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Chapter 21 - The New Deal, 1932–1940

  1. First New Deal (the "Hundred Days")
    1. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and election of 1932
      1. Roosevelt background
      2. "New deal" promise
        1. Vagueness
        2. Popular reception
      3. Outcome
        1. FDR landslide victory over Herbert Hoover
        2. Strong Democratic gains in Congress
    2. Initial approach to economic crisis
      1. New Deal as alternative to socialist, Nazi, and laissez-faire solutions
      2. Lack of initial blueprint
      3. Circle of advisors
        1. Leading figures
        2. Outlooks
          1. Roots in Progressive reform
          2. Dominant preference for regulated "bigness"
    3. FDR inaugural
    4. Financial program
      1. Initiatives
        1. "Bank holiday"
        2. Emergency Banking Act
        3. Glass-Steagall Act
        4. Removal of United States from gold standard
      2. Aim: reversal of banking crisis
      3. Outcome: rescue of financial system
    5. National Recovery Administration (NRA)
      1. Elements
        1. Business-government cooperation
        2. Industry codes for output, prices, working conditions
        3. Recognition of labor's right to organize
        4. Blue Eagle campaign
      2. Aims
        1. Restoration of economic vitality, stability
        2. Labor-management peace
      3. Outcomes
        1. Ebbing of public enthusiasm; growth of controversy
        2. Corporate domination
        3. Weak enforcement
        4. Minimal effectiveness
    6. Relief and jobs programs
      1. Initiatives
        1. Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
        2. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
        3. Public Works Administration (PWA)
        4. Civil Works Administration (CWA)
        5. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
      2. Aims
        1. Direct relief for needy (FERA)
        2. Public employment (CCC, PWA, CWA, TVA)
        3. Improvement of nation's infrastructure (CCC, PWA, CWA, TVA)
        4. Expansion of electric power (TVA)
      3. Outcomes
        1. Mass participation
        2. Widespread relief
        3. Emerging opposition
        4. Long-term effects
    7. Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
      1. Elements
        1. Production quotas
        2. Subsidies for removal of land from cultivation
        3. Destruction of crops, livestock
      2. Aims: revival of farm prices and incomes
      3. Outcomes
        1. Revival of farm prices and incomes
        2. Uneven impact on farmers
          1. Gains for landowning farmers
          2. Exclusion and displacement of tenants, sharecroppers
      4. Worsening of rural hardship
        1. Dust Bowl and mass displacement of farmers
        2. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
    8. Housing program
      1. Initiatives
        1. Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC)
        2. Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
        3. Federal construction of low-rent housing
      2. Aims
        1. Protection of homeowners from foreclosure
        2. Expanded access to home ownership
        3. Inexpensive rental housing
        4. New construction
      3. Outcomes
        1. Preservation or attainment of home ownership for millions
        2. Affirmation of "security of the home" as fundamental right
    9. Further initiatives
      1. Repeal of Prohibition
      2. Federal Communications Commission
      3. Securities and Exchange Commission
    10. Overall impact
      1. Transformation of role of federal government
      2. Scale of relief, public projects
      3. Failure to end Depression
    11. Gathering Supreme Court assault
      1. Invalidation of NRA; Schecter Poultry case
      2. Invalidation of AAA; United States v. Butler
  2. Grassroots revolt
    1. Reawakening of American labor movement
      1. Preconditions
        1. Encouraging signals from federal government
          1. Election of FDR
          2. Section 7a of National Industrial Recovery Act
          3. Wagner Act
        2. Receding of ethnic differences
        3. Militant leadership
      2. Aspirations
        1. Better wages
        2. Check on employer power
        3. Labor rights
        4. Union recognition
      3. Labor upheaval of 1934
        1. Nationwide wave of strikes
        2. Major strikes
          1. Toledo auto workers
          2. Minneapolis truck drivers
          3. San Francisco dockworkers
          4. Textile workers (New England to Deep South)
    2. Rise of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
      1. Origins
        1. Split within American Federation of Labor (AFL)
        2. Walkout of insurgent AFL leaders; John L. Lewis
      2. Agenda
        1. Organization of industrial bastions
        2. "Economic freedom and industrial democracy"
      3. Landmark struggles
        1. United Auto Workers sit-down strikes (Cleveland, Flint)
          1. Spirit of militancy, unity
          2. Victory, recognition by General Motors
        2. Steel Workers Organizing Committee
          1. Recognition by U.S. Steel
          2. Continued resistance from small firms; Republic strike bloodshed
      4. Overall progress
        1. Explosion of union membership
        2. Achievement of workplace power, dignity
        3. Impact on politics
      5. Political vision
        1. Activist federal government
        2. Economic and social security
        3. Redistribution of wealth
    3. Other crusaders for economic justice
      1. Upton Sinclair; End Poverty in California movement
      2. Huey Long; Share-Our-Wealth movement
      3. Father Charles E. Coughlin
      4. Dr. Francis Townsend; Townsend Clubs
  3. Second New Deal
    1. Triggering factors
      1. Persistence of Depression
      2. Popular unrest
      3. Democratic gains of 1934
    2. Underlying aims
      1. Economic security
      2. Redistribution of income; broadening of purchasing power
    3. Central initiatives
      1. Tax on wealth, corporate profits
      2. Rural Electrification Agency
        1. Electric power to farmers
        2. Soil conservation
