HIS 1053 Chapter 23: The Great Depression and the New Deal

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the causes of the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover's policies, Franklin D. Roosevelt's First and Second New Deal programs, the Dust Bowl, and political opposition.

Underlying Causes of the Great Depression

Four structural weaknesses: unequal distribution of wealth, falling consumer demand from saturated markets, excessive credit and speculation, and collapsing farm prices.

Buying Stocks on Margin

The practice of purchasing shares with borrowed money, which can force investors to sell and repay loans when stock prices fall.

Smoot–Hawley Tariff (1930)

A very high U.S. import tariff backed by Herbert Hoover that triggered retaliation by trading partners and contributed to a severe decline in international trade.

President’s Organization for Unemployment Relief

A Hoover administration effort created to encourage voluntary charitable and local assistance for people without work.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

A Hoover-era federal program designed to support banks and businesses in the hope that financial stabilization would benefit workers.

Bonus Marchers (Bonus Army)

World War I veterans who gathered in Washington in 1932 seeking early payment of bonuses scheduled for 1945, whose encampment was forcibly cleared by federal troops under Douglas MacArthur.

Hoovervilles

Makeshift shantytowns of people displaced by poverty and unemployment, named to express public dissatisfaction with President Herbert Hoover.

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

A popular Depression-era song expressing the disillusionment of Americans who worked and served their country but fell into poverty.

Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA)

New York State relief agency established under Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide assistance to the unemployed.

First Hundred Days

The initial months of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency in 1933 during which Congress passed numerous major New Deal legislative measures.

Bank Holiday

A temporary nationwide closure of banks early in FDR’s presidency to stabilize the banking system and restore public confidence.

Emergency Banking Act

Legislation enacted during the 1933 banking crisis to help reopen and stabilize financially viable banks.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

A New Deal corporation established to insure eligible bank deposits and rebuild public confidence in the banking system.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

A federal agency established during the New Deal to regulate securities markets.

Fireside Chats

Radio broadcasts in which President Roosevelt explained government actions directly to the public to build understanding and trust.

Three Goals of the New Deal

Relief for immediate suffering, recovery of the economy, and reform to prevent future economic crises.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

A 1933 New Deal program that employed young men on conservation, reforestation, and park projects.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

A 1935 New Deal agency that employed individuals on public works and infrastructure projects.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

A measure that paid farmers to reduce production to limit surpluses and raise crop prices; ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1936 before being refunded through general revenue.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

A New Deal agency that built dams, provided jobs, and supplied inexpensive electricity to rural communities.

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)

New Deal legislation that promoted industrial codes establishing standards for prices, competition, and working conditions.

National Recovery Administration (NRA)

An agency associated with establishing industrial recovery codes, which faced criticism regarding competition and business autonomy.

Social Security Act of 1935

A landmark law establishing old-age benefits, unemployment insurance, and aid for certain dependent groups, financed primarily by payroll contributions.

Wagner Act of 1935

A law protecting workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, which established the National Labor Relations Board to enforce labor protections.

Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)

A federal law establishing national standards for minimum wages and maximum working hours.

Wagner–Steagall Act (1937)

A national housing measure that provided federal subsidies to improve housing conditions for low-income families.

Dust Bowl

An environmental catastrophe from 1932 to 1936 across the Great Plains (highlighting Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas) caused by severe drought, intensive plowing, and the removal of natural ground cover.

Dorothea Lange

A documentary photographer whose images captured the poverty, hardship, and migration of the Great Depression era.

Share Our Wealth

A program proposed by Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long that advocated for wealth redistribution, contending the New Deal had not gone far enough.

Father Charles Coughlin

A radio priest and critic of Roosevelt who blamed economic troubles on bankers and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Cooperative Commonwealth

Upton Sinclair’s proposed reform plan to place idle factories and unused land into public or cooperative operation during his California campaign.

Court-Packing Plan

A 1937 proposal by Franklin D. Roosevelt that would have allowed the president to appoint up to six additional Supreme Court justices.

Frances Perkins

FDR’s secretary of labor and the most prominent female reformer within the Roosevelt administration.

Mary McLeod Bethune

An African American educator and New Deal adviser on minority affairs whose statue was installed in the U.S. Capitol in 2022 to replace Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith.

Scottsboro Boys

Nine Black teenagers accused of rape in Alabama in 1931 whose legal battles exposed profound racial injustice in the American judicial system.