The American Pageant Chapter 33 The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1933-1939 Cover Slide Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved

The American Pageant

Chapter 33

The Great Depression and the

New Deal, 1933-1939

Cover Slide

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

CONTEXT

• What are your family’s “memories” of the Great Depression?

• What were the causes of the Great Depression?

• Who was to blame?

• Why was the Depression not ending?

• Could it happen again?

Election of 1932SETTING:

11 million unemployedDepression since Oct. 1929Rise of Despots in Europe

ISSUES:Stay the Course (laissez-faire, voluntary reform)New Deal (radical reform, expand federal power)

CANDIDATES:Hebert Hoover, incumbent, RepublicanFDR, Democrat (and don’t forget Eleanor!!!)

OUTCOME:Landslide victory for FDR (472 to 59) mandate for radical reform

Compare and Contrast FDR and Hoover

http://www.jwod.gov/jwod/about_us/about_us.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/hoover/peopleevents/pandeAMEX86.html

"Buy an Auto…" adRecognizing the connection between sales and jobs, this ad asked readers to purchase an automobile and keep workers working so that they too could spend and stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the number of people with enough money to spend was never enough to rekindle the economy and the Depression continued. (Private Collection)

"Buy an Auto…" ad


ANALYSIS:

Compare and Contrast the Campaigns.

Why did FDR win?

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover on the way to FDR's inauguration, March 4, 1933With little in common but their top hats, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt ride to Roosevelt's inauguration on March 4, 1933. (Library of Congress)

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover on the way to FDR's inauguration, March 4, 1933


“First Hundred Days” p. 799 Relief, Recovery, Reform

• Relief– Beer Act– CCC– FERA (Fed. Emerg.

Relief Act)– AAA– Home Owners

Refinancing Act– NRA, PWA– Off gold standard

paper economy* “fireside chats”

• Recovery– Banking Holiday/Re-org.– CCC– TVA– NRA– PWA

• Reform– Beer Act, moves to repeal

prohibition– NRA– FDIC– TVA– Federal Securities Act

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstfiresidechat.html

CCC workersHere, Civilian Conservation Corps workers plant seedlings to reforest a section of forest destroyed by fire. Before its demise in 1942, the CCC enrolled over two million young men. In addition to its work in conservation, the CCC also taught around thirty-five thousand men how to read and write. (UPI/Bettmann )

CCC workers


Forgotten WomanPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned on helping the "forgotten man." As shown in this political cartoon Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady, did not forget women. She worked diligently to ensure that they benefited from the New Deal and had access to government and the Democratic Party. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

Forgotten Woman


Eleanor Roosevelt visits West Virginia Coal Mine, 1933A New Yorker cartoon of 1933 portrayed one coal miner exclaiming to another: "Oh migosh, here comes Mrs. Roosevelt." But reality soon caught up with humor, as the First Lady immersed herself in the plight of the poor and the exploited. ( (c) Bettmann/Corbis)

Eleanor Roosevelt visits West Virginia Coal Mine, 1933


Mary McLeod BethuneIn 1935 Mary McLeod Bethune (front center), became the first African American woman to hold a high-ranking government position, serving as the head of the Office of Minority Affairs in the National Youth Administration. Here, she is shown with the council of Negro Women, which she helped organize in 1935 to focus on the problems faced by African Americans at the national level. (New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)

Mary McLeod Bethune


What could have been…the Demagogues.

• Huey Long

• Father Charles Coughlin

• Dr. Francis E. Townsend

Why didn’t America follow the path

of Italy and Germany?

A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United StatesCERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

SECOND CIRCUIT

No. 854 Argued: May 2, 3, 1935 --- Decided: May 27, 1935 [*]

1. Extraordinary conditions, such as an economic crisis, may call for extraordinary remedies, but they cannot create or enlarge constitutional power. P. 528.

2. Congress is not permitted by the Constitution to abdicate, or to transfer to others, the essential legislative functions with which it is vested. Art. I, § 1; Art. I, § 8, par. 18. Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388. P. 529.

3. Congress may leave to selected instrumentalities the making of subordinate rules within prescribed limits, and the determination of facts to which the policy, as declared by Congress, is to apply; but it must itself lay down the policies and establish standards. P. 530.

