USII.13

 media type="custom" key="29371043" align="right" =Explain how the Great Depression and the New Deal affected American society.=


 * Topics on the Page **
 * The Great Depression **
 * ** Dramatic Event Page on The Dust Bowl **
 * The New Deal **
 * ** Timeline of New Deal Policies **
 * ** Lesson Plans and Documentaries **
 * Increased importance of the federal government in establishing economic and social policies **
 * The emergence of a "New Deal Coalition" consisting of African Americans, blue-collared workers, poor farmers, Jews, and Catholics. **
 * **Women and the New Deal**
 * **The Pansy Craze**

[[image:Screen Shot 2017-02-21 at 10.27.35 AM.png]]
====[|Picturing the 1930s,] a multimedia exhibit from the Smithsonian American Art Museum lets students create their own online documentary productions.====



The Great Depression
The stock market crashed on Tuesday October 29, 1929.
 * The resulting economic collapse left 15 million Americans unemployed.
 * President Herbert Hoover told the people that this was just a passing crisis which would be over in 60 days.
 * He believed that the federal government should not offer relief to those who were suffering from the effects of the [|Depression].
 * Instead, Hoover focused on a program to help finance banks and businesses.
 * However, many businesses preferred to just lay off workers in an effort to save money.
 * Because there was no visible improvement and the government offered no help to those who were suffering, many people blamed Hoover for the Great Depression.
 * The shanty towns that were erected by impoverished families were often referred to as "Hoovervilles."
 * In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in a landslide victory. With his presidency came new federal programs under his New Deal policy.


 * Click [|here] to watch an episode of author John Green's "Crash Course" series, this installment focusing on the Great Depression.
 * [|FDR on Crises: Depression Relief] from Public Broadcast Services.
 * Click [|here] to listen to interviews from people who lived through the Great Depression, conducted by Studs Terkel, author of // [|Hard Times]. //
 * Click [|here] to listen to a piece from NPR's "All Things Considered" titled "Survivors Of The Great Depression Tell Their Stories."
 * Click here to watch a few History Channel videos about the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt.


 * Click [|here] for a selection of 24 oral histories of people who lived during the Great Depression in Sevier County, Utah.
 * [|Photo Essay on the Great Depression] from the Modern American Poetry website of the Department of English at the University of Illinois.
 * Click [|here] to read the "Fireside Chats" that FDR gave during the Great Depression.

[|The American Presidency Project] has collected the addresses, fireside chats, and speeches of FDR which can be accessed as both video and audio recordings.

The New Deal:
The purpose of Roosevelt's promised [|New Deal]for the American people was to help them get through the economic crisis. [|Click here] for the Interactive Periodic Table of the New Deal

Click [|here] for FDR's radio address explaining the New Deal on May 7, 1933
 * While Hoover had felt that it was not the government's place to become involved in public relief, Roosevelt felt the opposite. Under Roosevelt, a number of acts werepassed to help the American people.
 * The Emergency Banking Bill, the Glass-Steagall Act, The National Industrial Recovery Act. New administrations and programs were also created, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, The Works Progress Administration, the National Recovery Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and the Home Owners' Loan Corporation.

Click [|here] for a timeline of the New Deal from the University of Virginia


 * Click [|here] to watch author John Green's "Crash Course" series, this installment focusing on the New Deal and its policies.
 * [|Click here] for a three minute overview of the New Deal.
 * Click here for a ten-minute documentary clip about FDR and the New Deal

