AP USH CH24: GREAT DEPRESSION & THE NEW DEAL

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929; date of the worst stock-market crash in American history and beginning of the Great Depression.

Herbert Hoover

Republican candidate who assumed the presidency in March 1929 promising the American people prosperity and attempted to first deal with the Depression by trying to restore public faith in the community.

New Deal

A series of reforms enacted by the Franklin Roosevelt administration between 1933 and 1942 with the goal of ending the Great Depression. "Alphabet soup"

Bonus Army

Group of WWI vets. that marched to D.C. in 1932 to demand the immediate payment of their goverment war bonuses in cash

First Hundred Days

This is the term applied to President Roosevelt's first three months in taking office. During this time, FDR had managed to get Congress to pass an unprecedented amount of new legislation that would revolutionize the role of the federal government from that point on. This era saw the passage of bills aimed at repairing the banking system and restoring American's faith in the economy, starting government works projects to employ those out of work, offering subsidies for farmers, and devising a plan to aid in the recovery of the nation's industrial sector. 15 laws passed, federal intervention/action

Fireside Chats

informal talks given by FDR over the radio to explain initiatives; sat by White House fireplace; gained the confidence of the people

TVA

created in 1933 in order to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly impacted by the Great Depression, provided jobs

Social Security Act

(FDR) 1935, guaranteed retirement payments for enrolled workers beginning at age 65; set up federal-state system of unemployment insurance and care for dependent mothers and children, the handicapped, and public health

Dust Bowl

Region of the Great Plains that experienced a drought in 1930 lasting for a decade, leaving many farmers without work or substantial wages.

Okies

Displaced farm families from the Oklahoma dust bowl who migrated to California during the 1930s in search of jobs.

Bureau of Indian Affairs

1934

*Led by commissioner John Collier

*Returned ownership of certain lands to tribes, established tribal governments, and provided economic relief

*Created a program of work projects for reservations

Federal Writers Project

During the Great Depression, this project provided writers, such as Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Saul Bellow, with work, which gave them a chance to develop as artists and be employed, guidebooks, histories, etc, under WPA

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck's novel about a struggling farm family during the Great Depression. Gave a face to the violence and exploitation that migrant farm workers faced in America

Works Progress Administration

New Deal agency that helped create jobs for those that needed them. It created around 9 million jobs working on bridges, roads, and buildings.

Bank Holiday

All the banks were ordered to close until new laws could be passed. An emergency banking law was rushed through Congress. The Law set up new ways for the federal government to funnel money to troubled banks It also required the Treasury Department to inspect banks before they could re-open.

Molly Dewson

Head of the Women's Division of the Democratic Party 1930s. Advocated for appointment of women to high level posts in government. She was instrumental in getting Frances Perkins appointed as labor secretary. She battled for equal power for women in government. She had been a leader in the NCL and an active lobbyist for the federal minimum wage. In 1933 she had a list of 100 women who deserved federal jobs, by 1935 at least 50 women had been appointed to federal jobs.

Francis Perkins

was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman ever appointed to the US Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only original members of Roosevelt's cabinet who remained in offices for his entire Presidency

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