The Politics of “Normalcy”

·        Republicans controlled the White House from 1921 to 1933 and Congress from 1918 to 1930.

Warren G. Harding

·        Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge were fine with sharing power.

·        Charles Evan Hughes was appointed as secretary of state, Henry C. Wallace was appointed as secretary of agriculture, and Herbert Hoover was appointed as secretary of commerce. Harry Daugherty and Albert Fall were appointed as attorney general and interior secretary, respectively.

·        Both Daughtery and Fall were bad appointments. Daughtery resigned in 1923. Then, Albert Fall was convicted of a felony in 1929. He accepted bribes of more than $400,000 in 1922.

·        Before he was caught getting involved in many scandals, Harding died in August 1923. Although he was lackluster, he was tolerant and moderated.

·        Before the end of his administration, Harding set an agenda for Congress. Part of the agenda included expanding the merchant marine.

Calvin Coolidge

·        Coolidge handled Harding’s administration with skill and dispatch. He had success restoring public confidence and punishing wrongdoers.

·        Calvin Coolidge believed in minimalist government and small-town democracy. He worshiped wealth.

·        In the election of 1924, voters voted for him by a margin of 2 to 1. It signaled that Americans wanted surging prosperity.

The Policies of Mellon and Hoover

·        Coolidge worked with most of Harding’s cabinet, including Andrew Mellon.

·        Mellon believed that prosperity went down from rich to poor through investment. This would increase wages, production, and employment.

·        By the time Mellon was out of office, Congress had nearly halved its taxes.

Associationism

·        Herbert Hoover wasn’t a traditional Republican. Instead, he believed in “associationism”, which involved cooperation between businesses and the government through a trade association.

·        By 1929, approximately 2,000 trade associations were established.

·        Hoover believed that the government’s job was to promote cooperation among businesses and to ensure that everyone obeyed the rules.

·        He hoped to eliminate waste, cut costs, and end the boom-and-bust cycle. His goal was to promote welfare capitalism.

·        His Department of Commerce worked to expand foreign markets and fight international cartels. Ultimately, Hoover was trying to grow the US economy.

·        Mellon’s tax policies and Hoover’s associationism helped both consolidate their power at the expense of the public. By the end of the decade, 200 giant corporations controlled almost half the corporate wealth.

·        Once the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of trade associations, competition started to decrease, and customer groups were ignored.

·        Government and business started a laissez-faire economy.

Problems and Some Solutions at Home and Abroad

·        Some businesses chose to stay out of the Republican prosperity. Most of these businesses ironically included farmers.

·        In 1920, farming was still more valuable than manufacturing, all utilities, and railroads combined. A third of the population relied on farming to live.

·        The government withdrew wartime price support for wheat and stopped feeding refugees. This meant that farmers’ portions of the national income shrank a lot.

·        As European farms began producing more portions, the need for American farms decreased as well. In 1920, Americans ate 75 fewer pounds of food annually than they had a decade earlier.

·        In 1921, a group of Southern and western senators came together and started to coordinate relief for farmers. A bunch of acts exempted farm cooperatives from antitrust actions and created banks for low-interest farm loans.

·        Over the decade, farm foreclosures mounted. It eventually exceeded during the Great Depression.

·        Although welfare capital ensured workers lots of benefits, only some companies gave those benefits. When Coolidge noticed economic instability, he chose to ignore it.

The Great Flood of 1927

·        After several years of deforestation and months of heavy rain, the Mississippi River started a flood. It spread from southern Missouri to Louisiana. Some areas received 100 feet of water and didn’t recede for 3 months.

·        When Herbert Hoover became Secretary of Commerce, a group of private agencies started to work for him. Meanwhile, an army of local citizens started building refugee camps for the 700,000 displaced people.

·        Nearly 250 people were killed, and 130,000 homes were destroyed by the flood. Property damage was about $350 million, which is about $5 billion today.

·        For the rest of the decade, commerce suffered in the US. Federal legislation was still passed to ensure that another great flood didn’t happen again.

·        At the end of World War 1, Germany was forced to repay $33 billion in war costs. When Germany defaulted in 1923, French forces took over the Ruhr valley. Germany printed money in return. However, inflation wiped out the savings of the German middle class.

The Dawes Plan

·        In 1924, Carles G. Dawes persuaded Europeans to calm down on the regulations. In return, the US promised to help stabilize the German economy. American banks made large loans to Germany.

·        The US also reduced European war debts. Canceling them made more sense, but few Americans were so forgiving.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

·        In 1921, the sea powers agreed to freeze battleship construction for 10 years. The Five-Power Agreement was passed to ensure that no one country would continue battleship construction.

