3A The New Deal and the Economy

Question 1

How was the national total of personal income different between 1929 and 1939?

Answer 1

1929: $86 billion
1939: $73 billion

Question 2

How was the Average wages different between 1929 and 1939?

Answer 2

1929 $25.03 a week

1939 $23.86 a week

Question 3

What key change to a law was made in 1939 that helped to change the economy around?

Answer 3

In 1939 a key amendment was made to a law: The Neutrality Acts of 1935. This meant that belligerents*** could buy munitions from the USA.
Within a year there were orders for 10,800 aircraft

***belligerents: Countries at war

Question 4

How did unemployment change?

1929: 
1932 
1933: 
1936: 
1937: 
1938: 
1939: 
1940: 
1944:

Answer 4

1929: unemployment was 3.14% of workforce
1932 national wage bill only 40% of 1929 figure
1933: unemployment rose to 24.75% (around 18 million)
1936: Unemployment rate around 17%
1937: During the second New Deal, around 14.3%
1938: Spending cuts led to Roosevelt Recession, around 19%
1939: End of the New Deal and start of war time economy, 17.2%
1940: War time economy, 14.6%
1944: Unemployment at 1.2%

Question 5

What was unemployment like in 1929?

Answer 5

unemployment was 3.14% of workforce

Question 6

What was unemployment like in 1932?

Answer 6

national wage bill only 40% of 1929 figure

Question 7

What was unemployment like in 1933?

Answer 7

unemployment rose to 24.75% (around 18 million)

Question 8

What was unemployment like in 1936?

Answer 8

Unemployment rate around 17%

Question 9

What was unemployment like in 1937?

Answer 9

During the second New Deal, around 14.3%

Question 10

What was unemployment like in 1938?

Answer 10

Spending cuts led to Roosevelt Recession, around 19%

Question 11

What was unemployment like in 1940?

Answer 11

War time economy, 14.6%

Question 12

What was unemployment like in 1944?

Answer 12

Unemployment at 1.2%

Question 13

What was unemployment like in 1939?

Answer 13

End of the New Deal and start of war time economy, 17.2%

Question 14

What was the federal government doing for the first time?

Answer 14

For the first time ever the federal government was actively engaged at bringing help and assistance to the unemployed through directly funded work programmes via alphabet agencies such as the PWA and WPA. These works programmes were created in order to provide work in the hope that these alphabet agencies would ‘kickstart’ the economy.

Question 15

How did the new deal fail to support unemployment?

What did it do instead?

Answer 15

It would seem that the New Deal was a failure in regard to offering the unemployed long-term employment that was not based on agencies.

BUT it must be acknowledged that the New Deal did prevent the total economic collapse of America and lay the economic foundations that supported the rapid economic growth in the Second World War which was more sustained.

Question 16

What was the impact of the WPA?

Answer 16

1935 - 1943 workers built 2,500 hospitals, 5,900 schools, 350 airports, 570,000 mile of road and 8,000 parks.

Question 17

What was the Impact of the CCC?

Answer 17

CCC was heavily involved in the development of National and State Parks, roads, planting trees and the building of tourist facilities.

Question 18

What was the impact of the TVA?

Answer 18

The TVA of 1933 built dams that provided power both domestic and industrial use, transforming and modernising the lives of many Americans, and bringing electricity to many in the Tennessee Valley for the first time.

Question 19

Where were are industries encouraged to locate?

What impact did this have?

Answer 19

New industries were also encouraged to locate to these rural areas and by 1941, 40% of American farmers had access to electricity increasing to 90% by 1950

Question 20

What happened to the road network and school systems\?

Answer 20

By the end of the New Deal, the road network of America had been transformed as had the school system and hospital provision.

Question 21

How did women in politics change?

Answer 21

held more influential and important positions during the New Deal than ever before. Many of these women were friends of Eleanor Roosevelt and had been involved in the campaign for women’s suffrage.

Question 22

What were domestic feminists?

Answer 22

used the traditional role of women in the home to justify intervention in the public sphere of politics - trying to spread education, fair treatment of women and children, and good “housekeeping” to prevent corruption in business and politics

Question 23

Who was Frances Perkins?

