving counties while remaining neutral

• The Neutrality Acts/Isolationism: Challenged to appease public while moving towards internationalist policy

Cash and Carry Policy

US requires belligerent nations to purchase American goods and arms in cash and transported in their own ships

Japanese Americans During WWII

High levels of anti- Japanese sentiment after Pearl Harbor/March of Bataan increased by US government propaganda

• → Exec. Order 9066 = Japanese internment: 10K from Pacific Coast\

  • Justification: Korematsu v. US + national security

Atomic Bomb Justifications

 quick end to the war that avoided large-scale invasions and would lead to an unconditional surrender

• Revenge for Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Dec 7, 1941—Japan launched a surprise military strike on neutral US’s Pacific Fleet on Oahu, Hawaii

• US Declares War on Japan

Arsenal of Democracy

nickname for the U.S. because they supplied the Allied Powers with war supplies but stayed neutral. 

Impact of War on Minorities

Mobilized but segregated, propaganda promoted inclusivity but failed to achieve equality

Navajo Code Talkers

400-500 Native Marines in WW2 who used their unwritten, complex language to create an unbreakable code and transmit messages across the battlefield

Leapfrogging / Island Hopping

Allied strategy where forces secured, built, or seized strategically important islands while bypassing heavily forfeited Japanese base in order to advance towards the Japanese mainland while minimizing casualties

D-Day, Midway

D-Day: Attack on Normandy Beach in France led by the Allies.

• turning point of the war b/c liberated western Europe from Nazi control

Midway: Turning point = Allies become offensive

• Broke Japanese Code = Surprise attack

How did World War II change the role of corporations in American life?

• Propaganda for promoting consumerism with patriotism

• Boomed as total mobilization

Lend Lease Act

 U.S. president was allowed to lend war materials to any nation deemed vital to the defense of the United States.

• Britain

• Soviet Union

• China

How did the role of the national government change during the war?

Expanded to mobilize American support

• propaganda

• manufacturing

• censorship

Double V Campaign

African Americans must fight for two victories: democracy overseas and racial equality at home

• 1942 initiative launched by the leading black newspaper Pittsburgh Courier

Women’s role on the Home Front

women joined the traditionally male workforce as men went to fight in the war.

• factory work: produced weaponry, aircraft supplies, etc.

Rosie the Riveter

millions of women entered the workforce to support World War II while men were fighting overseas.