New Deals (1933 - 1945) Flashcards
Describe F. Roosevelt’s policies in the 1932 election
- Government intervention
- End of the gold standard
- Reform and regulation of business
- Hope and confidence should be inspired (‘Happy days are here again’ was used as the campaign song)
Describe how F Roosevelt was vague in his 1932 election promises
- In San Francisco he promised economic regulation would only be used as a last resort where as in Georgia he promised ‘bold experimentation’ to control the depression
- He did not want to cause alarm in the business world and was also unsure as to how he would proceed with economic policy
Describe F Roosevelt’s personality in the 1932 election
- Good relations with the press
- Charismatic
- An experienced politician
Captured public imagination and used radio effectively:
- National radio address April 1932, he called for government to help ‘the forgotten man’
Describe the failings of Hoover during the 1932 election
- Hoover was too busy in office, fighting the depression, to focus on his campaign
- Poor relations with the press
- Un-charismatic
- Overall, the public were voting for change
Describe the results of the 1932 election
- Roosevelt won the biggest majority since Abraham Lincoln in 1864
- However, he still only won 57% of the popular vote
- Few really knew what Roosevelt stood for
- Political columnist Walter Lippmann, Roosevelt was ‘a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be president’
What were The Hundred Days?
- In his first speech in power F Roosevelt announced a whirlwind of interventionist policies
- F Roosevelt called a special session of Congress in March 1933, which would become known as The Hundred Days
Describe the Emergency Banking Act 1933 (1ND)
- Passed 9th March 1933, during the Hundred Days
- Enforced a ‘banking holiday’ lasting 4 days
- Federal Reserve was given power to issue currency and to supervise the reopening of banks
- Roosevelt gave his first radio ‘fireside chat’, telling people their money would be safe and then the public started depositing money money in the banks again
- By the beginning of April, $1 billion in currency had been returned to bank deposits and the crisis was over
Describe the two main aims of the New Deal
- Relief and recovery - helping victims of the depression and trying to get the economy going again
- Reform and regulation - solving the systemic problems that had caused the depression in the first place
How many Alphabet Agencies were there?
59 new agencies were set up between 1933 to 1938
Describe how agriculture was valued in the New Deal
Given higher priority than industrial recovery:
- 30% of labour force worked in agriculture
- If agricultural workers could afford more, industry would be stimulated
- Agricultural Adjustment Act, May 1933
- Tennessee Valley Authority, May 1933
Describe the Agricultural Adjustment Act 1933 (1ND)
- The Government would subsidise farmers to reduce their acreage and production voluntarily
- By producing less, prices and farmers incomes would increase
- Set up Agricultural Adjustment Agency
Describe the Agricultural Adjustment Agency (1ND)
- It would pay farmers to reduce their production of ‘staple’ items - corn, cotton, milk, pork, rice, tobacco and wheat
- The programme would be self-financing by a tax placed on companies that processed food
Describe how the Agricultural Adjustment Act 1933 reduced overproduction of cotton
- 1933, unsold cotton in the US exceeded the annual world consumption of American cotton
- 1933, farmers had planted 400,000 acres more than in 1932
- Under this act, 10.5 million acres were ploughed under, price of cotton went from 6.5 cents per pound to 10 cents per pound 1932-1933
How effective was the Agricultural Adjustment Act 1933?
- Drought helped make the 1933 wheat crop the poorest since 1896 and agreements were reached to limit the acreage in subsequent years
- Total farm income rose from $4.5 billion in 1932 to $6.9 billion in 1935
- Popularity of the AAA was high among farmers (95% of tobacco growers signed up)
Describe how the agricultural Adjustment Act reduced overproduction of meat
Beef:
- Western ranchers sought to bring beef cattle under the production of the AAA in 1934
- By 1935, the Government had purchased 8.3 million head of cattle
- In return, ranchers agreed to reduce breeding cows by 20% in 1937
Pork:
- 6 million piglets were bought and slaughtered
- Many carcasses were processed and fed to the unemployed
- Public outcry was still enormous
Describe the Tennessee Valley Authority 1933 (1ND)
Set up to deal with underdevelopment and poverty in the Tennessee Valley
The TVA had several major tasks:
- To construct 20 dams to control the regular flooding
- To develop ecological schemes to stop soil erosion (tree planting)
- Encourage farmers to use more efficient means of cultivation, such as contour ploughing
- Provide jobs by setting up fertiliser manufacture factories
- Develop welfare and education programmes
- Produce hydro-electric power (existing electricity reached only 2 per 100 farms)
Saw residents increase their average income by 200% in 1929 to 1949
Describe the situation in banking at the time of F Roosevelt’s election
- 1932, banks were closing at the rate of 40 per day
- In October 1932, the Governor of Nevada declared a bank holiday and closed every bank in the state
- By the time of Roosevelt’s inauguration, banks were closed in many states
Describe the Glass-Steagall Act 1933 (1ND)
- Banks that relied on small-scale depositors were banned from the type of investment banking that fuelled the 1920’s speculation
- Bank officials were not allowed to take personal loans from their own banks
- Authority over open-market operation were transferred from the Federal Reserve Banks to the Federal Reserve Board in Washington
- Individual bank deposits were to be insured against bank failure up to $2,500, with insurance given by new agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Describe the Truth-in-Securities Act 1933 (1ND)
Required brokers to offer clients realistic info about the securities they were selling