        3. Minimal benefits for non-landholders
      3. Works Projects Administration (WPA)
        1. Mass participation
        2. Impact on national life
        3. Infrastructure
        4. The arts
      4. Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act)
        1. Provisions
        2. Rights to organize, union representation, collective bargaining
        3. Federal enforcement; National Labor Relations Board
        4. Democratization of workplace; "Labor's Magna Carta"
      5. Social Security Act
        1. Provisions
          1. Unemployment insurance
          2. Old-age pensions
          3. Aid to disabled, elderly poor, and families with dependent children
        2. Key features
          1. System of taxes on employers and workers
          2. Mix of national and local funding, control, and eligibility standards
        3. Significance: launching of American welfare state
        4. In comparison with European versions
  4. Reckoning with liberty
    1. Contested meanings of freedom
      1. New Deal version
        1. Expanded power of national state
        2. Social and industrial freedom
        3. Economic security over liberty of contract
        4. FDR and modern liberalism
      2. Anti-New Deal version
        1. Freedom from government regulation, fiscal responsibility
        2. Individual freedom
        3. American Liberty League
        4. Hoover's The Challenge to Liberty
    2. Election of 1936
      1. FDR vs. Republican Alfred Landon
      2. Sharp divisions between classes, conceptions of freedom
      3. Outcome: Roosevelt landslide
      4. Significance
        1. Seeds of anti-government conservatism
        2. "New Deal coalition"
      5. FDR's second inaugural
    3. FDR's court-packing plan
      1. Motivations
      2. Widespread alarm over
      3. Ultimate success
        1. New receptiveness of Supreme Court to New Deal regulation
        2. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes conversion
    4. Winding down of Second New Deal
      1. Last major New Deal measures
        1. United States Housing Act
        2. Fair Labor Standards Act
      2. 1937 economic downturn
      3. Shift in New Deal approach to economic crisis
        1. Adoption of Keynesian, public spending tool
        2. Discontinuation of economic planning, redistribution
  5. Limits of change
    1. New Deal and American women
      1. Expanded presence of women in federal government
      2. Political decline of feminism
      3. Depression-era resistance to women's employment
        1. From government
        2. From labor movement
      4. Uneven access to New Deal benefits
    2. Exclusion of blacks from key entitlements of welfare state
      1. Reflection of southern Democrats' power
      2. Confinement to public assistance portion of Social Security Act
        1. Dismal provisions
        2. Stigma of welfare dependency
    3. "Indian New Deal"
      1. Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier
      2. Transformation of Indian policy
        1. Shift from forced assimilation to cultural autonomy
        2. Indian Reorganization Act
      3. Limits of progress
        1. Legal
        2. Material
    4. Hardships for Mexican-Americans
      1. Meager opportunity for work
      2. Mass departure for Mexico (voluntary and forced)
      3. Situation of California farmworkers
        1. Grim conditions
        2. Exclusion from Social Security and Wagner Acts
        3. Suppression of unionism
    5. Hardships for African-Americans
      1. "Last hired and first fired"
      2. Disproportionate rates of unemployment
      3. Growing black focus on economic survival
    6. New Deal for blacks
      1. Egalitarian current in New Deal
      2. Shift of black voters to Democratic party
      3. Preservation/reinforcement of racial order by New Deal
        1. FDR failure to support federal antilynching law
        2. Discriminatory aspects of New Deal
  6. New conception of America
    1. Absorption of new immigrants into public mainstream
      1. Prominence among framers and supporters of New Deal
      2. "Little New Deals"; Fiorello LaGuardia
      3. Cultural assimilation
      4. Americanization via labor and political activism
    2. Ascendancy of American left
      1. Elements
        1. Communists
        2. Socialists
        3. Labor radicals, CIO
        4. New Deal liberals
      2. Growth
        1. In numbers
        2. In impact on political culture, conceptions of freedom
      3. Activities and appeal of Communist Party
        1. Range of causes
          1. The unemployed
          2. Industrial unionism; CIO
          3. Civil rights; Scottsboro case
          4. Civil liberties
        2. Popular Front vision
          1. Coalition with wider left
          2. Broadening and energizing of New Deal liberalism
          3. Promotion of social and economic radicalism, ethnic and racial diversity, unionism and social citizenship
        3. Growing size, respectability
      4. Breadth of Popular Front vision
        1. FDR and the "common man"
        2. Manifestations in the arts
        3. Militant, inclusive unionism of CIO
        4. Spreading condemnations of racial, ethnic, religious intolerance
        5. Widening commitment to civil liberties, labor rights
          1. American Civil Liberties Union
          2. Robert M. La Follette, Jr. committee exposés
          3. Department of Justice's Civil Liberties Unit
          4. Supreme Court decisions
    3. End of New Deal
      1. Mounting opposition of southern Democrats
        1. Reasons: alarm over specters of unionization, racial equality, radicalism
        2. Key provocations
          1. "Report on Economic Conditions in the South"
          2. Southern Conference for Human Welfare
          3. FDR's crusade to liberalize southern Democratic party
      2. Consolidation of southern Democrat-northern Republican coalition
      3. Exhaustion of New Deal momentum
      4. Shifting focus from domestic to foreign affairs
    4. Historical significance of New Deal
      1. Limits of
      2. Extent of

 

Subject: 
US History
Subject X2: 
US History

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