depth study: new deal Flashcards
background
- outbreak of great depression in 1929 = widespread suffering/despair in black communities
- AA men & women faced staggering rates of unemployment/poverty
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (democrat) inaugurated as president in 1933
- ^^he launched ‘new deal’ (ambitious government programs to save USA from economic crisis)
what did the majority of AA work as in the late 1920s and what were the problems with these jobs
- domestic servants, farmers or service workers
- low wages, weak job security & dangerous conditions
how many black southeners migrated to northern/midwest cities between 1915-30
1.5 million
how many AA lived in the south (approx.)
11 million
what did the AA living in the south do for labour/jobs
sharecroppers, tenant farmers & wage workers
how any black southerners owned land (approx.)
10%
what was sharecropping
- white landowners allowed former AA slaves to use their land in return for a large share of the produce
- led to state of debt peonage (unofficial slavery)
what did AA face in places other than the deep south
the philosophy of the Jim Crow laws - racial segregation, interracial police violence & labour separation
the price of cotton dropped from 18 cents to 6 cents between when? - what did this cause
1929-33
- caused number of black sharecroppers to fall
how many AA were out of work in Chicago, NY and Pittsburgh (during great depression)
50%
how many black workers were jobless in Philadelphia and Detroit (during great depression)
60%
how many sweeping programs did FDR create in his first 100 days
5
name the 5 sweeping programmes
- agricultural adjustment administration (AAA)
- civilian conservation corps (CCC)
- federal emergency relief administration (FERA)
- national industrial recovery act (NIRA)
- tenessee valley authority (TVA)
define the agricultural adjustment act (AAA) and negative impacts on AA
(1933) = aimed to help farmers by cutting farm production & forcing up food prices
- aimed at the south where easy to deny AA benefits
- evicted black sharecroppers/tenant farmers from land they were cultivating
- less production meant less work for thousands of poor sharecroppers
- AA among 100 million consumers forced to pay higher prices
define the civilian conservation corps (CCC) and negative impacts on AA
= work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the great depression
- admitted fewer black men
- housed them in segregated dormitories
- barred black CCC workers from most administrative positions
define the tenessee valley authority (TVA) and negative impacts on AA
= provided jobs/tenessee to rural south (tenessee river valley - spans 7 states in south)
- strict practices of racial segregation limited black participation
define the federal emergency relief administration (FERA)
= distributed federal aid to states for relief
define the national industrial recovery act (NIRA) and negative impacts on AA
= supervised fair trade codes & guaranteed laborers a right to collective bargaining
- cotton industry hours regulation excluded central positions where black male workers laboured
- southern lumber industries wages were far lower than those paid in north
- even when AA workers were eligible for higher wages, this money was paid to white workers
what did the social security act epitomise
the negligence towards AA employment
what was the social security act (1935)
created social security - federal safety net for elderly, unemployed and disadvantaged americans
who were ineligible from the social security act (1935) and what did this mean
farmers and domestics
- 87% of (all) black women were ineligible
- so were 55& of all AA workers
what was the one new deal agency that took decisive action against racial discrimination
public works administration (PWA)
what was the public works administration (PWA)
aimed to create jobs whilst improving nation’s infrastructure
how much did the PWA spend on thousands of construction projects across the USA in the 1930s - give examples
$6 billion
- schools
- hospitals
- public housing
interior secretary of PWA
Harold Ickes
what did Ickes do regarding AA - examples (eg. names)
- sought advice from black advisors (esp. economist robert weaver & attorney william hastie) –> counselled him on how AA can benefit from the PWA
one of most important PWA projects
= construction of 51 housing projects - 1/3 (19) for AA –> 1st time US gov provided housing for low income citizens
- in cities with large AA populations (eg. NY & philadelphia) families moved into new, affordable housing = life-changing
what did Ickes not suggest due to segregation
integrated housing projects
what did the NAACP lobby Ickes to do in september 1933
issue a non-discrimination clause in the PWA - stating construction projects couldn’t discriminate on basis of race
examples of Ickes advisors
clark foreman, william hastie & robert weaver
what did Ickes advisors do
supplemented the non-discrimination clause with a quota system
–> this stated all construction crews must employ number of black workers proportional to population
- also recruited black architects to design some of public housing complexes
what did the success of the PWA in assisting AA in such a concrete way show
- demonstrated how black advisors could make a significant difference in new deal programmes
- prompted other government agencies to hire black consultants
nation youth administration (NYA)
- agency focused on finding work opportunites for young people
- appointed clubwoman/school president ‘mary mcleod bethune’ as negro advisor & later chair of it’s devision of negro affairs
what did mary bethune become when she accepted the role as chair of its division of negro aftairs in the NYA
first black woman to head government division
describe mary mcleod bethune
- activist (esp. black womens politics)
