FDR & “New Deal” America

(1933 - 1941)

FDR Nomination, 1932

“Let it be symbolic… that I have broken traditions. Republican leaders not only have failed in material things, they have failed in national vision, because in disaster they have held out no hope… I pledge you, [and] I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.”

- FDR, Dem. National Convention, 1932

FDR Quick Facts

NY aristocrat

Harvard ; Columbia

Lawyer ; Politician

5th Cousin of Teddy

Congress (NY)

Asst. Sec. of Navy

Governor (NY)

1928 Election

1932 Election

Great Depression : By the Numbers

Roosevelt & the New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)

Programs to address the Depression

“Relief, Recovery, Reform”

Deficit Spending

Consume our way out of the depression

Role of government

The New Deal

“Brain Trust” Trial & error method “Fireside Chats”

Three-Pronged Approach:

Short-term relief for unemployed Industrial recovery via govt. spending and labor arbitration Raise commodity prices by paying farmers to reduce crops

Fireside Chats

Emergency Banking Relief Act (1933)

Re-open “sound” banks

90% of banking resources re-open

“better to keep your money in a reopened bank than under a mattress.”

“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

Financial Reform

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Insured individual bank deposits

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Regulated trading practices in stocks and bonds

“100 Days”

March 9 - June 16, 1933

15 major laws passedCCC

TVA

Glass-Steagall Act (FDIC)

Abandon gold standard

21st Amendment (end prohibition)

“The Galloping Snail”

New Deal Programs

“Welfare capitalism”

Work relief vs. “on the dole”

Harry Hopkins

FERA (1933-4)

CCC (1933)

PWA (1933)

TVA (1933)

WPA (1935)

TVA c. 1933

Flood control, Electricity, Irrigation

Norris Dam, TN

Works Progress Administration

Biggest agency (9 mil. cumulative workers)

1935; employed 3 mil. ; $2 bil. budget Bridges, reservoirs, irrigation, sewage, schools, playgrounds, education, teaching

Minimum wages ; vocational trainings“We Work Again”

WPA Programs

Federal Art Project

Federal Music Project

Federal Writers’ Project

Federal Theatre Project

National Youth Administration

WPA Programs

WPA Programs

Travel Through the West

New Deal Work Mural

Agricultural Reform

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA 1933)Commodity Credit Corporation (1933)“Dust Bowl” migrations

“Okies”Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA, 1933)Farm Security Administration (1937)

The Dust Bowl

Economic & environmental disaster

Overproduction ; monocrops

Plowed up grasses for farms to meet the needs of a booming wheat market

Soil exhaustion ; soil erosion

Drought ; winds

1935: Blew winds from CO & NE, blackened sky across the plains

The Dust Bowl

“Okies”

Poor whites & sharecroppers

Evicted from OK, TX, MO, AR

Going to CA

L.A. Police Chief“bum blockade”

Grapes of Wrath, 1939

Industrial Reforms

Natl. Industrial Recovery Act (1933)

NRA

PWA

TVA

“Work Relief”

Labor Laws40 hr./ wk.

Min. Wage: $12/ wk.

Western Water Projects

Bureau of Reclamation

Irrigation

Electricity

Water for cities

Jobs!

Hoover Dam, NV / AZ

Hoover Dam, NV / AZ

Grand Coulee Dam, WA

New Deal Critics

Francis TownshendRetirement pensions

Econ. stimulus

Huey Long“Share Our Wealth”

Communist undertones?

New Deal Critics

Fr. Charles CoughlinBanking System

Free Silver

Anti-Semitic?

Supreme CourtIndustrial Reform

NRA (intrastate)

2nd New Deal

Passed in 1935

Wagner ActUnion choice

Prohibits employers from union interference

Social Security ActElderly, disabled

Grants to states

“Payroll Tax” & natl. trust fund

Supplemental, not sole income

Election of 1936

Court Packing

Labor Unrest

CIO v. AFL rivalryAuto, Steel

“Sit Down Strike”

FDR refuses to send natl. troops

Union successes

Late Reforms

Recession 1937-8Keynesian Economics1937: $33 bil. to WPAHousing Act (1937)

Public Housing ; Subsidies

Changes in Dem. party

What was the legacy of FDR and his New Deal programs?