·        The major nations in the world instead decided to sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war.

·        The French and Japanese resented the lower limits set by the Five-Power Act and instead built smaller warships.

The Election of 1928

·        For the 1928 election, the Republican Party chose Herbert Hoover as their candidate. He wasn’t a politician but a food administrator during World War 1.

·        Meanwhile, the Democratic Party fractured between its rural supporters in the South and West and ethnic laborers in the Northeast.

·        Eventually, the Democratic Party chose Al Smith, the governor of New York, as their candidate.

·        Smith was a Catholic at the time when anti-Catholicism remained strong in most of the US, which was very damaging for him.

·        Nearly 60% of the eligible voters gave all but 8 states to Hoover. The Democratic South cracked for the first time. 12 of the largest cities went to Al Smith.

·        The 1928 election signaled a major political realignment and a new kind of electorate. Voters were no longer part of a vast partisan army.

·        The reforms of the Progressive Era restricted the power of political machines.

·        In 1929, the Democratic Party created the first relations department in US politics.

The Great Bull Market

·        William Crawford broke all stock-buying records during the 1920s. It was the greatest market in history because eager purchasers drove prices to new records.

·        Alexander Noyes doubted the growth of the economy. He believed that the economy could lead to a Great Depression if there was overproduction and underconsumption.

New Money

·        From 1922 to 1929, $900 million worth of gold flowed into the US. The money supply expanded by at least $6 billion. By 1929 brokers’ loans had almost rippled.

·        “Margin requirements” stayed at around 50% for most of the decade. This meant that buyers would have to come up with only half the price of a share.

·        Higher interest rates made borrowing more expensive.

The Great Crash

·        On Thursday, October 24, 1929, many sell orders flooded the New York Stock Exchange. This made speculators nervous, and they were right a couple of days later.

·        On Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed. Stockholders lost $10 billion that day. The downfall of stocks continued for almost 4 years. This would start the Great Depression.

Role of the Crash

·        The Great Crash didn’t start the Great Depression, but it damaged the economy significantly.

·        Many wealthy investors saw their fortunes disappear. The money from middle-class families disappeared as well.

The Sickening Slide in Global Perspective

·        The Great Crash signaled the start of the Great Depression. The gains in the US were wiped out within a few years. Many businesses and banks failed.

·        The fact that the US was suffering from the Great Depression sent shock to everyone around the world.

·        Once the US economy collapsed, European governments started using war debts. Most European banks and businesses failed and collapsed.

·        41 nations in 1931, including Great Britain, abandoned the gold standard. They were hoping to devalue their currency. The problem was that so many countries abandoned it at the same time, which only deepened the crisis.

·        In Latin America, the slide varied. Shrinking sales of certain resources crippled much of Latin America. Exports shielded Venezuela.

·        The Soviet Union was the only country that escaped the catastrophe.

·        Crop prices in the US were at an all-time low. Failed banks spread to cities and many people started to withdraw their cash to have something if the banks failed.

·        No one could stop the collapsing economy. Overproduction and underconsumption were 2 key factors that could have started the depression.

The Causes of the Great Depression

·        Some people thought that the Great Depression started because no one paid attention to the instabilities in the economy.

·        Increases in consumer spending slowed to 1.5% in 1928 and 1929. Warehouses began to fill up because overproduction wouldn’t stop.

Overexpansion and Relative Decline in Purchasing Power

·        Businesses were doing well during the 1920s. The profits they gained were used to expand factories.

·        When there were no labor unions or government support, real wages increased but never kept pace with productivity. Workers, however, didn’t have enough money to buy the products they were making.

Consumer Debt and Uneven Distribution of Wealth

·        People choose to make up the difference between earnings and purchases by borrowing. During the decade, consumer debt grew by 250%. Not many could afford to spend at that rate.

·        The wealthy had more money than they possibly would have. The working and middle class, on the other hand, didn’t have as much money.

Banking System

·        Mismanagement, greed, and the emergence of a half banker, half broker led banks to use more funds.

·        The American banking system would fall apart if a bank failed. When the Great Depression started, more than 25,000 banks lay outside the Federal Reserve System.

Corporate Structure and Public Policy

·        The messed-up corporate structure made it worse when the US entered the Great Depression. The government didn’t monitor the stock exchanges. This meant that the government would be too late to act if there was a crash.

·        Public policy wanted corporate consolidation and control because the government didn’t file many antitrust suits.

·        Without government regulation, fluctuating prices, and the need for loans, big businesses controlled the economy.

“Sick” Industries

·        Unemployment rates increased as early as 1927. By 1929 some 2 million people didn’t have a job at all.

