3B The impact of the New Deal on ethnic minorities Flashcards
How many jobs did the WPA find for black Americans?
WPA, led by Harry Hopkins: 1936-40 found work for 350,000 black Americans every year
How many black Americans were employed as teachers?
5000
How many young black Americans received skills training through the NYA?
500,000
How did black Americans role in government change?
First black Congressman, Arthur Mitchell. Democrat
Representative for Illinois, first elected 1935
Support from many prominent people in FDR’s government, e.g. Eleanor Roosevelt and Harold Ickes
Mary McLeod Bethune, National Youth Administration. Some refer to the “Black cabinet”, made up of black Americans to advise on issues of race - but none on FDR’s official cabinet.
What did the number of black civil service employees change by?
150,000 by 1941
What order in 1941 outlawed discrimination in the defence insturty?
Executive Order 8802 outlawed discrimination in defence industry and set up the Fair Employment and Practices Committee (FEPC).
What was order 8802?
outlawed discrimination in defence industry and set up the Fair Employment and Practices Committee (FEPC).
How did Black Americans voting behaviour change?
Traditionally, black Americans voted Republican, as this had been Abraham Lincoln’s anti-slavery party who had won the Civil War (1860s)
During the New Deal, complete shift in allegiance (mainly in the North as only 5% of black Americans in the South could vote)
1940, all 15 black-American wards in 9 major cities voted for FDR. Black majority area Harlem, New York, Roosevelt won 85% of the vote
What was the limits of AAA for black Americans?
poor black Americans farmers and sharecroppers received no help, especially in South
What was the limits of the NRA codes for black Americans?
allowed for whites to be paid more for the same job
What was the limits of the CCC for black Americans?
CCC run by a Southern racist, not many black Americans joined, and those that did faced strict segregation - only 200,000 joined 1933-42
What did FDR fail to achieve?
Anti-lynching bills 1934, 1937 - FDR did not support them and both failed FDR did little to end legal segregation, and black Americans on large remained second class citizens
What was the 1934 India reorganisation act?
a break away from the former, harmful, policy of assimilation (1887 Dawes Severalty Act). Native American culture was celebrated whilst encouraged to modernise, for example, giving them control of land sales on reservations
By 1939 what was the average income for Native Americans compared to the national average?
By 1939 average income was $500 compared to national average of $1,300
How did the new deal help Native Americans?
Officials did their best to ensure native americans were part of alphabet agency employment, but scale of deprivation was so high that short term employment didn’t have much effect
How many Hispanic workers where deported when the depression hit?
Why was this?
When the Depression hit, it is estimated that up to 2 million workers were deported back to Mexico, even if they’d been born in the USA.
This was to create jobs for Americans.