====**[|Timeline of New Deal Policies]**====

**1933**
March April May June August September November December Click [|here] for a short clip on the 21st Amendment
 * __Emergency Banking Act__: stabilized the banking industry. Banking system backed by federal government. Increased confidence in the banking system.
 * __Reforestation Relief Act:__ Established the Civilian Conservation Corps, which sent 250,000 men to work in reforestation, road construction, and national parks
 * FDR takes the country off the [|gold standard]
 * __Emergency Farm Mortgage Act:__ gives $200 million to help farmers refinance mortgages.
 * __Farm Credit Act:__ establishes local banks and credit associations.
 * __Tennessee Valley Authority:__ Established to build dams and power plants in the Tennessee Valley
 * __Federal Securities Act__: Designed to monitor and regulate stocks and bonds
 * __National Employment System Act__: Develop and establish a system of state offices to help job seekers find employment
 * __Home Owners Refinancing Act__: Help citizens with mortgage money and other home aid
 * __National Industrial Recovery Act__: Created the Public Works Administration, which created roads and public buildings. Also created the National Recovery Administration, which tried to stimulate competition and fair trade. However, it was declared unconstitutional in 1935.
 * __National Labor Board__: Protect right of collective bargaining
 * __Federal Surplus Relief Corporation:__ excess agricultural products are given to relief organizations.
 * __Civil Works Administration:__ created with executive order from FDR. Created bridges and public buildings
 * __21st Amendment__: Repealed Prohibition

**1934**
January February April: June
 * __Gold Reserve Act:__ gives government control over value of the dollar
 * __Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act:__ help farmers refinance their mortgages
 * __Import-Export Bank:__ established by FDR executive order. Designed to encourage commerce between US and foreign nations.
 * __Crop Loan Act:__ Continuation of the Farm Credit Act
 * __Jones-Connally Farm Relief Act__: Increases the amount of agricultural products to be controlled by the [|Agricultural Adjustment Administration]
 * __Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act__: restricted the bank's ability to dispossess farmers. Renewed until 1948.
 * __Taylor Grazing Act__: 140 million federally owned land is taken back from the public to create carefully monitored grazing areas. This is to help prevent over-usage of the land.
 * __Corporate Bankruptcy Act:__ A corporation in danger of bankruptcy can reorganize if 2/3 of its creditors agree
 * __Farm Mortgage Foreclosure Act:__ Loans created that allowed farmers to buy back their land that was foreclosed

**1935**
January April > ======== May June
 * __Drought Relief Service__: coordinated relief activities in response to drought.
 * __Emergency Relief Appropriation Act__: April 8. Gave $525 million for drought relief. Established Works Progress Administration, which employed 8.5 million people and gave $11 million in relief. Harry Hopkins, the director of the WPA said, "Give a man a dole and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit."
 * __Soil Conservation Service__: April 27. Sought to prevent damage to soil. Farmers are paid to use conservation farming techniques.
 * __Resettlement Administration:__ helps families relocate for employment opportunities
 * __Rural Electrification Administration:__ Bring electricity to new areas

August
 * __Social Security Act:__ Gave pensions to people who retired at 65, created with contributions from employees and employers. Also gave financial assistance to women with dependents, and the handicapped
 * __Banking Act of 1935:__ Made banks more responsible in the public's view
 * __Public Utilities Act:__ Federal agencies allowed to regulate gas and electric companies
 * __Revenue Act:__ increase taxes on inheritances, gifts, and high incomes

**1937**
March
 * __Shelterbelt Project__: more trees are to planted across the Great Plains.

[[image:lessonplan.jpg width="69" height="55"]]**Lesson Plans and Documentaries on the Great Depression and New Deal**

 * [|The New Deal]- The Library of Congress
 * [|The New Deal Lesson Plan]
 * [|Additional lesson plans] through the Library of Congress.
 * [|The New Deal: Programs created by Roosevelt] Short Clip on the programs created by Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
 * [|Franklin Roosevelt radio broadcast on Programs created]
 * [|The New Deal Network] offers archival documents, lesson plans, and oral histories (interviews or otherwise) on the Great Depression and the effects of the New Deal.
 * [|FDR's Fireside chats]: Various lesson plan ideas that walks students through how to analyze the Fireside chats and see why FDR was so well received by the public and how his voice ensured confidence and success in his proposed plans.
 * Dust Bowl Days Various lesson plans, activities, and worksheets about how ordinary Americans faced a period of severe dust storms that hit America during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

A. __Increased Importance of the Federal Government in Establishing Economic and Social Policies:__
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal is seen by many historians as the basis of the welfare state in the United States.
 * It is his administration that is linked to the government taking a larger responsibility in helping to improve the lives of the American people.
 * As illustrated by the time line, many new policies were enacted during Roosevelt's administration.
 * The government helped stabilize the bank, gave aid to farmers so they could keep their land, determined new and improved methods with which to work land, coordinated relief in areas that had been affected by drought, and created programs to help employ millions of people.
 * Critics claimed that Roosevelt's policies caused the American people to become too reliant on the government for support. In essence, that the people would become too dependent on the government to improve their lives instead of improving them on their own.

[|A DBQ] on the effectiveness of FDR's policies.

Roosevelt argued in 1938 that: //"Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership....Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat. We in America know that our democratic institutions can be preserved and made to work. But in order to preserve them we need...to prove that the practical operation of democratic government is equal to the task of protecting the security of the people....The people of America are in agreement in defending their liberties at any cost, and the first line of the defense lies in the protection of economic security.//"

In other words, Roosevelt felt that the people would give up on democracy if their country and their government could not provide them with security. People would give anything in order to survive, in order to feed their children. Roosevelt wanted to ensure a strong democracy by keeping the people strong. If the government could not help the people ensure security, then the people were bound to give up on the government.

B. __The Emergence of a "New Deal Coalition"__
Roosevelt's New Deal had brought many complaints from the Republican party.
 * With the nomination of Alfred M. Landon as the Republican candidate in 1936, the Party hoped that Roosevelt would be defeated.
 * Roosevelt won the election with 60% of the population. If fact, the only states he did not win were Maine and Vermont.
 * Part of the reason for his strong success was the new political alliance between African Americans (and other racial and ethnic minorities), blue-collared workers, poor farmers, Jew and Catholics.
 * These groups of people aligned themselves with the Democratic Party and helped [|Roosevelt win the 1936 election]

For more on the New Deal Coalition, see [|Franklin D. Roosevelt: The American Franchise] from the Miller Center, University of Virginia [|James A. Farley]- Roosevelt's Irish-Catholic "kingmaker". Farley was appointed Postmaster General in 1933 as a reward for his political skills.

See also [|Party Realignment and the New Dea]l, from the U.S.House of Representatives


 * __[[image:multicultural.png]]Detailed Example: African Americans__**
 * Hit hard by the Great Depression
 * Southern African Americans struggled to make ends meet before the Depression, their conditions only became worse
 * Northern African Americans were laid off as their jobs disappeared
 * Many New Deal programs excluded African Americans at first
 * Public Works programs were more effective than other relief programs, such as Agricultural Assistance Programs
 * FDR became more sensitive through the Great Depression
 * FDR met with civil rights leaders and spoke against lynching and poll taxes
 * African Americans felt that FDR treated them with respect and pledged their loyalty to him
 * [|Click here] for more info on race relations during the 1930s and 40s.

**Women and the New Deal**
 * [|Frances Perkins] - In 1933, President Roosevelt appointed Perkins as his [|Secretary of Labor], making her the first woman in the United States to hold a Cabinet position.
 * She served longer than any other Secretary of Labor, from March 1933 to July 1945.
 * For background information on the experiences of women, see Women and the Great Depression.
 * [|More info] on women and the New Deal.
 * Click here for info on the National Women's Party's influence and work on the New Deal during the 1930s.

The Pansy Craze

 * Click [|here] to read an article about LGBT culture in Chicago during the '1930s, a period sweeping across major American cities called the "Pansy Craze."
 * An additional [|article] on the Pansy Craze in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, along with info on key figures.

[|Gay 1920s and Early 1930s: Pansy Clubs] on YouTube // Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940  // offers another view of the "Pansy Craze" in New York City, detailing gay and lesbian subcultures.