·        All industries were “sick” industries during the Great Depression because they suffered from overexpansion, killing competition, reduced demand, and weak management.

·        As more farmers went broke, many of the rural banks that had lent them money collapsed as well.

Economic Ignorance

·        Plain economic ignorance contributed to the Great Depression.

·        High tariffs protected American industries but discouraged European businesses from selling to the world’s most profitable markets.

·        When the American economy collapsed, American loans and investments vanished, and American foreign trade disappeared.

·        The government decided to raise interest rates in 1929, but it ended up making it more expensive to borrow money.

The Human Impact of the Great Depression

·        Between 1929 and 1932, an average of 100,000 people lost their jobs every week until 13 million people didn’t have a job. 1 in 4 workers couldn’t find employment.

·        The Great Depression reduced differences in the face of common want. Most Americans survived by cooperating.

Hard Times

·        Hard times lasted for over a decade. Even before the Great Depression, many Americans struggled to make a living.

·        Unable to pay the mortgage, most families decided to live off the generosity of their landlords.

·        By 1932 between 1 and 2 million Americans were homeless.

·        For the first time, emigration exceeded immigration because no one could afford to find a job and earn money.

Marriage and the Family

·        The number of marriages and births declined. Many young couples postponed marriage because of the effects of the Great Depression.

·        The number of divorces declined during the Great Depression.

·        Many men became hopeless. They grew depressed. Most mothers, on the other hand, found their traditional roles not as disrupted.

·        Homemakers had to watch their budgets very closely. They strategized how they were going to spend their money so that they could survive.

·        Women who worked outside the house were still faced with prejudice. Over half the female labor force worked in domestic service, while others found traditional jobs such as teachers, social workers, and secretaries.

Psychological Impact

·        The Great Depression caused many Americans to look for past practices to survive. Shame, self-doubt, and pessimism were things that people thought about the most.

·        Fear and humiliation spread throughout Americans.

The Golden Age of Radio and Film

·        By the end of the 1920s, 9 out of 10 families owned radios. They depended on them for nearly everything.

·        Many women were at home when games were broadcasted. Night games soon outran day games because families went to the games.

Radio’s Unifying Effect

·        Radio unified the country together. Anyone could listen to the same thing as everyone else in the US.

·        Many roads were filled with cars trying to evacuate when reports came out saying that there was impeding wear in Europe.

·        In Hollywood, an autocratic studio system created a record number of feature films.

·        When the Great Depression started, big studios lured audiences with films to keep them entertained.

Mass Media at Home and Abroad

·        By the mid-1930s more than 60% of Americans were going to the movies at least once a week.

·        In 1933 the Catholic Church established the Legion of Decency to monitor movie features.

·        Hollywood produced films that affirmed popular faith. In Europe, specifically Germany, most films were based on Nazi Germany and Hitler.

Dust Bowl

·        Each year between 1932 and 1939, there were about 50 dust storms. It was one of the worst ecological disasters in US history.

·        Humans were the most responsible for the Dust Bowl. 60 years of intensive farming for agriculture had stripped the prairie of its natural vegetation. It proved defenseless against the elements. Nature played its part, though.

Effect on Commercial Farming

·        Some 3.5 million people abandoned their farms. Landowners and corporations forced off about half of them as commercial farming slowly spread.

·        The strategy was to consolidate and mechanize. In a lot of Dust Bowl counties, people owned less than half the land they farmed. It turned into an industry.

·        Relief officers around the country saw that more and more white and native-born people were migrating.

·        Long-distance migrants from Oklahoma, Arizona, and Texas migrated to California. They mostly drove through Route 66 with their belongings.

·        More than 350,000 people from Oklahoma migrated to California, even though Oklahoma wasn’t suffering from the Dust Bowl.

·        Wherever migrants landed, only 1 in 3 of them found a job.

Repatriation

·        A deep ambivalence characterized American attitudes towards Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The Great Depression turned most Anglo communities against them.

·        Starting in 1931, the government launched a series of repatriations of Mexicans back to Mexico. It included Mexican Americans who were citizens of the US.

·        The Latino population dropped by 500,000 during the decade. Staying in the US was as difficult as leaving because the average income was about $506 a year.

Lulac and Ethnic Identity

·        For Mexican Americans, the Great Depression created more anxiety.

·        In 1929, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was established to make sure Mexican Americans could get civil rights.

·        LULAC only permitted those who were Latino American citizens. Many Mexican Americans were excluded, even though they called the US home.

African Americans in the Depression

·        When the Depression struck, African Americans started to lose their jobs. By 1932, nearly 50% of African Americans were unemployed.

