1. Essential Questions:
How successful was Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal?
Which demographic group benefited the most from New Deal programs? Why?

2. Challenges to and Legacy of the New Deal Mr. Winchell APUSH Period 7

3. Redistributing America’s Wealth Would Solve the Depression; Long’s “Share-Our-Wealth” Plan Is Impractical
Huey Long – ‘U.S. Senate Speech” (1934)
Hamilton Basso – “Huey Long and His Background” (1935)
To share our wealth by providing for every deserving family to have one third of the average wealth would mean that, at the worst, such a family could have a fairly comfortable home, an automobile, and a radio, with other reasonable home conveniences, and a place to educate their children… There is nothing wrong with the United States. We have more food than we can eat. We have more clothes and things out of which to make clothes than we can wear. We have more houses and lands than the whole 120 million can use if they all had good homes. So what is the trouble? Nothing except that a handful of men have everything and the balance of the people have nothing if their debts were paid. There should be every man a king in this land flowing with milk and honey instead of lords of finance at the top and slaves and peasants at the bottom.
The [Share-Our-Wealth] plan proposes, first of all, to liquidate all fortunes of more than “three or four million” dollars. The possessors of such fortunes will be required, not to sell their holdings, but to transfer ownership to the United States Treasury. Long declares that this will return to the government some $170,000,000,000. It next proposes (with considerable vagueness as to how it is to be done) to give every family in the United States a home, an automobile, and a radio; representing an approximate value of $5,000. To do this…it is necessary to spend about $100,000,000,000. The plan further proposes a minimum wage intended to give each family a cash income of not less than $2,500 a year... With the $70,000,000,000 left over...the plan proposes to give every child in the country a college education...Old-age pensions will also be provided... Mr. Long is an economic ignoramus...He takes no cognizance of the instruments of production – mines, railroads, factories - by which wealth is produced...The problem is not one of merely redistributing the poker chips which symbolize dollars and cents but of producing income.

4. End of the New Deal
The 1936 election saw the birth of a new Democratic coalition that would last for 30 years: South, West, urban, labor, ethnic groups, blacks, & the poor
New Deal reached its high point when FDR was re-elected in 1936
FDR’s experienced more setbacks in his 2nd term than his 1st term but he still remained a popular leader

5. Packing the Supreme Court
U.S. v. Butler
(1936)
Schechter v. U.S.
(1935)
The Supreme Court was FDR’s last obstacle to overcome:
The Court ruled the NRA & AAA were unconstitutional
FDR’s solution was to ask Congress to appoint 1 new justice for each justice over 70 yrs old
This controversial “court packing” plan would add 6 new justices
All 9 justices were old, white men; Only 3 were sympathetic to the New Deal; 2 were unpredictable; 4 wanted to block New Deal
Justice Willis Van Devanter planned to retire in 1932, but stayed on because he felt FDR was “unfitted & unsafe for the presidency”

7. Packing the Supreme Court
The court-packing scheme was legal but set a scary precedent:
The Senate strongly resisted FDR & the Court defended itself against “ageism” attacks
The crisis ended when the Court declared the Wagner Act & Social Security constitutional & Judge Van Devanter resigned
FDR eventually appointed 5 justices to the Supreme Court in his 4 terms

8. The End of the New Deal 1938 saw the end of the New Deal
Other than the Fair Labor Standards Act, FDR’s 2nd term saw no new New Deal programs
FDR’s court-packing plan hurt his relationship with Congress
The “Roosevelt Recession” of 1937 was the result of FDR’s attempt to reduce gov’t spending & balance the budget
FDR’s attempt to balance budget & reduce WPA spending led to 2 more years of Depression hardships

9. Unemployment,

10. Escapism Great Depression in Arts and Entertainment
Literature
John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Photography
Dorothea Lange
Music
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? – Bing Crosby
Give a Man a Job – Jimmy Durante
Woody Guthrie
Radio
Comedies
Soap operas
Movies
The Wizard of Oz
Shirley Temple
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Marx Brothers

11. Escapism Great Depression in Sports and Recreation
WPA
Athletic facilities
Athletic educational programs
Innovation, consolidation, and sacrifice of professional and college sports
College bowl games
NFL playoffs
Recreation
Games and Monopoly
Gambling
Rodeos
Dance halls and jazz

12. End of the New Deal Roosevelt Recession (1937-1938) Hatch Act (1939)
Cutback in deficit spending and elimination of some New Deal programs
Hatch Act (1939)
International Concerns
Totalitarian governments spawned defensive preparations

13. The Impact of the New Deal

14. The Impact on Organized Labor
Used strikes & sit-ins to unionize Ford, Chrysler, & GM
Unions were weak in the 1920s:
Only 3 million people were union members; Most joined the AFL which barred unskilled laborers
In 1938, John Lewis formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) & used the Wagner Act to bring collective bargaining to more workers
Unionized the textile, rubber, electrical, metal industries
Peacefully unionized U.S. Steel
By 1940, the CIO had more union members than the AFL (~10m total)

15. CIO President John Lewis
AFL-CIO merged in 1955
With AFL president Gompers way back in 1922

16. The Impact on Organized Labor
For the 1st time, unskilled & skilled laborers were unionized:
Women & African-Americans benefited because they made up a large % of unskilled labors
While the New Deal’s Wagner Act helped make unions stronger, major steps to unionize were initiated by the unions themselves, not the federal gov’t

