The Great Depression and the New Deal

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Chapter 33

• The Great Depression and the New Deal
• 1933-1939

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1932 Campaign

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt- a new deal for the
  Democrats
• Herbert Hoover- Republicans
• FDRs Brain Trust
• Landslide for FDR- 472 EV to 59? shift in black
  vote (New Deal coalition)
• Lame Duck period until March 4, 1933

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100 Days

• the only thing we have to fear is fear itself
  at the inauguration
• 100 Days momentum to get things done? Democratic
  Congress
• Relief, Recovery and Reform New Deal policies
  (progressive reforms)

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Banking/Money Reform

• March 6 Bank Holiday to reorganize? March 9
  Emergency Banking Relief Act
• Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act to create the
  FDIC and off of gold standard
• Ordered all gold turned in for 35/ounce
  INFLATION!
• Goal restore confidence in system

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Jobs

• 25 unemployment in 1933? prime the pump
• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
  with Harry L. Hopkins
• Civilian Works Administration (CWA)
• Work Progress Administration 1935 with Harry
  Hopkins

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CCC Workers in Alaska, 1939
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WPA Mural, by Victor Arnautoff (18961979),
1934The Pedestrian Scene, painted on a wall of
Coit Tower in San Francisco, was one of a series
of murals commissioned by the federal government
to employ artists during the Great Depression.
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Opposition to FDR

• Radio priest, Father Charles Coughlin- Social
  Justice
• Louisiana Senator, Huey P. Long (the Kingfish)
• Share Our Wealth every man a king
• Dr. Francis Townsend- Townsend Plan

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New Deal- Industry

• National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) created
  the National Recovery Administration (NRA)- Blue
  Eagle
• Membership was suppose to be voluntary
• Schechter Poultry vs. US 1935- sick chicken
  case
• NIRA also created the Public Works Administration
  (PWA)- big projects
• Grand Coulee Dam irrigation and electricity

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Grand Coulee Dam Under Construction on the
Columbia River, 1939Located in central
Washington State, the Grand Coulee Dam was one of
the most ambitious projects of the New Deals
Public Works Administration. It is the largest
concrete structure in the United States and the
central facility in the Columbia Basin Project,
which generates electricity for the Pacific
Northwest and provides irrigation for half a
million acres of Columbia Valley
farmlandservices that have transformed the life
of the region.
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New Deal- Farmers

• Overproduction of farm products
• Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) 1933- subsidies
  to farmers (artificial scarcity)
• US vs. Butler 1936
• Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
  1936- stop erosion
• Second AAA- parity prices

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Dust Bowl

• Drought, overproduction, dry farming, plowing sod
  on Great Plains Dust Bowl
• Mass exodus of Okies and Arkies
• Frazier Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act 1934 to stop
  farm foreclosures- unconstitutional
• CCC planted 200 million trees on prairies
• Indian Reorganization Act (Indian New Deal) to
  reverse the Dawes Act- no more assimilation!

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An Okie Family Hits the Road in the 1930s to
Escape the Dust Bowl
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The Extent of Erosion in the 1930s Note the
extensive wind erosion in the western Oklahoma
panhandle region, which was dubbed the Dust
Bowl in the 1930s. Mechanized farmers had
busted the sod of the southern plains so
thoroughly that they literally broke the back of
the land. Tons of dust blew out of the Dust Bowl
in the 1930s and blotted the sun from the skies
as far away as New York
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TVA

• Cost of utilities up, Tennessee Valley hard hit
  by Depression
• Tennessee Valley Authority regional central
  planning agency
• Hydroelectric power, flood control, create jobs,
  education for farmers
• Socialism?

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More than twenty dams were constructed on the
rivers tributaries as part of a massive project
to control flooding, generate hydroelectric
power, and revitalize the Tennessee Valley
region, while also creating jobs for the
unemployed. The shaded area represents the area
served by TVA electric power.
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Social Security

• Social Security Act 1935 old age pension, blind,
  handicapped, delinquent children? payroll tax
• No longer an agrarian society- dependent on boom
  and bust cycles
• 1945 41.9 workers to 1 beneficiary, today 3.3
  to 1
• Part of the Second New Deal (1934-1938)

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New Deal- Labor

• National strikes- summer 1934, NRA
  unconstitutional
• Congress replaced with National Labor Relations
  Act (Wagner Act) to allow for collective
  bargaining
• Act created the National Labor Relations Board
  (NLRB)
• Union membership ?

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New Deal- Labor

• John L. Lewis- Congress of Industrial
  Organization (CIO)? kicked out of AFL
• Unionized auto workers? Flint, Michigan strike at
  General Motors
• Sit down strike? forced to recognize union!
• US Steel allowed CIO, but Republic Steel refused
  (Little Steel Strike)
• Fair Labor Standards Act 1938- minimum wage,
  maximum hours

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Court Packing Scheme

• Conservative Court- overturned 7 of 9 New Deal
  programs that came before
• FDR proposed the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of
  1937 (Court Packing Bill)
• Public opinion against- checks and balances!
• Justice Owen Roberts switched- the switch in
  time that saved nine

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Keynesian Economics

• 2nd term unemployment still at 15
• 1937 Roosevelt Recession? moved completely away
  from balanced budget
• Keynesian Economics (John Maynard Keynes)
• Planned deficit spending (demand side)
• Created a massive national debt