·        Migration out of the South decreased by 50% in the 1930s.

·        In 1934, the average income for black cotton farmers was under $200 a year.

Scottsboro Boys

·        During the Great Depression, the number of lynchings increased. In 1932, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in the most celebrated racial cases.

·        9 black teenagers were accused of raping 2 white women on a train. 8 of them were sentenced to death. One of the women admitted that the boys were framed.

·        Charges for 4 of them were dropped, and the other 5 were sentenced to prison.

The Tragedy of Herbert Hoover

·        Herbert Hoover’s administration was a disaster. Despite his efforts to repair the damaged economy, he failed to do so.

·        Hoover had made lots of promises before starting his term. After his term, it became clear that he didn’t do anything to help. Hoover had no experience in politics.

The Failure of Relief

·        By the winter of 1931-1932, it became clear that relief organizations with little money couldn’t do anything to help people during the Depression.

·        Over the years, Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans turned to tualistas, which were traditional societies where they could get social support and life insurance.

·        In San Francisco, Chinese Americans were being offered food and essentials by the Chinese Six Companies. However, just like any other organization, it was failing.

City Services

·        About 30 million needy people rapidly depleted city treasuries. Nearly 30% of city taxpayers had fallen behind in what they owed.

·        Some cities were forced to give nothing to unmarried people or childless couples, no matter how hungry they were.

·        Cities began getting help from state capitals, but many states were already in debt. This worsened the situation.

The Hoover Depression Program

·        Starting in 1930, Hoover assumed leadership in combatting the Depression with vigor and compassion. Before becoming president, he was a very successful businessman.

·        When the Depression struck, Hoover wasn’t a passive executive. Most presidents wouldn’t intervene because they believed that it would upset the natural workings of the economy.

·        Hoover understood the vicious cycle of how rising unemployment drove down consumer demand.

Program Failures

·        Hoover’s program failed. He tried to push a tax cut through Congress. When cuts unbalanced the budget, he reversed the course.

·        Hoover at first rallied business leaders, who promised to maintain employment, wages, and prices. It ended up backing down as the economy sputtered.

·        He tried to increase taxes in 1932 to balance the budget. It only soaked up money that could have been used to invest in businesses or buy what was being sold.

·        The president signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff to protect the US from cheap foreign goods. It brought a bunch of retaliation from other countries.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

·        Under pressure from Congress, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to help the failed banks.

·        Under the RFC, the number of failed banks decreased significantly. Despite the success, Hoover received criticism for helping banks but not people.

·        Hoover didn’t want to help the unemployed for fear that a giveaway program would damage the initiative of recipients. It could even produce a permanent underclass.

Unemployment Relief

·        As unemployment increased, Hoover softened his stand on federal relief. He began an effort to help those who lost their jobs.

·        The Emergency Relief and Construction Act was passed. It allowed the RFC to lend up to $1.5 billion for public works that paid for themselves.

Stirrings of Discontent

·        Hoover couldn’t stem rising discontent despite unprecedented action.

·        In 1932, Wisconsin dairy farmers overturned tens of thousands of milk cans in a fruitless effort to increase prices. Anger had turned into violence.

Communist Party

·        In 1932, the Communist Party had 20,000 members. Most Americans rejected their calls for collectivism for fear of the Marxist doctrine.

·        The Communists adopted a more cooperative strategy to contain Hitler when the Nazi Party got control of Germany in 1933.

The Bonus Army

·        The Bonus Army contained WWI veterans who marched into Washington in the summer of 1932. They were looking to cash in the certificates they received from Congress as a reward for their wartime service.

·        Hoover sympathized with the army but only to a point. About 2,000 stayed to protest. Despite eviction orders, they refused to leave. Hoover called the US Army to get rid of the protestors.

·        Hoover in the end accepted responsibility. It would take until 1945 for the Bonus Army to receive their reward.

The Election of 1932

·        In 1932, the Republican Party ended Hoover’s Depression program. The Democratic Party chose FDR, the governor of New York.

·        FDR zigged and zagged so that he could appeal to the broadest possible bloc of voters. At one point, he was talking about a balanced budget. Then, he wanted costly public works and aid to the unemployed.

·        On Election Day, FDR received 58% of the popular vote. Industrial workers in the North, poor farmers in the South and West, immigrants and big-city dwellers from every region voted for FDR.

·        With the 1932 election, 30 years of Republican rule had come to an end.

Recovery, Reform, Relief

·        The early New Deal unfolded in the spring of 1933 with about 15 bills passed within the first 100 days of FDR’s presidency.

·        With FDR, many American believed that he could fix the economy.

