The Roosevelt Era (1933-1945) Flashcards
What personal challenges did Franklin Roosevelt face before becoming President?
FDR was diagnosed with polio, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
How did FDR’s personal challenges impact the way he approached the Great Depression?
- FDR believed it was important to use the government to help Americans overcome the challenges of the Great Depression.
- FDR did not view any problem as too big to overcome and was very encouraging.
What was the New Deal?
FDR’s massive package of programs and policies that responded to the challenges facing Americans during the Great Depression.
How did FDR address the challenges facing American banks and other financial institutions?
- FDR created a bank holiday; allowing the government time to inspect the practices of American banks.
- FDR created the EBRA, FDIC, and SEC.
What did the EBRA do?
- Government policy passed during FDR’s bank holiday that required banks to pass inspection before they could reopen.
- One of FDR’s first tasks as President; topic of his first fireside chat.
What did the FDIC do?
- Provided federal government insurance for bank deposits up to $5,000 in response to failures of member banks ($250,000 today).
- Still exists to protect bank customers from the risks associated with bank failures.
What did the SEC do?
- Monitors consumer and
business behavior in the stock market and works to eliminate dishonest practices. - Still exists to monitor business behavior in the stock market.
How did FDR work to alleviate high unemployment?
- FDR created many programs to create government public works projects and employed Americans to work those projects.
- FDR created the WPA
What did the WPA do?
- Provided government jobs in a wide-range of public works projects, including many building projects. Also employed writers and artists.
- Employed more Americans than any other New Deal program.
How did FDR respond to the challenges of American farmers?
FDR provided federal government support to American farmers by creating the AAA.
What did the AAA do?
- Government agency that
AAA developed production limits for American farmers in hopes of encouraging price increases and land recovery. - Controversial program that was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court.
How did FDR attempt to help those who could not work (elderly, disabled, orphaned children)?
- FDR provided federal government assistance to support those who were not able to take advantage of the government jobs available in his public works programs.
- FDR created Social Security.
What did the SSA do?
- Created to provide government assistance to those unable to work, including retired Americans, Americans with disabilities, and orphaned children.
- Still exists to provide benefits for millions of Americans.
How did Frances Perkins contribute to the New Deal?
First American woman to serve in the US cabinet. As Secretary of Labor, her most important contribution was the establishment of the Social Security Administration.
How did John Collier contribute to the New Deal?
American government official who led the Bureau of Indian Affairs and encouraged new policies in the Indian New Dealto help Native Americans.
How did Mary McLeod Bethune contribute to the New Deal?
African American woman who helped encourage FDR to establish programs that would benefit racial minorities, as well as creating the “black cabinet”
How did Eleanor Roosevelt contribute to the New Deal?
- American First Lady who traveled the country on behalf of her husband to observe the challenges facing suffering Americans.
- Supported the interests of Black Americans and women during the Great Depression and worked with her husband find ways to help these groups.
What were two major reasons people were critical of the New Deal?
- They believed it was too expensive- resulted in deficit spending.
- They believed FDR’s actions were unconstitutional- and went beyond the powers of the presidency.
What is deficit spending?
When the government spends more money than it is bringing in- growing the size of the national debt.
What controversy emerged between FDR and the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court began to overturn and eliminate many of FDR’s New Deal programs because they viewed them as unconstitutional.
What was FDR’s court-packing plan?
- To prevent the Supreme Court from voting down his policies, FDR proposed to expand the size of the court, so he could appoint friendly justices.
- This plan angered many Americans (including his supporters); and never became law.
How effective was the New Deal at responding the Great Depression?
- The New Deal was able to lower unemployment, provide helpful benefits, slow bank failures.
- The New Deal DID NOT end the Great Depression.
- The New Deal made Americans feel better about the direction of the country.
Where are the following dictators from that emerged during WWII: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo?
- Hitler: Germany
- Stalin: Soviet Union
- Mussolini: Italy
- Tojo: Japan
What factors helped Adolf Hitler come to power during the Interwar Period?
- The Treaty of Versailles put heavy reparations on Germany, leading to severed economic issues.
- Hitler attempted to overthrow the government, and was arrested.
- Hitler wrote a book, titled Mein Kampf, highlighting German complaints about the Versailles Treaty and his anti-Semitic beliefs
- The start of the Great Depression contributed to further economic challenges in Germany.
What factors helped Joseph Stalin come to power during the Interwar Period?
- The first communist leader of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, died; Stalin used his funeral to put himself in line to come to power.
- Stalin rids himself of his political enemies using violence and by turning the media against them.
- Stalin promises to help the Soviet Union to rebuild using 5 year plans.
- When people oppose him, he has them sent to his Gulag prison camps.
What factors helped Benito Mussolini come to power during the Interwar Period?
- Italy is frustrated by the lack of benefits they gain from the Treaty of Versailles.
- After WWI, Italy faces an array of economic and political issues, including severe unemployment.
- Mussolini uses powerful speeches, promising to restore Italian national pride.
- Mussolini creates the Black Shirts, a secret police committed to eliminate anyone who opposes him.
What factors helped Hideki Tojo come to power during the Interwar Period?
- Despite being on the winning side during WWI, Japan feels frustrated by the Treaty of Versailles.
- To gain more land the Japanese invade Manchuria and China to expand Japanese power.
- Tojo returns to Japan a military hero and is granted political powers.
- Tojo’s popularity as a war hero and his promises of fulfilling Japanese success leads him to secure total decision-making power in the government.
What is anti-Semitism?
Hostility and discrimination towards Jews.
What is genocide?
The deliberate and planned mass killing of a group of people; as happened during the Holocaust.
How did Nazi hatred and aggression intensify over time?
- Much of Europe was already anti-Semitic; Hitler played into these feelings in his book Mein Kampf.
- Once in power Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws.
- Eventually Hitler expanded his network of concentration camps to imprison Jews and other groups.
- Later, Hitler created extermination, of death, camps to see through the mass murder of the Jewish population.
How did anti-Semitism spread in Nazi Germany?
- Hitler used Mein Kampf to suggest that German Jews were to blame for the struggles in Germany after WWI.
- Hitler used propaganda- posters, speeches, and radio- to deepen hatred of Jews.