Describe the Securities Act 1934 (1ND)
- Set up a new agency, the Securities Exchange Commission
- Would oversee stock market activities to prevent fraudulent activities such as insider dealing
Describe industrial recovery
- This was a priority but only had limited success due to the scale of industrial collapse
- Economy grew 10% from 1933-1936
Unemployment still at 14%
Describe the National Industry Recover Act, June 1933 (1ND)
Came in two parts, the National Recovery Administration and the Public Works Administration
Describe the National Recovery Administration (1ND)
- Headed by General Johnson
- Suspension of anti-trust legislation for 2 years
- ‘Buy Now’ campaign in October 1933 to encouraged people to spend and stimulate production
- Unsuccessfully advocated for 10% wage increase and 10 hour cut in the working week
- Many argue that this was largely a failure and just gave large firms the chance to indulge in unfair practices
- May 1935, Supreme Court ruled the NRA unconstitutional
Describe the Public Works Administration (1ND)
- Headed by Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes
- Was funded with $3.3 billion and aimed to develop business and the economy through spending
- PWA put thousands of people to work and built nearly 13,000 schools and 50,000 miles of roads
Particularly helpful in the West:
- Built dams to irrigate former semi-desert land and produce electricity
- Created 4 National Parks
Describe the Civil Works Administration 1933 (1ND)
- $400 million grant from the PWA to provide emergency relief to the unemployed in the winter of 1933-34
- Put 4 million people to work on public works projects
- Was closed down in March, when the winter was over
Describe the Federal Emergency Relief Act, May 1933 (1ND)
- Established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
- Run by Harry Hopkins
- Was given $500 million to be divided equally among the states to help provide for the unemployed
- The Act said each state should set up a FERA office and organise relief programmes
- It should raise money through borrowing, tax rises or other means
Describe opposition to and limitations of the Federal Emergency Relief Act 1933 (1ND)
- When states such as Kentucky and Ohio refused to comply, Hopkins threatened to deny them any federal monies
- Workers were refused office space and caseloads numbered in the thousands
- Delays and hostility towards those seeking aid
- 1935, FERA was paying about $25 per month to the average family on relief while the average monthly minimum wage for subsistence was around $100
Describe the Civilian Conservation Corps 1933 (1ND)
- Unemployed men between the ages 17 and 24 were recruited to work in national forests, parks and public lands
- Corps was organised along military lines but with tasks designated by the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture
- CCC installed 65,100 miles of telephone lines, spent 4.1 million man-hours fighting forest fires and planted 1.3 billion trees
Why did Roosevelt create the Second New Deal?
- The climate in the new Congress was for action and Roosevelt wanted to prevent this
- Roosevelt was increasingly frustrated by the Supreme Court overturning his New Deal legislation
- Roosevelt was increasingly frustrated by the the opposition of the wealthy and big business
Describe the Work Progress Administration (2ND)
- Recruited people for public works projects
- At any one time it had around 2 million employees
- By 1941, 20% of the nation’s workforce had found employment in it
- Wages were around $52 per month, more than relief but less than in private industry
- WPA was not allowed to compete for contracts with private firms or build private houses
- Did build 1,000 airport landing fields, 8,000 school and hospitals and 12,000 playgrounds
- It was not supposed to engage in large-scale projects but did so anyway (Responsible for the cutting of the Lincoln Tunnel and the building of Fort Knox in Kentucky)
Why was Roosevelt hesitant to get involved in labour relations legislation?
- Mistrust of labour unions, particularly among the Southern Democrats whose support he needed
- He did not want to further upset big business
Describe the Wagner-Connery National Labor Relations Act 1935 (2ND)
The Act guaranteed workers the rights to collective bargaining through unions:
- They could choose their union through a secret ballot
- A new 3 man National Labour Relations Board was set up to ensure fair play
- Employers were forbidden to use unfair practices such as discrimination against unionists
This effectively committed federal government to an important labour relations role but Roosevelt did not see it like this and continued to take a back seat in labour relations
Describe the Social Security Act 1935 (2ND)
- First federal measure of direct help as a worker’s right and would be built upon in the future
- Provided for old-age pensions to be funded by employer and employee contributions
- Unemployment insurance to be paid for by payroll taxes levied on both employers and employees
- Pension scheme was a federal programme but states would control unemployment insurance
Describe the limitations of the Social Security Act 1935
Generally inadequate to meet the needs of the poor:
- Pensions were paid at between $10 to $85 per month according to the contribution of the recipients and were not to be paid until 1940
- Unemployment benefit was max $18 per week for 16 weeks
Describe the Banking Act 1935 (2ND)
- Intended to give federal government control of banking in the US
- Control of banking was removed from private banks to central government and the centre of financial management shifted from New York to Washington
Describe how the New Deal failed women
- Did not tend to vote as a group so were rarely appealed to by politicians
- 1933 Economy Act forbade members of the same family from working for the federal government. 75% of people who lost jobs under this measure were women.
- NRA codes allowed unequal wages
- Some agencies, such as the CCC, banned women
- On average in the 1930s, women earned half the average wage of men