The Democratic Roosevelts

·        From the moment FDR entered the White House, he changed the White House. He pushed for many laws in just 100 days.

·        Belt-tightening was new to FDR. He grew up rich and pampered. He mimicked Teddy Roosevelt’s career.

·        Like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR graduated from Harvard, won a seat in the New York State legislature, secured an appointment as assistant secretary of the navy, and ran for vice president.

·        In 1921, Roosevelt was infected with polio. It paralyzed him from the waist down.

·        When the Depression struck, FDR created the first state relief agency in 1931, the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration. FDR considered himself a progressive but moved beyond the federal activism of most progressives.

·        Eleanor Roosevelt redefined what the First Lady was supposed to do. She was the first First Lady to hold weekly press conferences.

·        Eleanor believed she was only a spur to presidential action.

Saving the Banks

·        Before the election Roosevelt formed a “Brains Trust.” It mostly contained economic advisors.

·        Although Brians Trusters disagreed over the means, they agreed over ends: economic recovery, relief for the unemployed, and sweeping reform.

·        On March 5, FDR made all banks close for 4 days. He called it a bank holiday. During this time, the government would check which banks were less likely to fail and reopen those banks.

Emergency Banking Act

·        The Emergency Banking Act followed the modest course of extending federal assistance to those who needed it.

·        Roosevelt explained the Emergency Banking Act in his fireside chats.

·        Troubled banks would be handed over to federal officials, who would guide them to solvency. Sound banks would reopen immediately.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

·        To prevent another stock crash, the government got greater authority to manage the currency. In April 1933, the gold standard was abandoned.

·        The Glass-Steagall Banking Act restricted speculation by banks and created federal insurance for bank deposits up to $2,000.

·        The SEC was established to oversee the stock market.

Relief for the Unemployed

·        Saving the banks meant little if the people kept suffering. The Homeowners’ Loan Act gave mortgage relief for millions of people.

·        FERA furnished more than $1 billion in grants of money and food to states, local areas, and private charities.

·        Harry Hopkins spent $5 million in his first 2 hours as head of the FERA.

Work Relief

·        Hopkins persuaded FDR to expand relief by shifting to a work program to see workers through the winter of 1933-1934.

·        The CWA employed 4 million Americans. The high cost of the program made FDR disband the program in the spring of 1934.

·        The CCC was another work relief program established in 1933. It took unmarried 18- to 25-year-olds from relief rolls and sent them to the woods and field to plant trees and build parks. It provided 2.5 million people with jobs.

Tennessee Valley Authority

·        The Tennessee Valley Authority intended to relieve unemployment and make a continuing contribution to regional planning.

·        The TVA constructed a series of dams to control flooding, improve navigation, and generate cheap hydroelectric power. It also launched social projects to get rid of disease, provide library bookmobiles, and create recreational lakes.

·        Planners hoped to transform the flood-ridden basin of the Tennessee River.

·        The TVA saved 3 million acres from erosion, multiplied the average income in the valley tenfold, and repaid its original investment in federal taxes.

·        Cheap electricity prices brought down the rates of private utility companies.

·        The experiment in regional planning failed. Many families were pushed from their land, poverty didn’t go away, and an agency was created, which became of the worst polluters in the country.

Planning for Industrial Recovery

·        New Dealers saw planning as the key to recovery. If businesses cooperated with each other, the competition could be controlled.

·        Business leaders were urging the government to set up a recovery plan. In June 1933, FDR put planning to work under the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Public Works Administration

·        The Public Works Administration (PWA) was founded to boost industrial activity and consumer spending.

·        The companies put under contract and the employed workers would stimulate the economy through their purchases.

·        Harold Ickes built the Triborough Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel in New York, the port city of Brownsville, Texas, and two aircraft carriers. The problem was that he worried so much about waste and corruption.

National Recovery Administration

·        The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was aimed directly at controlling competition among businesses. NRA Chief Hugh Johnson and representatives drew up laws to establish minimum prices, minimum wages, and maximum hours.

·        Businesses were required to accept key demands of labor, including allowing union rights to organize and bargaining with management.

·        Each code promised to improve working conditions and outlawing practices, such as child labor and sweatshops.

·        No businesses were forced to comply since New Dealers thought that such government action would be ruled unconstitutional. The NRA relied on participation.

·        The NRA failed to spark recovery. Big businesses shaped codes to their advantage and limited production multiple times. Not all businesses joined, and even if a business joined, the codes would be difficult to understand.

Schecter Decision

·        On May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court struck down the NRA in Schecter Poultry Corp. v. US. The justices ruled that the NRA exceeded federal power over commerce among the states by regulating the Schecter brothers’ poultry business in New York.

