1. The New Deal’s Effect:
Did All Types of People Have the Opportunity to Benefit Fully From the New Deal?

2. Effect on Women Women appointed to government positions
Frances Perkins = America’s 1st female cabinet member (Sec. of Labor, helped develop SSA).
Mary McLeod Bethune

3. Effect on African-Americans
- A. Phillip Randolph: organized the country’s
1st all-black trade union
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
African Americans appointed to key positions in the Fed. Gov’t
* Mary McLeod Bethune: Headed the
Division of Negro Affairs of the NYA
* “Black Cabinet”: influential African-
Americans who advised FDR’s
administration on racial issues

4. Effect on Mexican-Americans
CCC and WPA helped, if you had a permanent address

5. John Collier’s Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
- Government policy changed from assimilation to Native
American autonomy. There were three changes:
1. economic: Native American land would belong to
the entire tribe
2. cultural: Native American children could now attend
schools on reservations (boarding schools closed)
3. political: Tribes given permission to elect their own
members for their own tribal government

6. Result: Democrats dominate national politics
New Deal Coalition
Coalition of diverse groups dedicated to supporting the
Democratic Party, including:
Southern whites, various urban groups, African Americans, unionized industrial workers.
Result: Democrats dominate national politics
through 1930s and 1940s

7. Minorities Generally Support FDR. However...
● NRA sets lower minimum wage for women than men
● FERA & CWA hire fewer women then men
CCC hires only men
refused to approve a federal anti-lynching law or put an end to the poll tax
allowed the NRA, CCC, and TVA to pay African Americans lower wages
Mexican Americans disqualified from CCC and WPA
if they were migrant workers (no permanent address)
(worried he’d lose Southern Democrats)
Is FDR fully committed to the Civil Rights Movement?

8. The Organized Labor Situation
Labor Unions flourish:
* from 1933 to 1941, union membership increases from 3 million to more than 10 million
New Tactic: Sit Down Strike
workers went to work, but didn’t actually work
disallowed scabs to be brought in
AFL (Amer. Federation of Labor) & CIO (Congress of
Industrial Org.’s) Split:
AFL rep. skilled labor unions (carpenters, electricians, etc.)
CIO rep. semi- and unskilled- labor unions
(automobile manufacturing).
1955: The two org.’s come together