Chapter 33 - The Great Depression and the New Deal 

FDR: Politician in a Wheelchair

• Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s wife was very active in FDR’s political career with her being loved by liberals and hated by conservatives
• FDR was a good public speaker
• Democrats called for a balanced budget and social and economic reforms

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Presidential Hopefuls of 1932

• FDR attacked Republican Old Deal in his election
• Roosevelt supported a New Deal for the “forgotten man”
• A lot of Americans didn’t trust the Republican Party due to the dire economic state of the country caused by the Great Depression
• Hoover believed that the worst of the Depression was over and therefore reaffirmed his faith in American free enterprise and individualism \n

Hoover's Humiliation in 1932

• ==FDR== ==won the election of 1932 with a majority in the popular vote and the Electoral College==
• Blacks started to begin a vital part of the Democratic Party starting with the election of 1932, especially in the urban centers located in the North

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FDR and the Three R's:  Relief, Recovery, Reform

• FDR declared March 6 through 10 as a national banking holiday as a prelude to the opening of banks
• Hundred Days Congress passed a series of laws to help improve the state of the country
• Congress also passed a few of FDR’s New Deal programs which were focused on relief, recovery, and reform: short range goals were for relief and immediate recovery and long range goals were permanent recovery and reform
• Some of the New Deal programs gave the President unprecedented powers such as the ability to create legislation
  • The programs that gave the president this authority were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
• Congress gave Roosevelt the blank-check powers
• New Deal legislation embraced progressive ideas such as unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, minimum-wage regulations, conservation and development of natural resources, and restrictions on child labor

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Roosevelt Manages the Money

• Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933 which gave the President the power to regulate banking transactions and foreign exchange in order to reopen solvent banks
• FDR gave “fireside chats” over the radio with him using these to soothe the Americans’ confidence in banks
• Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation with the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act which insured individual bank deposits up to $5,000 that ended the nation’s continued trend of bank failures
• FDR took the nation off of the gold standard by having the Treasury buy gold from citizens and after this, only transactions in paper money were accepted
  • ==FDR== ==also had the goal of creating modest inflation which would relieve debtors’ burdens and stimulate new production==

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Creating Jobs for the Jobless

• ==FDR== ==created jobs with federal money in order to jumpstart the economy==
• The ==Civillian Conservation Corps== ==employed approximately 3 million men in government camps== with work including reforestation, fighting fires, flood control, and swamp drainage
• The Federal Emergency Relief Act was Congress’s first major effort in dealing with the large amounts of unemployment
  • Created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration that gave states direct relief payments or money for wages on work projects
• ==Civil Works Administration== ==was a branch of the FERA and was designed to provide temporary jobs during emergencies in the winter==
• Relief was given to farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment act which made millions of dollars available in order to help farmers meet their mortgages
• Home Owners’ Loan Corporations helped households that had trouble paying their mortgages

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A Day for Every Demagogue

• Unemployment continued to be a problem despite the efforts of the New Deal
• Father Charles Coughlin, Senator Huey P. Long, and Dr. Francis E. Townsend presented themselves as opponents of FDR’s policies
• The Works Progress Administration, passed by Congress in 1935, had the objective of providing unemployment for useful projects with taxpayers criticizing the agency for paying people to do “useless” jobs such as painting murals

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New Visibility for Women

• Women started to break gender barriers through them holding positions in the Federal government, such as the President’s cabinet
• ==Ruth Benedict== ==made several strides in the field of anthropology==
• ==Pearl Buck== ==won a Nobel Prize in literature in 1938==

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Helping Industry and Labor

• The ==National Recovery Administration== ==was designed to bring industries together in order to create a set of “fair” business practices==
  • Working hours were reduced so more people could be hired, a minimum wage was established, and workers were given the right to organize
  • The ==NRA== ==was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935 due to Schechter vs. United States== due to the NRA giving legislative powers to the President and allowing Congress to control individual businesses
• ==Public Works Administration== ==was meant to provide long-term recovery== with it spending over $4 billion on thousands of projects, such as public buildings, highways, and dams
• Congress repealed prohibition with the 21st Amendment in late 1933 in order to raise federal revenue and provide employment

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Paying Farmers Not to Farm

• Agricultural Adjustment Administration tried to reduce crop surpluses which led to lower crop prices and established standard “parity prices” for basic commodities
  • The Agricultural Adjustment Agency also paid farmers to not farm in order to reduce their crop harvests
  • Supreme Court ruled the AAA as unconstitutional in 1936 with it stating that its taxation programs were illegal
• Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 in an attempt to make farmers farm less and they reduced crop acreage by paying farmers to plant soil-conserving crops
• The Second Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 continued conservation payments and ff farmers obeyed the acreage restrictions, they would be eligible for payments