·        FDR was relieved to be rid of the NRA.

·        Without the ability to make new rules and regulations, the executive agencies of the New Deal might disappear.

Planning for Agriculture

·        New Deal planning for agriculture relied on farmers to act as the primary planners. With the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, farmers had to limit their production.

·        The government would pay farmers to stop producing crops. Production limits could reduce surpluses, increase demand, and then increase prices.

Agricultural Adjustment Act

·        The AAA did help to increase prices. It confined coverage to 7 basic commodities.

·        The new Commodity Credit Corporation gave loans to farmers who kept their crops. Demand was supposed to increase if farmers didn’t sell their crops. Income rose by $3.3 billion in 3 years.

·        Not all the gains in farm income were because of government actions or being free from problems. In the mid-1930s, droughts, dust storms, and floods helped reduce harvests.

·        In 1936, the Supreme Court voided the AAA. In Butler v. US, the Supreme Court concluded that the government had no right to regulate agriculture.

·        The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act replaced the AAA. It addressed most of the complaints.

·        The Farm Credit Administration refinanced a fifth of all farm mortgages so that farmers could keep their land.

·        In 1935, the Resettlement Administration helped struggling farmers by giving moving them to more productive land.

·        Beginning in 1937, the Farm Security Administration furnished low-interest loans so that tenants could buy family farms.

A Second New Deal (1935-1936)

·        In the spring of 1934, voters broke precedent by giving the Democrats their largest majority in Congress in a long time.

·        In 1935 politics, the emphasis was shifted from planning to greater forms of regulation. The government was finally committed to guarantee the well-being of those who needed support.

Dissent from the Deal

·        In 1934, a mob of 6,000 stormed the Minneapolis city hall, demanding more relief and higher pay for government jobs.

·        By the end of 1934, 1.5 million workers joined in 1,800 strikes. Conditions were improving but not fast enough.

Liberty League

·        From the right side, there were a few wealthy business executives and conservatives that didn’t like FDR.

·        In 1934, the American Liberty League was founded. Despite spending $1 million, the league won little support. The only thing they convinced the president was that cooperation was failing.

“End Poverty in California”

·        In California, discontented voters took over the Democratic Party and nominated Upton Sinclar for governor.

·        Sinclair proposed to confiscate idle factories and permit the unemployed to produce for their own use. He used the slogan “End Poverty in California” (EPIC).

·        Sinclair did lose the election, but he gained over 1 million votes.

Huey Long

·        Huey P. Long, governor of Louisiana, rode to power on a wave of discontent against banks, corporations, and political machines. He pushed reforms regulating utilities, building roads, and distributing free schoolbooks.

·        Long was considered the most dangerous man in the US because of his quick rise to power. Opponents called him a dictator, while Louisianans called him the “Kingfish.”

·        Long’s “Share Our Wealth” program intended to make the government limit the size of all fortunes and confiscate the rest. All families would be guaranteed an annual income of $2,500.

·        By 1935, his program created 27,000 clubs. The Democratic National Committee believed that he might capture up to 4 million votes in 1936.

·        Long was assassinated by someone who opposed him.

Charles Coughlin

·        Father Charles Coughlin was considered the radio priest because of his radio broadcasts. Coughlin blamed bankers for starting the Great Depression.

·        He believed that bankers, specifically those who were Jewish, topped the world economy by manipulating currency.

·        Coughlin promised to end the Depression by nationalizing banks, inflating the currency with silver, and spreading work opportunities.

·        In 1934, he established the National Union for Social Justice to pressure both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Francis Townsend

·        Dr. Francis Townsend was a physician who retired from California’s public health service.

·        Townsend created Old Age Revolving Pensions, Limited, in 1934. He proposed to have the government pay families $200 a month and force them to spend it within 30 days.

·        Long, Sinclair, Coughlin, Townsend, and other critics had similar chords. Although their solutions were simplistic and unworkable, the problems they addressed were real.

·        The critics attacked the growing control of corporations, banks, and government over individuals and communities. They created movements based on social and economic dissatisfaction.

The Second Hundred Days

·        By the spring of 1935, FDR and Congress were being pressured by discontent.

·        With 2/3rds of Congress containing Democrats, they were ready to outspend FDR in extending the New Deal.

·        The second 100 days moved the New Deal towards Roosevelt’s idea of government softening the impact of industrialization, protecting the needy, and compensating for the business cycle.

Works Progress Administration

·        To help those who were still homeless, Roosevelt proposed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. $4.8 billion was provided for relief and employment.

