The Great Depression and the New Deal Flashcards
Considered by many to be the most significant act passed during the New Deal
Established a system that would give payments to Americans after they reached retirement age
Included provisions for unemployment and disability insurance
Social Security Act of 1935
Established by Herbert Hoover to offset effects of Great Depression
Authorized to give credit to banks to assist their operations
Banks receiving these loans were expected to extend loans to businesses providing jobs or building low-cost housing
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
“an equitable shared abundance”
government had obligation to establish “democracy of opportunity for all people”
poor men “are not free men”
threat to economic freedom by the “new despotism” of large corporations
Democrat Conception of Liberty
Idea of “freedom for private enterprise”
Republican Conception of Liberty
Led by Upton Sinclair
Called for the state to use idle factories and land for jobs
Advocate for stronger action to help individuals
End Poverty in California Movement
Accumulated fortune as mining engineer
Coordinated overseas food relief
Called “the only man” to emerge from Versailles “with an enhanced reputation”
Wrote a book called American Individualism
Beat Alfred Smith with over 58% of the popular vote
Herbert Hoover
“For the first time in our history, the full weight of the Department will be thrown behind the effort to preserve in this country the blessing of liberty”
Frank Murphy
Civil Liberties Unit of Department of Justice
People lined streets looking for food
100,000 people applied for work in the Soviet Union
Suicide rate was highest in history
Birthrate was lowest in history
Resignation and self-blame by some; protests by others
Upsurge in riot insurance at Lloyds of London
Populations Response to the Great Depression
Organization that worked with groups of business leaders to set up industry codes for standards of output, prices
Eliminated “cutthroat” competition
Exempt from anti-trust laws
Recognized workers rights to form unions (Section 7a)
Headed by Hugh S. Johnson
Ultimately unsuccessful in promoting economic recovery
National Recovery Administration (NRA)
Made it a federal crime to “teach, advocate, or encourage” the overthrow of the government
Smith Act
Term for state of economy in which..
…GNP had fallen by one-third
…prices had fallen by 40%
…25% of workforce could not find work
Great Depression
Referred to the region as the nation’s #1 economic problem
Revealed it lagged behind in industrialization, education
Highlighted per capita income one-half of the rest of the nation
“Report of the Economic Conditions in the South”
Formed in 1934 by anti-New Deal politicians and business leaders to oppose the policies of Franklin Roosevelt
Stated the New Deal policies brought America closer to fascism
American Liberty League
Created in 1934 to contruct public buildings, bridges, roads, airports
Employed both blue and white collar workers
Famously hired artists for murals and local histories
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Examples include…
…10,000 auto workers strike in Toledo
…7 hour fight between strikers and strikebreakers at Electric Auto-Light factory
…400,000 textile workers demanding recognition of United Textile Workers
Labor Upheaval in 1934
Offered aid to home owners threatened by foreclosure
Federal Home Loan Bank System
Invaluable asset to Frankl Roosevelt while he recovered from polio int he 1920s
Served as FDRs “legs”, visiting mines, schools
Urged FDR to do more to fight the Depression
Eleanor Roosevelt
Broadcasts on the radio by President Franklin Roosevelt addressed directly to the American people
FDR completed 16 in his first 2 terms
Appealed to traditional values in support fo new policies
Fireside Chats
Established to regulate stock and bond markets
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Created in March 1933 to have unemployed young men work on conservation projects including…
…forest preservation
…flood control
…improvement of national parks
Employed about 3 million people who received government wages of $30 per month
Civilian Conservation Corps
New usage of term that includes a large, active socially conscious state
“Liberalism”
Supreme Court case that ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Administration was unconstituational exercise of congressional power over local economic activities
United States v. Butler
WWI veterans had received $60 severence bonus
Depression led veterans to demand early payment
Patman bill introduced in support of early payment; 17,000 veterans marched on Washington DC to demand passage of bill
Driven from their camp by the U.S. Army
Bonus Army
Result of Democrat members of Congress from Southern states, who led many of the Congressional committees due to their seniority, to control legislation
“Soutern Veto”
Created in May 1933 to provide grants to local agencies that aid impoverished people
Contrary to Roosevelt’s preference for using spending to create temporary jobs
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
Period from March through June 1933 at the beginning of the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt
Unprecedented flurry of legislation that created programs to help famers, banks, unemployed workers, and businessmen
Prohibition was repealed
Rapid expansion of federal power
Hundred Days
FDRs plan to increase the size the Supreme Court
Claimed many of the judges were older and needed help keeping up with work
Really wanted to “pack the court” because it had outlawed New Deal acts
Justice Reorganization Bill
Practice of purchasing either land or stocks with the intent of selling them soon after for a much higher price later
Speculation
The country “was in such a state of confused desperation that it would ahve followed almost any leader anywhere he chose to go.”
