Topic 3 - Impact of the New Deal

Question 1

National Infrastructure

Answer 1

Created new roads, buildings & facilities, esp. in rural areas
$16b grants and $10b in govt. loans for public schemes

Question 2

Public works by alphabet agencies

Answer 2

PWA and WPA built streets, highways, dams and tunnels → 80% of new sewers built by them
PWA funded 35,000 projects, WPA funded 300,000

Question 3

Public works in rural areas

Answer 3

CCC and the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) → number of farmers with electricity grew from 12.6% (1936) to 35% (1941) → 773 systems with 348,000 miles of transmission lines had been laid

Question 4

Tennessee Valley Authority

Answer 4

Tennessee river used to generate electricity
Developed ecological schemes → e.g. tree planting
Provided welfare, education programmes and jobs

Question 5

Effects of ND legislation on women

Answer 5

1933 Economy Act → 75% who lost their jobs were women
NRA codes allowed for unequal pay
Some alphabet agencies such as CCC banned women

Question 6

The New Deal Years

Answer 6

Greater risk of unemployment than men (esp. if married)
Average salary for women ($525) was half of men’s
Labour unions did not encourage women in work

Question 7

Women in Government

Answer 7

Eleanor Roosevelt → Took on proactive role as First Lady → FDR’s ‘eyes and ears’, active civil rights campaigner
Frances Perkins → Secretary for Labour under FRD

Question 8

State of US economy

Answer 8

GDP rose by 10% to $100 billion
Exports reached $4 billion
Reuther’s Plan 1940 → plan to convert car plants to aircraft

Question 9

Voting behaviour

Answer 9

Traditionally voted Republican → party that ended slavery
FDR won all black wards in 1940, up from 4/15 in 1932

Question 10

Reasons for this change

Answer 10

1935 Social Security Act → benefitted black Americans
ND administrators sympathetic → encouraged to join PWA
Eleanor Roosevelt opposed racism
3X more black Americans found work in the government

Question 11

NRA

Answer 11

Most NRA codes of practice allowed unequal pay between blacks and whites → referred to as the ‘Negro Run Around’

Question 12

Agricultural Adjustment Act

Answer 12

Many black Americans were sharecroppers → paid a percentage of their produce as rent
Landowners paid to produce less by AAA
Sharecroppers thrown off the land → could no longer make a living through farming