·        Some of the money went to the National Youth Administration. The other went to the Works Progress Administration.

·        Many WPA workers began helping with the relief effort.

·        The Social Security Act, passed in 1935, established Social Security. It is a payroll tax for those who are age 65 or older. Social Security is an economic stabilizer.

·        Social Security changed American political values. A new social contract between the government and the people was established.

·        The act did exclude farmworkers and domestic servants.

National Labor Relations Act

·        Congress whittled down Roosevelt’s plan for “cradle-to-grave” social insurance.

·        Robert Wagner wanted works to fight their own battles. He included union recognition in the NRA. When the NRA was killed, he introduced the National Labor Relations Act.

·        The “Wagner Act” created a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to supervise the election of unions. By 1941, the number of unionized workers had doubled.

·        Roosevelt responded to the aggression of business by turning against the wealthy and elite in 1935. Long’s tirades against the rich and Coughlin’s beliefs against banks sharpened his point of attack.

·        The Revenue Act of 1935 attempted to “soak the rich.” By the time it went through Congress, it levied only moderate taxes on the rich. The Banking Act centralized authority over the money market in the Federal Reserve System.

·        The Public Utilities Holding Company Act (1935) limited the size of utility empires.

The Election of 1936

·        In June 1936, FDR went to Philly to accept the Democratic nomination for a second term. He ignored Alred Landon, governor of Kansas. Landon lacked luster.

·        Landon favored the regulation of business, a balanced budget, and much of the New Deal. Roosevelt turned the election into a contest of what to have and what not to have.

·        The strategy deflated Republicans, discredited conservatives, and stole the thunder of the Union Party.

·        Roosevelt won 523-8. He also won 60.8% of the popular vote. The margin of victory came from those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Roosevelt Coalition

·        A political realignment was now put in place, with Democrats taking over. For the next 30 years, the Democratic Party would be very powerful.

·        The Roosevelt coalition rested on traditional Democratic support in the South, citizens of the big cities, and labor. The Republican Party became a minority party.

Rural Electrification Administration

·        The reason that most farmers had a limited life was because of no electricity.

·        The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) changed the way farmers lived drastically. By 1950, 90% of farmers had electricity.

The New Deal and Western Water

·        In September 1936, FDR sent electricity to the Hoover Dam in Nevada by pushing a button. The waters irrigated 2.5 million acres, while its floodgates protected those from California, Nevada, and Arizona.

·        The Hoover Dam was one of many dams completed under the New Deal. The purpose was to control who river systems for regional use.

·        The Buchanan Dam, the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams, and other small dams were built to generate cheap electricity.

·        Beginning in 1938, the All-American canal irrigated the Imperial Valley in California by channeling the Colorado River.

·        Environmental degradation accompanied human intervention. The Columbia River turned from a human-made lake to a lake.

·        The Colorado River turned salty, and by 1950 it became unfit for drinking.

The Limited Reach of the New Deal

·        In the spring of 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to permit Marian Anderson to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington.

·        Eleanor Roosevelt quit the DAR in Protest. Harold Ickes looked for another site.

African Americans

·        In 1932, most African Americans casted their ballots for Republicans. Disenchantment with decades of broken promises was spreading. By 1934, they were voting for Democrats.

·        The New Deal accounted for the political realignment. FDR regarded African Americans as a group whose interests he brokered. Federal offices were segregated since Woodrow Wilson.

·        Under Roosevelt, racial integration slowly returned to the government. Eleanor Roosevelt and Harold Ickes brought Robert C. Weaver and other African American advisors into the administration.

·        Outside of government, the Urban League lobbied for economic advancement. The NAACP wanted lynching to be a federal crime.

·        John H. Johnson organized the Citizens’ League for Fair Play in 1933 to persuade white merchants to hire black clerks.

·        Racial tension over employment and housing was high. Discrimination persisted under the New Deal.

·        Black newspapers reported hundreds of cases of NRA codes resulting in jobs lost to white workers.

·        The TVA’s model town of Norris, Tennessee, and the homestead village of Arthurdale, West Virginia, were closed to African Americans.

·        African Americans did receive some benefits. For example, when FDR found out that white workers were being paid more, he ordered to stop doing so.

·        By 1941, the percent of African Americans working for the government exceeded their proportion of the population.

Mexican Americans

·        The New Deal didn’t worry about civil rights. Mexican Americans were never a target of relief. They received less help than African Americans.

·        Low voter turnout hampered Mexican Americans’ influence of politics, and discrimination limited economic advancements.

·        In the Southwest and California, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Work Progress Administration furnished some jobs. They still had less pay.

·        Liked African Americans, most Latinos remained in poverty.