Walter Lippman
Referring to Banking Crisis and Great Depresssion at the time of Roosevelt’s first election
Labor tactic where workers refuse to leave their factory until management meets their demands
Famous example was at General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, beginning in November 1936
Workers won after 44 days
“They made a palace out of what had been their prison”
Sit Down Strikes
Novel that captured the plight of farmers during the Dust Bowl
Written by John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath
Series of policies instituted by Franklin Roosevelt and his advisors from 1933-1941 that attempted to offset the effects of the Great Depression on American society
Attempted to find middle ground between…
…socialism on the left
…Nazism on the right
…inaction of the upholders of unregulated capitalism
New Deal
Launced by Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier
Ended policy of forced assimilation
Allowed Indians unprecedented cultural autonomy
Created schools on Indian reservations
Dramatically increased spending on Indian health
“Indian New Deal”
Tax legislation championed by Roosevelt was called a “soak the rich” plan by his opponents
Under the bill, corporate, inheitance, and gift taxes went up dramatically
Income taxes for the upper brackets rose
FDR wanted to diffuse more radical plans
Revenue Act of 1935
Part of the National Industrial Recovery Act
Directed by Harold Ickes
Funded with $3.3 billion used for roads, schools, hospitals, bridges
Employed over 4 million
Roosevelt ordered it dissolved
Public Works Administration
Group of unions that broke from AFL in 1938 and organized effective union drives in the automobile and rubber industries
Supported sit down strikes in major rubber plants
Head of United Mine Workers led by John Lewis became the leader
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
Frances Perkins (Secretary of Labor)
Harry Hopkins
Harold Ickes (Secretary of Interior)
Louis Brandeis
“brains trust” – academics from Columbia
Key Advisors to Roosevelt
Included…
…secure “economic freedom and industrial democracy”
…fair share of wealth produced by their labor
…voice in determining conditions under which they worked
Goals of CIO
Moved inauguration from March 4 to January 20
Twentieth Amendment
Referrence to the larger numbers of African-Americans appointed to high level government positions
“Black Cabinet”
Started a period of political stalemate
Coalition of southern Democrats and northern Republicans dominated Congress
Congressional Election of 1938
Campaign promise of a “new deal” but with few details
Guarantee that “every man [had] a right to make a comfortable living
Democrats called for the repeal of Prohibition
Roosevelt received 57% of the popular vote and 472 electoral votes
Election of 1932
His New Deal helped lay the foundations of the American social-welfare state
He was the only person elected president four times, in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944
Raised in privilege on a New York country estate
Graduated from Harvard in 1904
Contracted polio in 1921; his use of wheelchair was concealed
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ambitious New Deal program that provided electricity to residents of a valley
Promoted agricultural and industrial growth (and prevented flooding)
Residents of seven states benefitted from the entity
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Slogan was “Every Man a King”
Called for immediate grant of $5,000 and a job to all citizens
Financed by immediate consfication of wealth from rich
Promoted by Huey Long
Share Our Wealth Movement
Authorized by Congress in 1930 as response to Great Depression
Raised taxes on imported goods to the highest levels in history
Effect on world trade was disasterous as other countries responded with barriers on American goods
Hawley-Smoot Tariff
Bureau established in 1933
Designed to restore economic position of farmers by paying them not to farm goods that were being overproduced
Ironically resulted in crops and pigs being destroyed while many were going hungry
Benefits flowed primarily to property owning farmers – many tenant farmers were evicted
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
Focused on helping the poor and attacking the wealthy
Intended to turn Americans away from more radical measures
Key legilative acts were Social Security, National Labor Relations Act, the Wealth Tax Act
Second New Deal
Ended policy of dividing Indian lands into small parcels for each family
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
Prohibited both members of a married couple from having government jobs
Led to the dismissal of many femail civil service employees
Economy Act of 1932
Term to describe Hoover’s response to first years of Depression, characterized by…
…voluntary steps to maintain investment
…frequent public statements that “the tide had turned”
…Secretary of Treasury Mellon’s advisement that downturns were normal
“Associational Action”
Nickname given to Roosevelt’s unofficial advisors.