17. The Impact on Women
The New Deal brought few economic benefits to women:
The New Deal allowed for unequal wages; Social Security, the NRA, & minimum wage laws offered little help for women
But, women did see gains in gov’t:
The 1st female cabinet member, Senator, ambassadors, & judges were appointed under FDR

18. The 1st female cabinet member: Francis Perkins (Dept of Labor)
The 1st female Senator: Hattie Caraway (D-Arkansas)

19. The Impact on African-Americans
The New Deal did little for AA’s:
Racism & segregation remained strong during the Depression
The NRA allowed lower wage scales for black workers; The AAA allowed for the eviction of sharecroppers & tenant farmers
Minimum wage & SS did not apply to farmers & domestic servants (65% were black)
The NRA stands for “Negroes Robbed Again”
Social Security “looks like a sieve with the holes just large enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through”
—NAACP
AA’s were the last hired & first fired
AA’s experienced 50% unemployment rate
AAA is a “continuation of the same old raw deal”

20. The Impact on African-Americans
Despite the inequalities of the New Deal, blacks supported FDR:
FDR hired African-Americans to key gov’t positions
Eleanor Roosevelt spoke out against racial discrimination
The RFC brought assistance to 40% of unemployed blacks through the WPA
“While relief & WPA are not ideal, they are better than the Hoover bread lines & they’ll have to do until the real thing comes along”

21. Eleanor Roosevelt with singer Marian Anderson

22. The Impact on Mexican-Americans
Mexican-Americans fared even worse than AA’s:
The Dust Bowl led to a flood of whites into the agricultural fields in the southwest
Congress created immigration restrictions & allowed for the deportation of illegal residents to reduce state welfare payments
Received few New Deal benefits

23. The Impact on Native Americans
Native-Americans remained the poorest of all U.S. residents but did benefit from the New Deal
The Indian Reorganization Act shifted U.S. Indian policy from Indians as yeoman farmers to unified & autonomous tribes
Many gained employment in the Indian Bureau

24. The Impact on the South & West
The South & West benefited the most from the New Deal:
The AAA helped end Southern dependence on sharecropping in favor of a wage labor system
The West received more work relief & welfare than any region
Hydroelectric power & irrigation programs helped residents

25. Conclusion: The New Deal & American Life

26. The New Deal and American Life
First Hundred Days
Second Hundred Days
The New Deal lasted only 5 years ( ); The majority of laws came in 2 bursts in 1933 & 1935:
The New Deal was moderately successful economically:
Helped relieve suffering but did not end the Depression
American wealth remained unequally distributed
10 million were still unemployed in 1939
12 million were unemployed when FDR took office in 1933

27. The New Deal & American Life
The New Deal was more successful socially:
Social Security, Wagner Act, & the Fair Labor Standards Act helped elderly & disabled citizens, labor unions, & workers
The New Deal did not help women, minorities, domestic workers, or small farmers
Fair Labor Standards Act

28. The New Deal and American Life
The New Deal was most successful politically:
FDR’s leadership unified a new Democratic voting bloc
FDR used his leadership & optimism to provide a vital psychological lift to help citizens endure the Great Depression

29. Historiography ”The New Deal: Revolution or Restoration?”
William Leuchtenburg – The Achievement of the New Deal (1985)
Alan Dawley – Struggles for Justice (1991)
What then did the New Deal do? It gave far greater amplitude to the national state, expanded the authority of the presidency, recruited university-trained administrators, won control of the money supply, established central banking, imposed regulation on Wall Street, rescued the debt-ridden farmer and homeowner,…made federal housing a permanent feature, fostered unionization of the factories, reduced child labor, ended the tyranny of company towns, wiped out many sweatshops, mandated minimal working standards, enabled tenants to buy their own farms, built camps for migrants, introduced the welfare state with old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid for dependent children, provided jobs for millions of unemployed, created a special program for the jobless young and for students, subsidized painters and novelists,…gave birth to the impressive Tennessee Valley Authority,...sent the Civilian Conservation Corps boys into the forests,...lighted up rural America, gave women greater recognition, made a start toward breaking the pattern of racial discrimination and segregation, put together a liberal party coalition, changed the agenda of American politics, and brought about a Constitional Revolution... Indeed, it is hard to think of another period in the whole history of the republic that was so fruitful or of a crisis that was met with as much imagination.
Ironically, the rebirth of social movements at the grass roots was in part the consequence of elite activities in Washington. The corporate planners and Brain Trusters of the early New Deal had found it necessary to penetrate ever deeper into the daily lives of ordinary Americans… For the more the Roosevelt administration rationalized banking, industry, and agriculture, the more it raised expectation for government aid among workers, retirees, and the unemployed... What was especially distinctive about democracy in the 1930s was that it came with a social twist. When social movements spilled over into electoral politics behind southern populists, midwestern progressives, and the occasional leftist, it became advantageous for politicians all the way up to the president to support social-democratic reforms such as the Wagner Act and Social Security. Roosevelt may have saved liberalis; he may have saved capitalism; but grass-roots social movements were the saviors of democracy.