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The New Deal. Reeling from the economic downturn and angry about President Hoover’s refusal to use the government to relieve the suffering of the people many Americans looked to the upcoming Presidential election in 1932 as a way to change their circumstances. .
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Reeling from the economic downturn and angry about President Hoover’s refusal to use the government to relieve the suffering of the people many Americans looked to the upcoming Presidential election in 1932 as a way to change their circumstances.
The 1932 election changes everything • Herbert Hoover’s efforts to combat the effects of the Great Depression were viewed by the public as too little too late. His chances for re-election were not good. • His opponent, Franklin Roosevelt, was a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt and a member of one of the wealthy families on the East Coast.
The 1932 election changes everything • FDR campaigned as someone who knew the problems of average people and pledged that he would help them. • The combination of Roosevelt’s charm and humor and the public dissatisfaction with the Republican Hoover administration meant FDR won the election easily.
Right from the start it’s obvious the new president intends to act quickly.. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself….”
The First 100 Days Once he was President Franklin Roosevelt moved quickly to counteract the problems caused by the Depression A desperate Congress supported Roosevelt’s efforts and rubber-stamped his proposals in order to expedite the reforms. During the first 100 days of his presidency, a never-ending stream of bills was passed, to relieve poverty, reduce unemployment, and speed economic recovery.
The First 100 Days (con’t) • His first act as president was to declare a four-day bank holiday, during which time Congress drafted the Emergency Banking Bill of 1933. • This stabilized the banking system and restored the public's faith in the banking industry by putting the federal government behind it. • Three months later he signed the Glass-Steagall Act which created the FDIC, federally insuring deposits, so people could put their money in the bank with confidence.
The First 100 Days (con’t) • The Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of the New Deal's most successful programs. • It addressed the pressing problem of unemployment by sending 3 million single men from age 17 to 23 to the nations' forests to work. Living in camps in the forests, the men dug ditches, built reservoirs and planted trees. The men, all volunteers, were paid $30 a month, with two thirds being sent home. • The Public Works Administration (PWA),and in the Second 100 Days the Works Progress Administration (WPA)Roosevelt's major work relief program, would employ more than 8.5 million people to build bridges, roads, public buildings, parks and airports.
The First 100 Days (con’t) • The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) were designed to address unemployment by regulating the number of hours worked per week and banning child labor. • The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), created in 1933, gave $3 billion to states for work relief programs. • The Agricultural Adjustment Act subsidized farmers for reducing crops and provided loans for farmers facing bankruptcy. • The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) helped people save their homes from foreclosure.
The First 100 Days (con’t) While they did not end the Depression, the New Deal's experimental programs helped the American people’s spirits by taking care of their basic needs and giving them the dignity of work, and hope.
Repeal of 18th Amendment • Roosevelt had long felt that Prohibition was detrimental to the economy and society in general. • With FDR’s support Prohibition was repealed December 5, 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution.
Native Americans and the New Deal • In 1924 all Native Americans were finally made full citizens of the U.S. through the Indian Citizenship Act. • In 1933 FDR appointed John Collier as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Collier helped to create the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 • Marks an abrupt shift in policy from the previous drive for total assimilation of native people, and supports a return to autonomous tribal control. • The act restored some reservation lands to tribal ownership that had been lost during the days of the Dawes Act.
Dawes Act • An attempt to force the Native nations to be more like the dominant culture this act divided up reservation lands and gave them to individuals as private property. • In most cases these lands ended up in the hands of people outside the Native community…further reducing the territory controlled by indigenous people.
Change was mandated in 3 areas • Economic – Native American lands would now return to tribal ownership. • Cultural – the number of boarding schools for Native American students would be reduced and schools created on the reservations. • Political – tribes could elect tribal councils and govern reservations directly
Most traditional people… felt this was a step forward. But Native Americans who were more assimilated into the larger society and had become individual landholders through the Dawes Act resented yet more white interference in their affairs.
FDR is re-elected in 1936 Mostly through the support of • Urban people • Ethnic minorities • Women voters He was not as well-liked in rural areas, or by the traditional elites.
Culture in the 1930’s • FDR had a weekly radio “Fireside Chat” that made most people feel very connected with their government in Washington D.C.
Escapist movies and radio entertainment were extremely popular, and helped people forget their cares during very tough times. Wallace Beery & Jean Harlow in Dinner At Eight (1933)
Novelists like Richard Wright and John Steinbeck won awards for their realistic portrayals of the human drama of life during the Depression – books like “The Grapes of Wrath” (Steinbeck) and “Native Son” (Wright)
Thousands of artists, writers and photographers were put on the government payroll through the Works Progress Administration. When federal support of artists was questioned, Director of the WPA Harry Hopkins answered, "Hell! They've got to eat just like other people." The WPA supported tens of thousands of artists, by funding creation of 2,566 murals and 17,744 pieces of sculpture that still decorate public buildings nationwide. Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”
The federal art, theater, music, and writing programs, while not changing American culture as much as their adherents had hoped, did bring more art to more Americans than ever before or since. The WPA program in the arts led to the creation of the National Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities which still offers support for artists and art projects of all kinds throughout the United States.
This photograph, known as Migrant Mother, is probably WPA photographer Dorothea Lange's most famous. It depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on a mother of seven children, age thirty-two, in Nipomo, California, March 1936. The woman in the picture is Florence Owens Thompson, whose partner and sons had gone to get help for their broken down car.
This WPA mural "Parks, the Circus, the Klan, the Press"by Thomas Hart Benton is located in Woodburn Hall, Indiana University-Bloomington Campus
Another Thomas Hart Benton WPA mural -- "Electric Power, Motor-Cars, Steel"also located in Woodburn Hall, Indiana University-Bloomington Campus
This Land is Your Land – Woody Guthrie This land is your land, this land is my land From California, to the New York Island From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters This land was made for you and me As I was walking a ribbon of highway I saw above me an endless skyway I saw below me a golden valley This land was made for you and me (chorus) This song is considered by many people to be the truest expression of the American spirit….but you have to wonder if they’ve heard the whole thing….
As I was walkin' – I saw a sign there And that sign said – no tresspassin‘ But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me! (Chorus) In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple Near the relief office – I see my people And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin' If this land's still made for you and me. (Chorus) Woody Guthrie wrote many protest songs about ordinary people and their struggles during the Depression -- these lyrics, rarely heard, are very typical of his view of the world.
Impact of the New Deal • Expands government’s role in the economy • Promotes worker’s rights, creates Social Security • Improved life in rural America with electrification, improved farming methods, soil conservation measures • Environmental improvements like flood control, creation of parks and conservation areas, reduced grazing on pubic lands, protection of natural resources.
All of these actions as much as they helped people, could not end the Great Depression. • And New Deal programs, because they reflected the biases of 1930s American politics and culture, did not offer the same aid to all Americans • White men generally received better benefits than women, blacks, or Latinos.
Still, FDR did much to reshape the United States. • With FDR in the White House, the federal government played a greater role than ever before in managing the American economy and in protecting the welfare of the American people.
In short, through his policies and attempts to end the Depression FDR oversaw major and important changes in American politics and governance that would define life in the United States for most of the twentieth century.
So, what did end the Great Depression? American mobilization for the coming war in the early 1940s finally brought the United States out of its economic doldrums but that is another story for another day…..