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Dust Bowls and Black Blizzards

• The ==Dust Bowl== ==struck many states in the trans-Mississippi Great Plains, late in 1933==
  • Caused by drought, wind, and over-farming of the land
• Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act was passed in 1934 and it suspended mortgage foreclosures on farms for 5 years but was struck down by Supreme Court in 1935
• The Resettlement Administration moved near-farmless farmers to better lands in 1935
• ==Indian Reorganization Act of 1934== ==encouraged Native American tribes to establish self-government and to preserve their native crafts and traditions==
  • 77 of the tribes refused to organize under the law while hundreds organized

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Battling Bankers and Big Business

• Congress passed the “Truth in Securities Act” to protect public against investment fraud which required people that were selling investments to inform their investors of the risk of the investment
• The ==Securities and Exchange Commission== ==was created in 1934, with it providing oversight of the stock market==

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TVA Harnesses the Tennessee

• New Dealers accused the electric-power industry of charging the public too much money for electricity
• Hundred Days Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 which was designed to build dams on the Tennessee River
  • These projects gave government information on exactly how much money was required to produce and distribute electricity
• TVA turned a poverty-stricken area into one of the most flourishing regions in the U.S.
• Conservatives viewed the New Deal programs as “socialistic” which iltimately helped limit the TVA-style of management to the Tennessee Valley

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Housing and Social Security

• ==Federal Housing Administration== ==was passed in 1934 with it trying to improve the home-building industry==
  • It also gave small loans to homeowners for the purpose of improving their homes and buying new ones
• United States Housing Authority was passed in 1937 with it being designed to lend money to states or communities for low-cost housing developments
• Social Security Act of 1935 provided federal-state unemployment insurance and some retired workers being able to receive regular payments from Washington in order to provide security for old age with the purpose being to provide support for urbanized Americans who could not support themselves with a farm
  • Republicans were in opposition to social security

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A New Deal Labor

• Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 in order to help labor unions
  • The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 created a powerful National Labor Relations Board for administrative purposes
• Unskilled workers started to organize under leadership from Lewis, who was in charge of the United Mine Workers
• Lewis formed Committee for Industrial Organization which led a series of strikes
• Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938
• CIO claimed about 4 million members by 1940

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Landon Challenges "the Champ"

• Republicans chose Landon to run as president against Roosevelt in election of 1936
  • Republicans condemned New Deal for its radicalism, experimentation, confusion, and “frightful waste”
• Democrats had significant support from millions of people that had benefited from New Deal programs
• FDR won the election

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Nine Old Men on the Bench

• The 20th Amendment shortened the period from election to inauguration by 6 weeks
• Roosevelt saw his reelection as a mandate to continue the New Deal reforms
• Supreme Court was primarily dominated by conservatives against many of the “socialistic” New Deal programs
• Roosevelt proposed the Court-packing plan which received a lot of negative feedback from the public

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The Court Changes Course

• Public criticized FDR for trying to tamper with the Supreme Court which was an affront on the system of checks and balances
  • Supreme Court started to support New Deal legislation due to public pressure
• A series of deaths and resignations of justices let FDR appoint 9 justices to the Court

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The Twilight of the New Deal

• Unemployment, while still high, had begun to slow down (1933-1937)
• Reduced spending caused the economy to take another downturn in 1937
• ==Keynesianism economics== ==consisted of government being used to “prime the pump” of economy and encourage consumer spending with this policy intentionally creating a budget defici==t
• Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939 with it preventing federal administrative officials from active political campaigning and soliciting

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New Deal or Raw Deal

• Opponents of the New Deal blamed the President of spending too much money on his programs, which significantly increased the national debt
• National debt increased from $19 trillion to $40 trillion from 1932 to 1939
• Federal government became more powerful under FDR
• New Deal didn’t end depression and instead just gave temporary relief to citizens and despite New Deal efforts, production still overpowered spending
• The issue of unemployment wasn’t solved until World War II

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FDR's Balance Sheet

• Supporters of the New Deal argued that relief was the primary objective of the war on Depression
• FDR believed that the government was morally bound to preventing mass hunger and starvation by “managing” the economy and potentially saved capitalism by eliminating some of faults such as poor labor conditions

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