Studied by 116 peopleBrain Trust
Specialists in law, economics, and welfare, many of them young university professors, who advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped develop the policies of the New Deal.
New Deal
The economic and political policies of Franklin Roosevelt's administration in the 1930s, which aimed to solve the problems of the Great Depression by providing relief for the unemployed and launching efforts to stimulate economic recovery. It built on reforms of the progressive era to expand greatly an American-style welfare state.
Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act
A law creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured individual bank deposits and ended a century-long tradition of unstable banking that had reached a crisis in the Great Depression.
Civillian Conservation Corps (CCC)
A government program created by Congress to hire young unemployed men to improve the rural, out-of-doors environment with such work as planting trees, fighting fires, draining swamps, and maintaining National Parks. It proved to be an important foundation for the post-World War II environmental movement.
National Recovery Administration (NRA)
Known by its critics as the "National Run Around," it was an early New Deal program designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed through centralized planning mechanisms that monitored workers' earnings and working hours to distribute work and established codes for "fair competition" to ensure that similar procedures were followed by all firms in any particular industrial sector.
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
A New Deal program designed to raise agricultural prices by paying farmers not to farm. It was based on the assumption that higher prices would increase farmers' purchasing power and thereby help alleviate the Great Depression.
Dust Bowl
Grim nickname for the Great Plains region devastated by drought and dust storms during the 1930s. The disaster led to the migration into California of thousands of displaced "Okies" and "Arkies."
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
Also known as the "Indian New Deal" and the Wheeler-Howard Act. Its major thrusts were to reverse the policy of forced assimilation that flowed from the 1887 Dawes Severalty Act, restore tribal autonomy, and promote the economic well-being of reservations.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
One of the most revolutionary of the New Deal public works projects, it brought cheap electric power, full employment, low-cost housing, and environmental improvements to Americans in the Tennessee Valley.
Social Security Act 1935
provided federal-state unemployment insurance; provides security for old age; specific categories of retired workers were to receive regular payments from Washington; provide support for urbanized Americans who could not support themselves with a farm
Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act)
Also known as the National Labor Relations Act, this law protected the right of labor to organize in unions and bargain collectively with employers and established the National Labor Relations Board to monitor unfair labor practices on the part of employers. Its passage marked the culmination of decades of labor protest.
Fair Labor Standards Act (Wages and Hours Bill) 1938
Important New Deal labor legislation that regulated minimum wages and maximum hours for workers involved in interstate commerce. The law also outlawed labor by children under sixteen. The exclusion of agricultural, service, and domestic workers meant that many blacks, Mexican Americans, and womenâwho were concentrated in these sectorsâdid not benefit from the act's protection.
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
A New Deal-era labor organization that broke away from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in order to organize unskilled industrial workers regardless of their particular economic sector or craft. It gave a great boost to labor organizing in the midst of the Great Depression and during World War II. In 1955, it merged with the AFL.
Court-packing plan
Franklin Roosevelt's politically motivated and ill-fated scheme to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire. His objective was to overcome the Court's objections to New Deal reforms.
Keynesianism
An economic theory based on the thoughts of British economist John Maynard Keynes, holding that central banks should adjust interest rates and governments should use deficit spending and tax policies to increase purchasing power and hence prosperity.
Hundred Days/Emergency Congress
Passes a series of laws to help improve the state of the country. Also passes some New Deal Programs.
Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933
gave the President the power to regulate banking transactions and foreign exchange and to reopen solvent banks
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Created within the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act; insuring individual bank deposits up to $5,000, ended the nation's epidemic of bank failures; shift from gold standards to paper money transactions only
Federal Emergency Relief Act
Congress's first major effort to deal with the massive unemployment. It created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) which gave states direct relief payments or money for wages on work projects.
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
gave states direct relief payments or money for wages on work projects
Civil Works Administration (CWA)
Branch of FERA; designed to provide temporary jobs during the winter emergency
Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC)
assisted many households that had trouble paying their mortgages
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
objective of providing employment for useful projects (i.e. the construction of buildings, roads, murals, etc.)
Schechter vs. United States
1935 Supreme court ruled the NRA and NIRA unconstitutional and that FDR was abusing executive power.
Public Works Administration (PWA)
intended to provide long-term recovery. Headed by Harold L. Ickes, the agency spent over $4 billion on thousands of projects, including public buildings, highways, and dams.
21st Amendment
Repeals prohibition to raise federal revenue and provide employment
Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936
Passed in an attempt to make farmers farm less, under the guise of conservation, it reduced crop acreage by paying farmers to plant soil-conserving crops
Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act (1934)
Suspended mortgage foreclosures for five years; ruled unconstitutional in 1935
Resettlement Administration
Administration that helps move farmers away from Dust Bowl stricken areas
Federal Securities Act ("Truth in Securities Act")
required people selling investments to inform their investors of the risks of the investment
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (1934)
Regulated stock market and restricted margin buying
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) (1934)
Attempted to improve the home-building industry. Gave small loans to homeowners for the purpose of improving their homes and buying new ones
20th amendment (1933)
Shortened the "lame duck" period between election and inauguration by 6 weeks
Hatch Act of 1939
prevented federal administrative officials from active political campaigning and soliciting. It also forbade the use of government funds for political purposes as well as the collection of campaign contributions from people receiving relief payments.
