1. The New Deal Success or Failure?

2. Causes of the Great Depression
Monetary and Banking policies of the Federal Reserve
Farm surplus
World War I debt
United States tariff policy
Expansion of credit to consumers
Market speculation and stock crash
Industrial over production
Monopolistic pricing
Automation
European and world economies
The policies and philosophies of the Republican presidents during the 1920’s

3. Hoover vs. FDR Voluntary association Individualism
Encouraged trade associations
Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
National Business Survey Conference
Bonus Army March
Do and Try anything approach
Bank holiday
Relief, recovery, reform
ABC legislation
Prime the pump
Wooed the business community
Increase taxes on wealthy
“Brain Trust”

4. Obstacles to the New Deal
Localism
Absence of federal government machinery and a dependence on volunteerism
Perception: production control at the time of hunger and drought
Townsend, Long, and Coughlin

5. Long – term Reform of the New Deal
Financial
Labor reforms
Welfare State
Public Service
Social Security

6. Improvement in Infrastructure
Work of the WPA
TVA
Home ownership: establish a basis for home owning democracy
Investment in schools and universities
Banking and role of the Federal Reserve

7. Failure of the ‘Third New Deal’
FDR fails to unseat conservative Democrats in the South in the 1938 election
Nothing was done for rural poverty especially in the South
No health insurance
No low cost housing
No extended Social Security
No ‘greening’ of urban America
Lack of a continued Progressive Party
movement

8. Minorities in the New Deal
Native Americans:
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
50 % of the population left for defense jobs
Appropriations to the Indian Bureau declined by $3.6M from 1932 to 1945
In 1928, 55% of the population’s per capita income was below $200 per year
From the 1880’s until 1934 lost close to 2/3 of their land

9. Mexicans:
·       Communist attempt to organize into a labor union
·       Pushed out of work by “Okies”
·       Lived in urban areas called barrios
·       Expelled in large numbers by immigration officials
·       Migratory and illegal
Women:
·       More substantial role in government and politics than ever before
·       Placed economic assistance and welfare reform above civil rights
·       Provided the ABC legislation with their expertise in social work and welfare reform
·       Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins

10. Blacks:
·       Shift to Democratic Party began in 1934 mid-term elections
·       25% unemployment rate in the cities
·       Appointed to low level federal jobs
·       The most assistance received up to this time came from state governments
·       Anti-Lynching Bill received no support from FDR
·       3M were tenant farmers and were highly discriminated against in the South
·       Executive Order 8802
·       Mary Bethune and A. Philip Randolph

11. New Deal Statistics
35% of the population received direct assistance from the government
Less than 5% of the population paid income tax before 1941
Largest group of rural poor were the Southern sharecroppers and tenant farmers
The majority of Native Americans were destitute and landless
Largest growth in union membership in the 1930’s
Cotton the only crop ploughed up by AAA demands
Piglets the only livestock slaughtered by the AAA demands
TVA and REA provided rural America with 90% electricity
WPA only provided jobs to approximately one – third of those who needed work
By 1937 all states had approved unemployment compensation
By 1939 all states provided old age assistance programs

12. Unemployment during the New Deal