Included prominent academics and leaders of business such as economist Rexford Tugwell and political scientist Raymond Moley
“Brain Trust”
Federal government provided funds to shore up threatened banks
Emergency Banking Act
Stock market crash on October 29, 1929 after a period of volatility and panic selling
Investors lost $20 million
Stockbrokers and banks called in loans tha many could not pay, beginning a crisis that lead to the Great Depression
“Black Tuesday”
“…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Roosevelt
Inaugural Address in March 1933
Coalition of labor unions and industrial workers, minorities, much of the middle class, and the Solid South that carried Franklin D. Roosevelt to victories in 1936 and 1940
The basis for Democrat victories on a national level for decades
New Deal Coalition
Reduced federal spending in order to win the confidence of business
Economy Act
Established to oversee the nation’s broadcast airwaves and telephones
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Repealed Prohibition
Twenty-First Admendment
Included…
…belief in socially conscious state making “positive and constructive changes in economic arrangements” and
…respect for civil liberties and cultural pluralism including group identity, personal behavior, free expression of ideas
New Progressive Definition of Freedom
Call for blacks to organize for economic survival given their unemployment rate was 2x that of white
“A Nation Within a Nation”
Declaration by Roosevelt to stop all bank operations in order to get withdrawals under control
One-third of banks closed between 1929 and 1933
“Bank Holiday”
Provided federal insurance of mortgages
Federal Housing Administration
Written by John Mayndard Keynes in 1936
Argued that large scale government spending was needed to sustain purchasing power and stimulate the economy
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Symbol that was used to designate compliance with the National Recovery Administration’s industry codes
Blue Eagle
Modeled after the War Industries Board that was in place during WW I
Established the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Roosevelt called it the “most important and far reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress”
National Industrial Recovery Act
Result of dry weather and the destruction of topsoil by mechanized equipment during 1931 to 1940
Storms were know as “black blizzards”
Affected Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Colorado
Displaced more than 1 million farmers, many of whom went to California to work as migrant farmers
Dust Bowl
1935 New Deal program attempted to provide aid to the poorest farmers, resettle some farmers from the Dust Bowl and establish farm cooperatives
Never received the funding it needed, and in 1937 the Farm Security Administration was created to replace it
Resettlement Administration
Dorothea Lange photographs of migrant workers
Federal Music Project preserved folk music
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington movie
Martha Graham’s American Document dance
Artistic Support of Popular Front
Alignment of communists, socialists, labor radicals and New Dealers
Urged reform of the capitalist system, not revolution
Vision included…
…social and economic radicalism defined Americanism
…American way of life meant unionism
Popular Front
Practice in the late 1920s of buying stock and only paying 10% of the value of that stock
System only worked when investors could sell at a profit and repay their loans
After 1920 crash, many could not repay their loans
“On the Margin”
or
“Margin Loans”
Called the National Labor Relations Act and known at the time as “Labor’s Magna Carta”
Empowered the National Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections at companies
Outlawed “unfair labor practices” including firing and blacklisting union organizers
Promised unionization and hire wages would aid economic recovery by boosting purchasing power of citizens
Wagner Act
Attacked Wall Street bankers and greedy capitalists on his weekly radio program
Known as the “radio priest”
Called for government ownership of key industries
Father Charles E. Coughlin
Explanation of the cause of the Depression that started with an imbalance of wealth and income
Unions argued that they could address this cause by providing a “rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living”
Underconsumption
Groups of crude houses made of cardboard and spare wood that sprung up on the fringes of many American cities
Occupied by unemployed workers
Hoovervilles
Conceived by California doctor Francis Townshend in 1934, this plan would give every retired American $200 a month, with the stipulation that it all be spent that month
Townshend claimed that this would revitalize the economy by putting money in circulation
Old Age Revolving Pension Plan
FDR won landslide with over 60% of the popular vote
Carried every state except Maine and Vermont
Election of 1936
Authorized lending of federal money to farmers’ cooperatives to buy crops to keep them from the oversaturated market
Hampered by lack of adequote federal financial support
Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929
Supreme Court decision to declare the National Recovery Administration unconstitutional
Schechter v. United States
First woman to hold a presidential cabinet position
Frances Perkins
Promoted plan for $200 monthly payment that was required to be spent immediately
Clubs claimed over 2 million members
Dr. Frances Townsend
and
Townsend Clubs
Governor and later Senator from Louisiana
Instituted many New Deal type programs
Dominated every branch of state government while in Washington
Nickname was the “Kingfish”
Used powers to build roads, schools, hospitals,
Initially supportive of New Deal but grew to believe it was not enough to help the poor
Huey Long
Banned goods produced by child labor from interstate commerce
Set forty cents as the minimum wage
Requried overtime pay for hours of work exceeding forty
Established federal regulation of wages and working conditions
Fair Labor Standards Board
Federal government insurance of accounts of individual depositors
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Barred commercial banks from involvement in stocks
Prevented many irresponsible practices that had led to the stock market crash
Established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Glass-Steagall Act
Economic Planning in 1933-34
Economic Redistribution in 1935-36
Public Spending in 1937
New Deal Philosophies
Southern congressmen blocked anti-lynching law
Roosevelt would not jeopardize New Deal with racial fight
CCC had segregated camps
Federal Housing Administration allowed mortgages that banned future sales to non-whites
Federal employment practices discriminated on the basis of race – many New Deal construction projects refused to hire blacks
New Deal Limited Impact on Black Equality
Nine young black men were accused of raping two white women in a railway boxcar in Arizona in 1931
Characterized by quick trials, suppressed evidence, and inadequte legal council made them symbols of the discrimination that faced blacks on a daily basis
Supreme Court overturned twice and established two new liberties…
…defendants have a right to effective legal representation
…states cannot systematically exclude blacks from juries
Scottsboro Case
or
Scottsboro Boys