Beer-Wine Revenue Act (1933)
legalized the sale of beer and wine, ending Prohibition
Gold Reserve Act (1934)
Required that all gold and gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve be surrendered and vested in the sole title of the United States Department of the Treasury.
Public Utility Holding Company Act
outlawed ownership of utilities by multiple holding companies
United States Housing Authority (USHA)
designed to lend money to states or communities for low-cost housing developments
Reorganization Act (1939)
authorized the President to devise a pan to reorganize the Executive branch (positions, etc.)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1933-1945, *Thirty-second President, *With the slogan "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he encourages new hope for emerging from the Great Depression, *At age 39, he contracted polio and lost partial use of his legs, *Led Congress through the "Hundred Days", *Focused on economic and agricultural recovery and support for the unemployed and elderly, *Attempted to enlarge the Supreme Court and put in place justices that would support his legislation, but he failed, *Mobilized the US for entry into WWII
Eleanor Roosevelt
FDR's Wife and New Deal supporter. Was a great supporter of civil rights and opposed the Jim Crow laws. She also worked for birth control and better conditions for working women
Harry L. Hopkins
A New York social worker who headed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Civil Works Administration. He helped grant over 3 billion dollars to the states wages for work projects, and granted thousands of jobs for jobless Americans.
Father Charles Coughlin
catholic priest from Michigan, 30 million radio listeners, a critic of the New Deal; created the National Union for Social Justice; wanted a monetary inflation and the nationalization of the banking system
Francis E. Townsend
A doctor and critic of FDR's who proposed that everyone 60 years of age or older should get $200 a month as long as they spent it within 30 days.
Huey P. ("Kingfish") Long
Louisiana governor, later U.S. senator, whose anti-New Deal "Share Our Wealth" program promised to make "Every Man a King"-that is, until he was gunned down in 1935.
Frances Perkins
U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman ever appointed to the cabinet, helped draw labor into the New Deal coalition
John Steinbeck
American novelist who wrote "The Grapes of Wrath". (1939) A story of Dustbowl victims who travel to California to look for a better life.
Mary McLeod Bethune
Highest-ranking African American in the Roosevelt administration; heads the Office of Minority Affairs; leader of the unofficial "Black Cabinet" -> tries to apply New Deal benefits to POC & whites (1875-1955)
Robert F. Wagner
A Democratic senator from New York State from 1927-1949, he was responsible for the passage of some of the most important legislation enacted through the New Deal. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was popularly known as the Wagner Act in honor of the senator. He also played a major role in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937.
Ruth Benedict
Prominent 1930s social scientist (anthropology) who argued that each culture produced its own type of personality
Pearl Buck
Novelist who won Nobel Peace prize 1938, advanced humanitarian causes. "Americans in China"
Harold L. Ickes
Heads the Public Works Administration
John L. Lewis
Boss of United Mine Workers; forms Committee for Industrial Organization (1935); lead unskilled workers to strikes
Alfred M. Landon
Republican candidate; runs against President Roosevelt in the election of 1936
Owen J. Roberts
Supreme court justice who leaves conservative principals due to public pressure in order to adopt New Deal legislation
Herbert Hoover
31st President of the United States. (1929-1933) The New York Stock Market Crashes October 29, 1929 "Black Tuesday". The 20th Amendment is passed and added and the 21st Amendment is passed by 1933.
Al E. Smith
(December 30, 1873 - October 4, 1944) was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928. He was the foremost urban leader of the efficiency-oriented Progressive Movement, and was noted for achieving a wide range of reforms as governor in the 1920s. He was also linked to the notorious Tammany Hall machine that controlled Manhattan politics; he was a strong opponent of prohibition.
As a committed "wet" (anti-Prohibition candidate), he attracted millions of voters of all backgrounds, particularly those concerned about the corruption and lawlessness brought about by the Eighteenth Amendment.[1] However he was unpopular among certain segments, including Southern Baptists and German Lutherans, who believed the Catholic Church and the Pope would dictate his policies. Most importantly, this was a time of national prosperity under a Republican Presidency, and Smith lost in a landslide to Republican Herbert Hoover. Smith attempted the 1932 nomination, but was defeated by his former ally and successor as New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Smith entered business in New York City, and became an increasingly vocal opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal.
Gerald Smith
Henchman of Huey Long who joined force with Father Coughlin and Dr. Townsend to establish the Union Party.
Samuel Insull
Electricity magnate whose empire collapsed in 1932. His collapse helped Roosevelt created the TVA.
Franz Boas
father of modern American anthropology; argued for cultural relativism and historical particularism
Margaret Maed
American Cultural Anthropologist. Studied the illiterate people of Oceania
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