1. Civilisation des Etats-Unis 11b: World Wars
Prof. Sämi LUDWIG

2. Business - public relations counselors
Business - public relations counselors • stockholders get attractive annual reports - low taxes, great savings - invest “on margin” • purchase securities for 10% or less ... but slow rate of growth insiders sell Wall Street crash: panic at New York Stock Exchange • J.P. Morgan Co. helpless: Europeans withdraw $2 billion • stocks lose 40% in 2 months

3. Great Depression - Hoover’s laissez-faire, “wait-and-see” politics • even men of “business world” ask for government action • legislation on Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) barred by presidential vetoes … Effects: - Culture shock: American self-help and individual responsibility don’t work! : 40% of 1929 man/hours of work • families disintegrate • 1931 municipal relief is bankrupt • prices fall: agricultural overproduction

5. 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) elected, at depression low • 5th cousin of Theodore • Harvard, Columbia Law School • polio • wife Eleanor Roosevelt

6. “New Deal”: “to put people to work” • “Hundred Days”: active government! • by June 1933: emergency legislation complete - stricter banking laws, control public utilities • vicious circle of overproduction: - farmers paid for reducing output - cotton destroyed million pigs slaughtered Federal Housing Administration: - mortgage refinancing by government • uniform monthly payments • long-term installment plans

7. 1933 TVA—Tennessee Valley Authority - electrical power, dams National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) - Public Works Administration (PWA) • $3.3 for public works projects

8. President’s Reemployment Agreement: - blue eagle code for cooperation
President’s Reemployment Agreement: - blue eagle code for cooperation ⇒ government as entrepreneur! Federal Banking Act divorces - investment banking - from commercial banking Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

10. Frances Perkins a woman becomes Secretary of labor: Social Security Act • conservative opposition from “Liberty League,” but backed by DuPont and General Motors Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana: • “Every man a king”: guarantee minimum income, home, car, radio • populist, assassinated in 1935

11. 1936 FDR reelected, landslide victory Battle over the Court 1935: NIRA unconstitutional; Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) unconstitutional Tax Act: “Soak the Rich Act” • President to add new judges? • forced retirement? • Supreme Court passes New Deal legislation • eight new appointments stronger unions: AFL and 1937 CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) - closed shop, 7.5 million members

12. return to depression: Oklahoma Dust Bowl, “Okies” Photographer Dorothea Lange Housing Act