The New Deal

							Chapter 9
Lecture Focus Questions
#1: How did the New Deal attempt
 to address the problems of the
 Great Depression?

#2: Did the growth in the powers of
 the federal government during the
 New Deal benefit the nation?
 Explain your answer.
First Hundred Days
 FDR immediately aimed to restore hope and
  the economy
  – Fireside chats
  – Instant action within the First Hundred Days
 New Deal: FDR’s relief, recovery and
  reform programs aimed at fighting the G.D.
  – Bank Holiday: inspect banks’ financial health
     • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
       (FDIC): insured bank deposits up to $5,000
     • Securities and Exchange Commission
       (SEC): regulated the stock market and made
       it safe for investors
  – Relief and work
     • Public works programs: govt-funded
       projects to build public facilities
First Hundred Days cont’d
 Agricultural Adjustment Bureau: paid
  farmers subsidies to not plant part of their
  land in order to raise crop value/prices
 Tennessee Valley Authority: built dams to
  control floods and generate electricity
 Civilian Conservation Corps: provided
  jobs, replanted forests, built trails, dug
  irrigation ditches, fought fires
 National Recovery Administration:
  working with business and labor leaders the
  NRA developed codes that were intended to
  govern whole industries
  – Established a minimum wage
  – Established minimum prices for the goods that businesses
    sold
                 ELEANOR & FDR




FIRESIDE CHATS
A Second New Deal
 Second New Deal (Second Hundred Days)
 Rural Electrification Administration:
  brought electricity to rural areas
 Wagner Act: legalized union
  membership, collective bargaining and
  closed shops
 Social Security Act:
  – Old-age pensions/survivors’ benefits
  – Unemployment insurance
  – Aid for dependent children, the blind and
    disabled
 Critics
 New Deal does too
  much
  – Govt too powerful
 New Deal doesn’t do
  enough
  – Too much attention paid
    to banks and business
  – Demagogues: leaders
    who manipulate people
    with half-truths and
    scare tactics
     • Father Coughlin:
       communists in charge!
     • Huey Long: “Share Our
       Wealth” program
FDR & the Supreme
Court
 Supreme Court
  opposed the New
  Deal
  – President has no
    power to regulate
    inter-state
    commerce
 Court Packing:
  FDR attempted to
  appoint 6 new
  Justices
  sympathetic to his
  New Deal
Women of the New Deal
 Eleanor Roosevelt
  – Defied tradition by aggressively promoting
    the New Deal
 Mary McLeod Bethune
  – Organized the unofficial “black cabinet”
 Francis Perkins
  – First woman appointed Sec. of Labor
 Dorothea Lange
  – Photographs helped win aid for migrant
    workers
 DOROTHEA
   LANGE




MIGRANT MOTHER
Not a Miracle Cure
Recession of 1937
Rising national debt
Labor Unions → rise in membership
 and power
  – Sit-down strikes
Discrimination in New Deal
 programs
New Deal only provided temporary
 relief
New Deal Legacies
 Public works projects still visible
   – Bridges, dams, hospitals, parks
 Social Security
 Legacy of hope
 Legacy of debt ($15,137,156,787,655.08)
  through deficit spending (www.usdebtclock.org)
   – Deficit spending: spending more money than
     you are taking in
 Legacy of government involvement in
  the lives of average citizens
Lecture Focus Questions
#1: How did the New Deal attempt
 to address the problems of the
 Great Depression?

#2: Did the growth in the powers of
 the federal government during the
 New Deal benefit the nation?
 Explain your answer.