(Evidence) Chapter 22: Managing the Great Depression, Forging the New Deal

1929-1938

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

(1930) a high tariff on imports that was intended to stimulate the American economy during the Great Depression, but it only caused retaliatory tariffs to be enacted that hurt the American economy

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

(1932-1957) a government-sponsored institution created by Hoover designed to combat the Great Depression by providing emergency loans to banks, railroads, agriculture, and financial institutions – it was not nearly aggressive/effective enough in the Depression

Hoovervilles

(1930s) towns of makeshift homes and shacks that were derisively named after President Hoover in the Great Depression due to his ineffectiveness and inaction

Farmers’ Holiday Association

(1930s) a Great Depression Midwestern protest group of farmers that combated the economic hardships of the time

Bonus Army

(1932) a group of fifteen to twenty thousand unemployed World War I veterans who camped outside the Capitol to demand immediate payment of their 1945 pension, and who had their encampment burned to the ground by the U.S. Army

Twentieth Amendment

(1933) set all presidential inaugurations for January 20th

fireside chats

(1933-1944) Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s series of informal radio addresses in which he directly told the American people about his New Deal and wartime policies

Hundred Days

(1933) the incredible first one hundred days of FDR’s presidency, in which FDR and Congress enacted fifteen major bills to fight the Great Depression on four fronts: unemployment, banking failure, cultural overproduction, manufacturing slump

Emergency Banking Act

(1933) right after FDR’s inauguration, Congress passed this Act, which enacted a bank holiday and did not let banks reopen unless it was deemed that they had sufficient funds

Glass-Steagall Act

(1933) passed by FDR, created the FDIC, which insured deposits up to 2,500 during the Great Depression and prohibited banks from making risky investments with people’s money

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

(1933) New Deal legislation that cut agricultural overproduction by offering subsidies to farmers who agreed to stop producing specific crops/products

National Industrial Recovery Act

(1933) created the NRA to establish voluntary but customary codes of fair competition and wages in the industrial sector

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

(established 1933) provided relief for the millions of unemployed Americans in the Great Depression

Public Works Administration (PWA)

(established 1933) a New Deal construction program that created things like the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams in order to give people jobs

Civilian Conservation Corps

(established 1933) federal relief program that gave jobs to unemployed men as people who laid bricks, built roads/trails/bridges, and created state park structures

Federal Housing Act of 1934

established the FHA, which refinanced mortgages for mortgage holders facing possible foreclosure

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

(established 1934) a federal commission that determined how bonds and stocks were sold to the public and to prevent insider trading in order to prevent the reckless speculation and buying that had triggered Black Tuesday

American Liberty League

(1930s) a group of Republican businessmen and conservative Democrats that banded together to fight what they felt was the reckless Socialist spending of the New Deal

National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

(1930s) more lasting than the American Liberty League, this association put out propaganda and campaigns against what they felt was the antibusiness policies of FDR’s New Deal

Schechter v. United States

(1935) the Supreme Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act, citing that it was unconstitutional

Townsend Plan

(1933) a popular plan proposed by Francis Townsend that would give $200 ($4000 today) a month to the elderly

Share Our Wealth Society

(1934) established by Huey Long, a threat to the New Deal, it proposed taking down wealth inequality by enacting a 100% tax on income over 1 million

welfare state

the term for industrial democracies that have government-guaranteed social-welfare programs

Wagner Act

(1935) established the right of industrial workers to unionize

Social Security Act

(1935) an act that established a pension for the elderly, compensation for the unemployed, and assistance for widows

Keynesian economics

(developed 1930s) the theory that deficit spending and interest rate adjustment by government could prevent depressions and limit inflation

Fair Labor Standards Act

(1938) outlawed child labor, stabilized forty-hour work week, mandated overtime pay, and established federal minimum wage

Indian Reorganization Act

(1934) overturned the Dawes Act, giving Native Americans more religious freedom and giving tribal governments status as semi-sovereign dependent nations

dust bowl

an area including the semiarid states of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, and Kansas that experienced a severe drought and large dust storms from 1930-1939

The Grapes of Wrath

(1939) John Steinbeck’s famous novel about the struggles of the farmers caught in the Dust Bowl

Rural Electrification Administration (REA)

(established 1935) an agency that offered loans to farmers to install power lines