4. The delegation of legislative power sought to be made to the President by § 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 16, 1933, is unconstitutional (pp. 529 et seq.), and the Act is also unconstitutional, as applied in this case, because it exceeds the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and invades the power reserved exclusively to the States (pp. 542 et seq.).

http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct-cgi/get-us-cite/293/388

NRA codeThe National Recovery Administration was Roosevelt's main vehicle to restore industrial recovery during his First One Hundred Days. Headed by General Hugh Johnson, the NRA's goal was to mobilize management, workers, and consumers under the symbol of the Blue Eagle; establish national production codes; and get America moving again. (Collection of David J. and Janice L. Frent)

NRA code


Early Labor Relations• NRA receives broad “legislative” powers• Writes codes of “fair competition”• Receives cooperation of labor and business – at first• Continuing economic stagnation erodes voluntary nature

of codes• Supreme Court kills NRA with Schechter decision

– unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers

– regulation of INTRA-state commerce unconstitutional

PWA (Public Works Administration) replaces NRA

and proves more successful and more constitutional.

Dust Bowl and Agricultural Crisis

• AAA (Agric. Adj. Admin.) – artificial scarcity (fails)

• Soil Conservation Act• 2nd AAA (more success)• Dust Bowl• “Okies” & “Arkies”

(The Grapes of Wrath)• Indian Reorganization Act

John Collier and Native AmericansJohn Collier worked to ensure the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. Designed to restore tribal sovereignty under federal authority, each tribe had to ratify the act to participate. Not all tribes did; seventy–seven rejected it, including the Navajos, the nation's largest tribe. This photo shows a group of Navajos meeting with Collier to discuss government–imposed limitations on the number of sheep each Navajo could own. (Wide World Photos, Inc.)

John Collier and Native Americans


Black tenant farm family from Putnam County, Georgia, Harmony Community, 1941Numerous African American families were evicted from their farms during the Great Depression. White planters who received government payments for taking land out of cultivation were supposed to share these payments with their tenants and sharecroppers. Instead, many kicked these families off the land and kept the money for themselves. This family in Putnam County, Georgia, loaded all its possessions into a rickety truck for the trip north. (National Archives)

Black tenant farm family from Putnam County, Georgia, Harmony Community, 1941


“We’re Joads. We don’t look up to nobody. Grampa’s grampa, he fit in the Revolution. We was farm people till the debt. And then—them people. They done somepin to us. Ever’ time they come seemed like they was a-whippin’ me—all of us. An’ in Needles, that police. He done somepin to me, made me feel mean. Made me feel ashamed. An’ now I ain’t ashamed. These folks is our folks—is our folks. An’ that manager, he come an’ set an’ drank coffee, an’ he says, ‘Mrs. Joad’ this, an’ ‘Mrs. Joad’ that—an’ ‘How you getting’ on, Mrs. Joad?’” She stopped and sighed. “Why, I feel like people again.” (Tom Joad)

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Oklahoma drought refugees stalled on highwayPlagued by dust storms and evictions, thousands of tenant farmers and sharecroppers were forced to leave their land during the Great Depression. Known as the "Okies" and "Arkies," they took off for California with their few belongings. These refugees from drought-stricken Oklahoma experienced car trouble and were stalled on a New Mexico highway. (Library of Congress)

Oklahoma drought refugees stalled on highway


Poster by Ben Shahn: "Years of Dust"Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, farmers received government payments for not planting crops or for destroying crops that were already planted. Some farmers, however, needed help of a different kind. The Resettlement Administration, established by executive order in 1935, was authorized to resettle destitute farm families from areas of soil erosion, flooding, and stream pollution to homestead communities. This poster was done by Ben Shahn. (Library of Congress)

Poster by Ben Shahn: "Years of Dust”


“Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there. See? God, I’m talkin’ like Casy. Comes of thinkin’ about him so much. Seems like I can see him sometimes.” (Tom Joad)

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Dorothea LangeLibrary of Congress

Tennessee Valley Authority

• Part of Hundred Days legislation

• Revolutionary govt. involvement in economy

• Established “fair rate” for electricity

BENEFITS: cheap power, nitrates, flood control, cheap housing, river navigation

CRITICISM: socialist, state-owned industry

Map: The Tennessee Valley Authority


Federal Theatre Project Poster: "Power"The New Deal's massive hydroelectric power projects were celebrated in this "Living Newspaper" production by the WPA's Federal Theatre Project, which took place in August of 1937 in San Francisco. (Library of Congress)

Federal Theatre Project Poster: "Power"