- 1935 = founded civil rights organisation ‘national council of negro women (NCNW)’
- lobbied for AA to serve in leadership positions at federal/state/local levels
- public friendship with 1st lady eleanor roosevelt & educated her on problems facing AA
what happened due to bethunes activism
- more AA served in administrative positions in NYA (than any other new deal program)
- early 1940s, 20% of black youth participated in NYA programmes
due to her public friendship with mary bethune, what did eleanor roosevelt do to help AA
- ally of black civil rights causes
- supported federal anti-lynching bill
- supported end to poll tax
- increased funding for black schools
what did bethune use her new status for
- gather group of black consultants into federal council of negro affairs = ‘black cabinet’
describe the black cabinet
- composed of lawyers, politicians & journalists
- advised president roosevelt on matters related to AA
- some members included: robert weaver (economist) & charles hastie (lawyer)
- black press covered black cabinet
- not formal government
how many AA served in administrative positions by 1940
100
who did the black cabinet work in concert with and why
civil rights organisations to pressure new deal agencies to end racial bias
examples of the result of the black cabinets work alongside civil rights organisations
- by 1933, the CCC had employed a small number of young black men but by 1940, 200,000 AA men participated in programme
^^ 1/5 learned to read while enrolled
what did congress pass in 1935
works progress administration - took over some of work of PWA
WPA’s administrator
harry hopkins
what did harry hopkins do in the WPA
- appointed series of black advisors to design a programme to assist AA
how many AA joined the WPA programmes in the first year alone
200,000
positives of the WPA
- constructed black schools/community centres
- opened domestic service training centres
- conducted adult education classes
- oversaw art projects
what happened in the south regarding AA education
- AA men/women went to literacy classes = learn to read & supplement poor education
- some attended schools for first time in their life
how much did black illiteracy fall by at end of 1930s
10%
overall negatives of new deal programmes
- many failed to address black structural inequalities that lay at the root of American society
negatives of WPA on AA
- limited AA women’s employment opportunities to domestic service training programs & sewing programs = paid low wages
^^ enabled white women more opportunities eg. clerical work, gardening & nursing
negatives of PWA on AA
- housing projects required slum clearance by razing black neighbourhoods = created housing shortage for AA in segregated cities
how did the new deal programmes struggle to directly improve lives of rural black southerners (AAA)
- AAA increase crop prices by paying farmers to decrease acreage but it didn’t have programs to assist black sharecroppers who didn’t receive payments as not landowners
- powerful white men serving on the AAA’s committees crafted policies that favoured white farmers & sometimes forced black landowners off land/sharecroppers out of jobs
how did the new deal assist black southerners
- allocated money to AA schools
- funded public health programs
- improved black housing
how many AA were recipients of the new deal relief programs by 1935
30%
how much of the overall vote did FDR capture in 1936 & how much of the black vote
60% of overall vote
76% of AA vote –> many had switched political allegiances to democratic party
prominent civil rights organisations during the 1930s (new deal)
NAACP & NUL - paid close attention to programs & pressured administrators to end racial bias
2 lawyers for NAACP
- charles hamilton houston
- his student (howard university law school) = thurgood marshall
2 examples of cases that charles hamilton houston & thurgood marshall won
- murray v. maryland 1936 - about segregation in professional/ graduate schools
- hale v. kentucky 1938 - opened jury service to AA
what did congress pass in 1935 regarding labour unions & explain what it said
wagner act = upheld right of workers to organise labour unions, participate in collective bargaining & stage strikes
what did the wagner act of 1935 create for AA
more supportive climate for AA industrial workers
largest black labour union
brotherhood of sleeping car porters (BSCP)
what did the BSCP do
negotiated contract with pullman company to reduce hours & increase wages
what did white labour leaders form
congress of industrial organisations (CIO)
what did the CIO organise
organised black/white workers in mining, automobile, meatpacking & steel industries
what did the CIO make central to its organisation and how
racial equality by fighting against pay scales & hiring black organisers in all of its unions
via the WPA, what did the federal government organise
the federal theatre project (FTP) and the federal writers project (FWP) which employed playwrights & writers
what did the FWP do
- interviewers travelled south & interviewed former slaves
what did the Farm Security administration (FSA) do
- hired photographers to travel across country & document lives of ordinary Americans
- recruited black photographers
- white photographers captured searing/indelible images of AA –> allowed them to defy some racial stereotypes perpetuated against them in American culture
what did the FWP do concerning former slaves
- ex-slave narrative project
- last generation of former slaves alive in 1930s
- interview former slaves about trauma/allow them to narrate their experiences
what happened between 1936-38 in the FWP
- dozens of black/white interviewers travelled to south & interviewed 2000+ former slaves
- at the end, they’d amassed 10,000 types pages/thousands of hours of testimonies
- invaluable at highlighting hidden world of slaving eg. sexual violence, brutality & survival strategies