What 2 acts did she help to pass?

Answer 23

became the first woman cabinet member in March 1933 when she became Secretary of Labour, until June 1945.

Perkins helped to pass a federal minimum wage for workers in the Fair Labour Standards Act 1938, and played a central role in establishing the CCC.

Her most important contribution was creating the Social Security Act of 1935 - her more radical suggestions were watered down.

Question 24

Who was Mary McLeod Bethune?

Answer 24

was the most prominent black American of the New Deal.

Question 25

What was Mary McLeod Bethune’s role in the government?

Answer 25

A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1936, Bethune became the highest ranking African American woman in government when FDR named her director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, where she remained until 1944.

Question 26

What was Mary McLeod Bethune chair of?

Answer 26

Bethune became chairperson of an informal ‘Black Cabinet’, which was a group of federally appointed black Americans in order to help plan priorities for black American communities.

Question 27

What did Mary McLeod Bethune become vice chair of in 1940?

Answer 27

In 1940, she became vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP), a position she held for the rest of her life.

Question 28

What success did Mary McLeod Bethune have?

Answer 28

Bethune had limited success in her demand that black American youth should receive federal aid in numbers reflecting their proportion to the numbers of white youth. Her campaign for black Americans to receive the same wage as whites in the federal government was also unsuccessful.

Question 29

Who was Eleanor Roosevelt?

Answer 29

took a very active political role and transformed the role of First Lady (wife of the President).

Question 30

What did Eleanor Roosevelt help to make?

Answer 30

Eleanor helped make many New Deal policies, due to her intelligence and powerful personality combined with her social and political links. She became an ‘unofficial’ member on FDR’s advisory team.

Question 31

What did Eleanor Roosevelt use her influence for?

Answer 31

Eleanor used her influence to champion the right of ethnic minorities and women as well as influence federal policy.

Question 32

How many press conferences did Eleanor Roosevelt hold?

Answer 32

During the years of the New Deal Eleanor Roosevelt held 348 press conferences explaining to the press what she believed should be done, highlighting the plight of young people facing extreme poverty and lack of opportunity.

Question 33

Who was moly Dewson?

Answer 33

close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. Women’s Division of the Democratic Party

Question 34

Who was Ellen woodward?

Answer 34

was the director of the Women’s Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) from 1933 to 1935

Question 35

Who was Ruth Bryan Owen?

Answer 35

first female ambassador to denmark 1933

Question 36

How did employment change for women?

Answer 36

There was a female equivalent of the CCC, nicknamed “She, she, she” camps - these employed women on short term projects

The New Deal saved education by funding schools, most teachers were women
Some alphabet agencies offered opportunities for women

Question 37

How did employment not change for women?

Answer 37

The New Deal and Labour Unions took a traditional standpoint that men should be principal wage earners in the family. At a time when jobs were limited, usually only one member of the family might be able to secure employment - and this was typically men.

Question 38

What wages did women earn on average?

Answer 38

Women on average earned $525 during the 1930s, half that of men

Question 39

What impact did the 1933 Economy act have on women?

Answer 39

Forbade 2 people from same family from working for federal gov - 75% of those who lost their jobs were women

Question 40

What did the NRA codes allow to happen to women?

Answer 40

NRA codes allowed for unequal wages

Question 41

How did the Social security Act effect women?

Answer 41

did not include domestic servants, hundreds of thousands of these were women

Question 42

What was the economy like in 1939?

How much as union membership changed to?

how much of all income did huge corporations control?

Answer 42

Unemployment was still high, membership of labour unions had increased to 27% of the workforce,

and industrial unrest was still a major problem in some major cities.

5 huge corporations still controlled 85% of all income generated by business… this suggests the New Deal had limited success in recovering the economy.

Question 43

How did Military spending change?

Answer 43

July 1940, $ 4billion toward US Navy

October 1940, $17 billion towards defence

Question 44

How did the health of the economy change in the 1940’s?

Answer 44

Unemployment: 1933 25%, 1940 13.9%
GNP: 1933 $68.3 bn, 1940 $113 bn