Election of 1936• Landon (Republican), Gov. of Kansas• FDR (Democrat), incumbent

ISSUE: “waste” and radicalism of New Deal

OUTCOME: 523 to 8 for FDR

ANALYSIS: FDR built a new coalition of South, blacks, urbanites, poor and “New Immigrants”

- text

http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/elections/maps/1936ec.gif

“Second” Hundred Days& Later Reforms

• Social Security

• WPA

• Wagner Act, National Labor Relations Board

• USHA (Housing Authority)

• Hatch Act (campaign regulations)

• 21st Amendment – Repeal Prohibition

Social Security posterEnacted in 1935, Social Security has been one of the most enduring of all New Deal programs. This poster urges eligible Americans to apply promptly for their Social Security cards. (Library of Congress)

Social Security poster


Social Security

• 1935

• Unemployment insurance

• Support for retired workers

• Financed by payroll taxes

• Disability provisions as well for blind, orphans, etc.

NOTE!!! Had to be employed to get coverage!!!

New Deal for Labor

• Schlechter decision & collapse of NRA Wagner Act/ National Labor Relations Board

• Guarantees self-organization and collective bargaining• CIO (Committee/Congress for Industrial Organization)

formed for unskilled laborers rocky relations with AFL• CIO organizes successful auto workers and steel workers

strikes• BACKLASH!!! 1937 Memorial Day massacre, Chicago• 1938 – Wages and Hours Bill (EXCLUDES domestics,

farm workers and service workers)• Unions reward FDR at election time

Women's emergency brigade with signsDuring the 1937 sit-down strike by automobile workers in Flint, Michigan, a women's "emergency brigade" of wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and sweethearts conducted daily demonstrations at the plants. When the police sought to force the men out of Chevrolet Plant No. 9 by filling it with tear gas, the women armed themselves with clubs and smashed out the plant's windows to let in fresh air. (Wide World Photos, Inc.)

Women's emergency brigade with signs


Memorial Day MassacreHow do historians know that police officers were largely responsible for the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago? There is both photographic and medical evidence of the police's culpability. Covering the story at the Republic Steel plant were a cameraman from Paramount News and photographers from Life magazine and the Wide World Photos syndicate. Paramount News suppressed its film footage, claiming that releasing it "might very well incite local riots," but an enterprising reporter alerted a congressional committee to its existence, and a private viewing was arranged. Spectators at this showing, the reporter noted, "were shocked and amazed by the scenes showing scores of uniformed policemen firing their revolvers pointblank into a dense crowd of men, women, and children, and then pursuing the survivors unmercifully as they made frantic efforts to escape." Medical evidence also substantiated the picketers' version: none of the ten people killed by the police had been shot from the front. Clearly, the demonstrators had been trying to flee the police when they were shot or clubbed to the ground. (WideWorld Photos, Inc.)

Memorial Day Massacre


Mexican pecan shellersIn San Antonio, Texas, many Mexican Americans held jobs as pecan shellers and were among the worst paid in the nation--sometimes working a 54-hour week for only three dollars. (Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin)

Mexican pecan shellers


http://www.ssa.gov/history/pics/Fdrcart2.gif http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0405/ijde/fdr.gif

“Court-packing” Scandal• FDR comes in on landslide• Supreme Court defeated New Deal reforms in 7 major

cases• FDR sees “Old Guard” on court as obstructing his

“mandate”

FDR’s SOLUTION: appoint 6 new judges ( 1 judge for every judge over 72)

REACTION: Negative. Justice Roberts “changes” voting behavior, another retires. Court “packing” plan fails.

IMPACT: Congress and Public alarmed. Threat to Checks and Balances. High-water mark of New Deal. Few new reforms after.

Roosevelt’s Recession• Recovery from 1933 to 1937 was modest• 1937 – severe depression• FDR authorizes “planned deficit spending”BLAME:

A. Social Security payroll taxesB. Attempts to balance budget

ANALYSIS:“deficit spending” of Keynesian economicscould have ended depression and recession.US will have to wait for WWII to end it.

ANALYSIS: NEW DEALPRO CON

WHICH NEW DEAL REFORM OR ACT WAS THE MOST

SIGNIFICANT?

• Social Security

• FDIC

• CCC

• “managed currency”

• SEC

• National Labor Relations Board

Documents

The American Pageant Chapter 33 The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1933-1939 Cover Slide Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved