ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
To what extent were the laissez-faire policies of the U.S. government in the 1920s responsible for the Great Depression of the 1930s?
To what extent did the New Deal alter the role of the government in economics and society?
To what extent did the Great Depression alter American society?
IN SUMMARY:
The stock market crash of 1929 signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, the worst financial crisis in U.S. history.
As the Depression grew worse, President Herbert Hoover followed a policy of denying government relief to the unemployed. He was not re-elected in 1932.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed several legislative programs through Congress in an attempt to end the Depression.
The Depression ended after Americans found employment building war materials for the Second World War.
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| 1341208729 | Stock Market Crash, 1929 | 1929-1936 economic downfall of USA | |
| 1341208730 | Hawley-Smoot Tariff, 1930 | Congressional compromise serving special interest, it raised duties on agricultural and manufactured imports. It may have contributed to the spread of the international depression. | |
| 1341208731 | Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1932 | Created under the presidency of Herbert Hoover, was designed to give out loans to banks, railroads, and monopolistic companies in order to pump money back into the economy during the years of the Depression. | |
| 1341208732 | Bonus Army, 1932 | group of jobless World War I veterans who came to Washington to lobby Congress for immediate payment of money promised them in 1945; Hoover opposed payment, and when he used the U.S. Army to drive the veterans out of the capital, he was portrayed as cruel and cold-hearted. | |
| 1341208733 | Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 | Established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which provided federal insurance for individual bank accounts of up to $5,000, reassuring millions of bank customers that their money was safe...also required banks to act cautiously with their customers' money | |
| 1341208734 | Federal Home Loan Bank Act, 1932 | Lowered mortgage rates for homeowners and allowed farmers to refinance their farm loans and avoid foreclosure. | |
| 1341208735 | Twentieth Amendment, 1933 | It swept away the lame duck session of Congress and shorted by six weeks the awkward period before inauguration. | |
| 1341208736 | First New Deal (First Hundred Days), March 4-June 16, 1933 | In Roosevelt's first 100 days, he passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Agency, and more; an active presidency beginning with many relief programs for Americans | |
| 1341208737 | Twenty-first Amendment, 1933 | Passed February, 1933 to repeal the 18th Amendment (Prohibition). Congress legalized light beer. Took effect December, 1933. Based on recommendation of the Wickersham Commission that Prohibition had lead to a vast increase in crime. | |
| 1341208738 | Emergency Banking Relief Act (Bank Holiday), 1933 | gave the President power over the banking system and set up a system by which banks would be reorganized or reopened | |
| 1341208739 | FDIC, 1933 | Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; The U.S. corporation insuring deposits in the U.S. against bank failure. The FDIC was created in 1933 to maintain public confidence and encourage stability in the financial system through the promotion of sound banking practices; insures accounts in national banks and other qualified institutions | |
| 1341208740 | CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), 1933 | 1933, Hired 3 million young men to work in government national parks. Most popular New Deal program, Relief/Recovery | |
| 1341208741 | PWA, 1933 | public works administration; Received $3.3 billion appropriation from Congress for public works projects.; It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to spend $3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, and help revive the economy. | |
| 1341208742 | AAA, 1933 | Agricultural Adjustment Act - paid farmer to limit their crop production to correct for overproduction; Protected farmers from price drops by providing crop subsidies to reduce production, educational programs to teach methods of preventing soil erosion. | |
| 1341208743 | TVA, 1933 | Tennessee Valley Authority; Federal government build series of dams to prevent flooding and sell electricity. First public competition with private power industries; a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. | |
| 1341208744 | FERA, 1933 | Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was the new name given by the Roosevelt Administration to the Emergency Relief Administration (ERA) which President Herbert Hoover had created in 1932. FERA was established as a result of the Federal Emergency Relief Act and was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). FERA's main goal was alleviating household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called "the dole"), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job, for self-esteem, to play the role of male breadwinner. Distributed millions of dollars of direct aid to unemployed workers. | |
| 1341208745 | NIRA & NRA, 1933 | National Industrial Recovery Act: Title I was devoted to industrial recovery, and authorized the promulgation of industrial codes of fair competition, guaranteed trade union rights, permitted the regulation of working standards, and regulated the price of certain refined petroleum products and their transportation. Title II established the Public Works Administration, outlined the projects and funding opportunities it could engage in, and funded the Act. (Created NRA to enforce codes of fair competition, minimum wages, and to permit collective bargaining of workers.) The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices. The NRA was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and allowed industries to get together and write "codes of fair competition." The codes were intended to reduce "destructive competition" and to help workers by setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as minimum prices at which products could be sold. The NRA also had a two-year renewal charter and was set to expire in June 1935 if not renewed. declared unconstitutional in 1935 | |
| 1341208746 | SEC, 1934 | Security and Exchange Commission to establish fair rules for stock trading; Regulated stock market and restricted margin buying. | |
| 1341208747 | Second New Deal (Second Hundred Days), 1935 | Employed 8.5 million workers in construction and other jobs, but more importantly provided work in arts, theater, and literary projects. | |
| 1341208748 | WPA, 1935 | Works Progress Administration: Employed 8.5 million workers in construction and other jobs, but more importantly provided work in arts, theater, and literary projects. | |
| 1341208749 | NYA, 1935 | National Youth Administration: Provided part-time employment to more than two million college and high school students. | |
| 1341208750 | REA, 1935 | Rural Electrification Administration (REA), one of the New Deal agencies created under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The REA was created on May 11, 1935, with the primary goal of promoting rural electrification. In the 1930s, the U.S. lagged significantly behind Europe in providing electricity to rural areas due to the unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads. | |
| 1341208751 | Wagner Act, 1935 | Guaranteed workers the right to organize labor unions, bargain collectively, and provided protections against unfair labor practices on the part of management | |
| 1341208752 | Social Security Act, 1935 | Provided retirement pensions to Americans age 65 and older and benefits for the unemployed, the disabled, and dependent children, The greatest victory for New Dealers; created pension and insurance for the old-aged, the blind, the physically handicapped, delinquent children, and other dependents by taxing employees and employers | |
| 1341208753 | Court-Packing Plan, 1937 | Franklin Roosevelt's politically motivated and ill-fated scheme to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire. His objective was to overcome the Court's objections to New Deal reforms. (845) | |
| 1341208754 | Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 | 1938 act which provided for a minimum wage, a maximum workweek of 44 hours, and restricted shipments of goods produced with child labor | |
| 1341208755 | Grapes of Wrath, 1939 | The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck about the horrors of the Great Depression; Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future. | |
| 1341208756 | Herbert Hoover | 31st President of the United States, Republican candidate who assumed the presidency in March 1929 promising the American people prosperity and attempted to first deal with the Depression by trying to restore public faith in the community. Blamed for the Great Depression and beaten in 1932 by FDR | |
| 1341208757 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt | Democratic president who created the New Deal to counter the effects of the Great Depression | |
| 1341208758 | Eleanor Roosevelt | FDR's Wife and New Deal supporter. Was a great supporter of civil rights and opposed the Jim Crow laws. She also worked for birth control and better conditions for working women | |
| 1341208759 | Huey Long | As senator in 1932 of Washington preached his "Share Our Wealth" programs. It was a 100% tax on all annual incomes over $1 million and appropriation of all fortunes in excess of $5 million. With this money Long proposed to give every American family a comfortable income of $5000 per year | |
| 1341208760 | Francis Townsend | American physician and social reformer whose plan for a government-sponsored old-age pension was a precursor of the Social Security Act of 1935., A doctor and critic of FDR's who proposed that everyone 60 years of age or older should get $200 a month as long as they spent it within 30 days. | |
| 1341208761 | Father Charles Coughlin | a critic of the New Deal; created the National Union for Social Justice; wanted a monetary inflation and the nationalization of the banking system | |
| 1341208762 | Francis Perkins | Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor and first woman cabinet member in U.S. history. Remained in office for FDRs entire presidency | |
| 1341208763 | margin ("buying on margin") | A risky technique involving the purchase of securities/stocks with borrowed money, using the shares themselves as collateral; paying 10% of the stock price put Americans in debt after the crash of 1929 | |
| 1341208764 | Black Tuesday | October 29, 1929; date of the worst stock-market crash in American history and beginning of the Great Depression. | |
| 1341208765 | rugged individualism | The belief that all individuals, or nearly all individuals, can succeed on their own and that government help for people should be minimal. Popularly said by Herbert Hoover. | |
| 1341208766 | multiplier/reverse multiplier effect | Multiplier effect: An effect in economics in which an increase in spending produces an increase in national income and consumption greater than the initial amount spent. For example, if a corporation builds a factory, it will employ construction workers and their suppliers as well as those who work in the factory. Indirectly, the new factory will stimulate employment in laundries, restaurants, and service industries in the factory's vicinity. Reverse multiplier effect: the opposite of above | |
| 1341208767 | "Hooverville" | Shantytowns on the outskirts of cities in which unemployed people of the Depression lived. The nomenclature comes from the blame many Americans placed on Hoover for the Great depression. | |
| 1341208768 | Bonus Expeditionary Force ("Bonus Army") | Thousands of World War I veterans, who insisted on immediate payment of their bonus certificates, marched on Washington in 1932; violence ensued when President Herbert Hoover ordered their tent villages cleared. | |
| 1341208769 | Brain Trust | A small group of young reform-minded intellectuals responsible for writing FDR's speeches and authoring much of the New Deal legislation. More influential than the Cabinet | |
| 1341208770 | New Deal | A series of reforms enacted by the Franklin Roosevelt administration between 1933 and 1942 with the goal of ending the Great Depression., (FDR) , , President Franklin Roosevelt's precursor of the modern welfare state (1933-1939); programs to combat economic depression enacted a number of social insureance measures and used government spending to stimulate the economy; increased power of the state and the state's intervention in U.S. social and economic life. RELIEF, RECOVERY, AND REFORM | |
| 1341208771 | Relief, Recovery, Reform | These were the categories into which the New Deal was split. Relief defined by the acts implemented in the area of aid to the unemployment. Recovery put forth measures that would help aid in the speedy recovery of areas hit hardest by the depression. Reform tried to recreate areas that seemed faulty | |
| 1341208772 | fireside chats | informal talks given by FDR over the radio; sat by White House fireplace; gained the confidence of the people | |
| 1341208773 | dust bowl | Region of the Great Plains that experienced a drought in 1930 lasting for a decade, leaving many farmers without work or substantial wages. Caused mainly by over-farming and a severe drought. | |
| 1341208774 | Okies | Displaced farm families from the Oklahoma dust bowl who migrated to California during the 1930s in search of jobs. | |
| 1341208775 | Blue Eagle ("We Do Our Part") | Widely displayed symbol of the National Recovery Administration, which attempted to reorganize and reform U.S. industry. | |
| 1341208776 | New Deal Coalition | coalition forged by the Democrats who dominated American politics from the 1930's to the 1960's. its basic elements were the urban working class, ethnic groups, Catholics and Jews, the poor, Southerners, African Americans, and intellectuals. | |
| 1341208777 | Share Our Wealth | radical relief program proposed by Senator Huey Long in the 1930s to empower the government to seize wealth from the rich through taxes and provide a guaranteed minimum income and home to every American family | |
| 1341208778 | court-packing plan | President FDR's failed 1937 attempt to increase the number of US Supreme Court Justices from 9 to 15 in order to save his 2nd New Deal programs from constitutional challenges | |
| 1341208779 | Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) | A federation of labor union for all unskilled workers. It provided a national labor union for unskilled workers, unlike the AFL, which limited itself to skilled workers. | |
| 1341208780 | Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933) | A relief, recovery, and reform effort that gave 2.5 million poor citizens jobs and land. It brought cheap electric power, low-cost housing, cheap nitrates, and the restoration of eroded soil. | |
| 1341208781 | National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) | permitted all workers to join unions of their choice, allowed workers to bargain collectively for wage increases and benefits, allowed workers to go on strike to try to force employers to meet their demands | |
| 1341208782 | National Labor Relations Act (1935) | A 1935 law, also known as the Wagner Act, that guarantees workers the right of collective bargaining sets down rules to protect unions and organizers, and created the National Labor Relations Board to regulate labor-management relations. | |
| 1341208783 | Social Security Act (1935) | A flagship accomplishment of the New Deal, this law provided for unemployment and old-age insurance financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees. It has long remained a pillar of the "New Deal Order". ((Go now and look at #24. I have no idea why I put this in twice anyway.)) | |
| 1341208784 | President Franklin Roosevelt's Radio Address unveiling the second half of the New Deal (1936) | President that had a "new deal" philosophy; developed Democratic coalition; made government large and activist; made presidency the most powerful branch; established welfare state; used Keynesian economics; increased reputation of business; revitalized American spirit |
