Chapter 24 Flashcards
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
Boosted agricultural prices by offering government subsidies to farmers to reduce output.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Employed young, single men at federally funded jobs on government lands (National Parks)
The Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)
Gave federal grants to states that funded salaries for government workers as well as local soup kitchens and other direct-aid to the poor programs.
The National Recovery Act (NRA)
Sought to boost businesses’ profits and workers’ wages by establishing industry-by-industry codes that set prices and wages, as well as guaranteeing workers the right to organize into unions.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Guaranteed individuals that money they deposited in a bank would be repaid to them by the federal government in the event that their bank went out of business.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Brought important federal government oversight and regulation to the stock market - so the crash in 1929 would not happen again.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Employed millions of Americans in public works projects, from constructing bridges and roads to painting murals and writing plays.
The Wagner Labor Relations Act
Guaranteed workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively.
The Social Security Act,
Required workers and employers to contribute—through a payroll tax—to the Social Security trust fund. That fund, in turn, makes monthly payments to retirees over the age of 65, as well as to the long-term disabled.
Fair Labor Standards Act
Mandated a 40-hour work week (with time-and-a-half for overtime), set an hourly minimum wage, and restricted child labor.
National Housing Act
Funded public housing construction, slum clearance, provided subsidies for low-income families, & loans.
Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
Only gave direct aid to people who were unable to work, such as the elderly and the disabled.
Allocated $5 billion for the large-scale PW programs for the jobless.
Resettlement Administration
Helped dispute farm families relocate to more productive areas, granted loans for purchasing lands & equipment, & directed reforestation & soil erosion products, particularly in the hard hit Southwest.
Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO)
Introducing unionism into the previously unorganized steel, rubber, and automobile industries.
Many CIO organizers were communist or radicals of other kinds.
Different form the AFL because the included black & women workers.
“New Deal Coalition”
Coalition - people who are coming together with/supporting a common cause
Included: white Southern Democrats, ethics who supported big-city political machines, unionized workers (including those organized by the CIO), & many depression hit farmers
The Southern Tenant Farmers (STFU)
To help sharecroppers and tenant farmers get better arrangements from landowners. They were eager to improve their share of profit or subsidies and working conditions.
Bureau of Reclamation of the Dept. of the Interior
OG responsibility = Construct dams & irrigation works → encourage the growth of small farms throughout the arid regions of the West
Focus then shifted to building huge multipurpose dams designed to control entire river systems
Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam)
Designed to harness the Colorado River, the wildeast & most isolated of the major western rivers
Completed in 1935
Help from funds from the Public Works Administration
The dams irrigation water helps make the Imperial Valley, covering 500,000 acres, one of the most productive agricultural districts in the world
Grand Coulee Dam
(1941)
Largest power & irrigation project
Was designed to convert the power of the Columbia River into cheap electricity and to irrigate previously uncultivated land → stimulating economic development in the Pacific Northwest
Pumped money in
Provided the cheapest electricity in the US
Helped attract new manufacturing to the region previously dependent on the export of lumber & ore
Indian Reorganization Act (IRA)
Reversed the allotment provisions of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 (which had weakened tribal sovereignty by shifting the distribution of land from tribes to individuals)
1933: FDR appointed John Collier to change the BIA & became the driving force behind the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
Nathan Margold
1934: A Department of Interior lawyer
Wrote a legal opinion that tribal governments retained all their original powers except when they were specifically limited by acts of Congress
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Center of network = First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt → became a powerful political figure, using her prominave to fight for liberal causes
Privately: enjoyed great influence with her husband
Behind the scenes: supported a wide network of women professionals & reformers
Strong supporter of protective labor legislation for women, owed much of to the social reform tradition of the women’s movement
One of her first public acts as the First Lady was to convene a White House Conference on the Emergency Needs for Women in November 1933
Worked for: anti lynching legislation, compulsory health insurance, & child labor reform, & racial discrimination in New Deal relief programs
Molly Dewson
Long time social worker & suffragist
Director of the women’s division of the national Democratic Party
Traveled around the country to educate women about Democratic policies in candidates
Success and press the president he relied on her judgment and recommending political appointments
Francis Perkins
Persuaded FDR to appoint Francis Perkins as Secretary of Labor
First women cabin member in US history
Embodied the gains made by women in appoint of offices
Department was responsible for creating the Social Security Act and the fair labor standards Act of 1938, both helped women
FERA & WPA held spaces for women in federal processing
Social Work profession grew and women in 1930s - because of relief and Welfare programs
Fair Labor Standards Act
1938
Established the first federal minimum wage ( 25 cents an hour) & set a maximum work week for 44 hours for all employees engage in interstate commerce
“the Black Cabinet”
FDR appointed several AA to second level positions in his administration
Mary McLeod Bethune
Leader of the office of minority Affairs and National Youth Administration
The most successful programs substantially reduced black literacy
Robert Weaver
President on economic Affairs, in 1966 became the first black Cabinet member when he was appointed Secretary of Housing in Urban Development
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)
1939, and conservative
Refused to permit the world renowned African American Classic Gold singer Marian Anderson to perform at the DRS Washington Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt and interior secretary Harold Ickes intervene to arrange for Anderson to perform on Easter Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial Hall before a huge audience
Federal Project No. 1
Offered work to desperate unemployed artist & intellectuals, enriched the cultural lives of millions, & left a substantial artistic & cultural legacy writers, artist, & teachers were hit hard through the depression as well
FP No.1 employed 5,000 writers
Writers project helped many American writers survive, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, John Cheever, Saul Bellow, & Zora Neale Hurston
Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration
Photographers - Dorothea Lange & Walker Evans (gathered by chief Roy Stryker in 1935) = made the most significant visual record of the Great Depression
Images of despair, recognition, hope, & resilience
The Lincoln Brigade
Made my American men & women to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the republican side against the fascists led by Fransixo Franco
Their sense of commitment & scarfive appealed to many Americans sympathetic to the republican cause
The American Communist Party
“Communism is Twentieth-Century Americanism”
Claimed strong support for FDR’s New Deal
Influence strong in labor movements
Played a leading role in the difficult CIO unioning drives in the auto, steel, & electrical industries
Strong in WPA art projects
All communist that came up in a couple decades would pay a heavy price.