John Collier’s Indian Reorganization Act

·        In the 1930s, Indians ha John Collier as their friend. For years, he fought as a social worker among the Pueblos to restore tribal culture.

·        Under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, elders were urged to celebrate festivals. A special Court of Indian Affairs removed Indians from state jurisdiction.

·        Tribes regained control over Indian land. Since the Dawes Act of 1887 the land was allotted to individual Indians. They were forced by poverty.

·        The Pueblos favored Collier’s policies. The tribes of Oklahoma and the Great Plains tended to oppose them.

·        Some Indians such as the Navajos desired assimilation and saw tribal government as a step backward.

A New Deal for Women

·        As the tides of change went across the country, a New Deal for women was unfolding in Washington. It offered unprecedented opportunity for social workers, teachers, and other women who spent their lives helping the downtrodden.

·        Women received federal appointments in unprecedented numbers, serving on the consumers’ advisory board of the NRA.

·        Women also became a part of the Democratic Party. Under Mary W. Molly Dewson, the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee played a critical role in the 1936 election.

·        When the ballots were tallied, women formed an important part of the new Roosevelt coalition.

·        Federal appointments and party politics broke new ground for women, but the New Deal abided to social standards. Gender equality was never high on the New Deal’s agenda.

·        1/4^th of all NRA codes permitted women to be paid less. The New Deal gave few jobs to women, despite some impressive appointments.

·        Most women in the workforce fared better during the Progressive Era.

·        After reflecting on old concepts of reform, New Dealers placed greater emphasis on aiding and protecting women. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration built 17 camps for homeless women in 11 states.

The Rise of Organized Labor

·        Although the New Deal had limits to the changes it promoted, a powerful union movement arose in the 1930s.

·        By the end of the decade, nearly a third join the new union movement.

Cawiu Farm Strike

·        Although the New Deal left farmworkers outside its coverage, its promise of support encouraged farmers to act by themselves.

·        A very famous trike occurred in the cotton fields of the San Joaquin Valley under the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU). Most of the strikers were Mexican, supported by family and friends.

·        The government stepped in to negotiate a settlement.

·        Government settlement wasn’t enough to embolden the American Federation of Labor (AFL). It paid little attention to skilled workers, who made up most of the industrial labor force.

Congress of Industrial Organizations

·        In 1935, John L. Lewis announced the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO). The AFL suspended rogue unions in 1936.

·        The CIO turned to the unskilled. The unskilled gained a powerful voice at the bargaining table.

·        Emboldened by the Wagner Act, a group of rubber workers in Akron sat down on the job in early 1936. Since the strikers occupied the plants, managers couldn’t replace them with strikebreakers. The rubber companies couldn’t call the police or military without risk to their property.

·        Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company eventually decided to recognize the union accept its demands on wages and hours.

·        The biggest strikes occurred in the automobile industry. There were strikes at General Motors plants in Atlanta, Kansas City, and Cleveland.

·        Local police tried to break up the strikes, but they were driven off by a hail of nuts, bolts, coffee mugs, and bottles.

·        In the wake of the “Battle of Running Bulls,” Frank Murphy called out the National Guard to protect the strikers.

Union Gains

·        On Memorial Day 1937, 10 strikers were killed when Chicago police fired on them as they marched peacefully towards the Republic Steel plant.

·        A momentous transfer of power took place when union membership swelled, and the unskilled had a voice in the CIO. Independent union became a significant part of the US.

“Art for the Millions”

·        No agency of the New Deal touched more Americans than Federal One. Thousands of unemployed writers, musicians, painters, actors, and photographers went on the federal payroll with Federal One.

·        A Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) produced about 1,000 publications. It was so popular that commercial printers printed them.

·        The Federal Music Project (FMP) employed 15,000 out-of-work musicians. In the Federal Art Project (FAP), artists taught sculpture, painting, and carving.

·        Many illustrations of American culture were made from the FAP.

Rivera and Orozco

·        The most notable contribution of the FAP came in the form of murals. Under Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, American artists covered the walls of airports, post offices, and other government buildings.

·        Most of the murals emphasized the enduring qualities of American life.

·        The Federal Theatre Project (FTP) reached the greatest number of people, which is around 30 million. Hallie Flanagan made government-supported theater viral, daring, and relevant.

·        The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated the FTP as “a branch of the Communistic organization.” Congress ended government-sponsored theater.

Documentary Realism

·        The documentary impulse to record life permeated the arts in the 1930s. Tobacco Road, The Grapes of Wealth, and funded documentaries stirred the social science of the country.

·        New Dealers had practical motives for promoting documentaries.