The New Deal Has Arrived

Franklin D. Roosevelt takes over

Roosevelt repeatedly blamed Hoover for the Depression and worsening economy.

With unemployment above 20% in 1932 alone, Hoover was remiss to defend his record, and Roosevelt promised recovery with a New Deal for the American people.

Roosevelt won by a landslide in both the electoral and popular vote,

Election 1932

HOW DID THE NEW DEAL HELP AMERICA GET BETTER?

THE NEW DEAL The New Deal was a bunch of government programs started in 1933

by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. These programs were made to give people jobs and to help improve the economy.

Some New Deal programs were as follows: Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Civil Works Administration (CWA) Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) National Youth Administration (NYA) Social Security (SS) the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Indian Reorganization Act Wagner/Fair Labor Standards’ Act Agricultural Adjustment Act and above all, the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The WPA employed workers in construction projects across the country. Workers built and fixed highways, streets, public buildings,

airports, utilities, small dams, sewers, parks, libraries, and recreational fields.

Many of the structures you see today were built by the WPA. For example, they created 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000

bridges, 125,000 buildings, and seven hundred miles of airport runways.

In addition to building things, they also created art. They had 225,000 concerts to audiences totaling 150 million

people, and they produced almost 475,000 artworks. They employed artists, musicians, photographers, and writers on smaller-scale projects, and they even ran a circus.

Works Progress Administration

Here are some men who were given jobs by one of these government programs--the WPA.

This picture shows WPA workers fixing a canal.

This picture shows WPA workers building an airport.

This picture shows artwork created by a WPA artist.

The CCC was another New Deal program. Like the WPA, this one focused on hard, physical labor.

In this picture, two men are moving a boulder to help create a park.

Civilian Conservation Corp.

In this picture, two CCC men are cutting down a tree.

What was the CCC’s main goal? • To heal the land

and provide employment for young men during

the Depression.

Here, a group of CCC men are putting plants and shrubs along the roadside to beautify the highways.

In this picture, several CCC men are fighting a forest fire.

What was the difference between the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)?

Unlike the CCC, which hired young men who lived on site, the WPA hired adults who commuted from home.

Both programs offered shelter, three square meals, training, companionship, education, inspiration and a purpose in life.

The Social Security Act was drafted during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term, and passed by Congress as part of the Second New Deal.

The act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American life.◦ including old age◦ poverty◦ unemployment ◦ the burdens of widows and fatherless children

By signing this act on August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt became the first president to advocate federal assistance for the elderly

Social Security

The Act provided benefits to retirees and the unemployed, and a lump-sum benefit at death.

Payments to current retirees are financed by a payroll tax on current workers' wages, half directly as a payroll tax and half paid by the employer.

The act also gave money to states to provide assistance to ◦ aged individuals◦ for unemployment insurance◦ Aid to Families with Dependent Children◦ Maternal and Child Welfare◦ public health services◦ the blind

Who and How?

The act slowed the practice of allotting communal tribal lands to individual tribal members.

It did not restore to Indians land that had already been patented to individuals, but much land at the time was still unallotted or was allotted to an individual but still held in trust for that individual by the U.S. government.

Because the Act did not disturb existing private ownership of Indian reservation lands, it left reservations a checkerboard of tribal and free land, which remains the case today .

However, the Act also provided for the U.S. to purchase some of the free land and restore it to tribal status.

Due to the Act and other actions of federal courts and the government, over two million acres of land were returned to various tribes in the first 20 years after passage.

Indian Reorganization Act

Even by Depression standards, the Tennessee Valley was economically dismal in 1933.

Thirty percent of the population was affected by malaria.

The average income was only $639 per year, with some families surviving on as little as $100 per year.

Much of the land had been farmed too hard for too long, eroding and depleting the soil.

Crop yields had fallen along with farm incomes. The best timber had been cut, with another 10%

of forests being burnt each year.

Tennessee Valley Authority

TVA was designed to modernize the region, using experts and electricity to combat human and economic problems.

TVA developed fertilizers, taught farmers ways to improve crop yields and helped replant forests, control forest fires, and improve habitat for fish and wildlife.

The most dramatic change in Valley life came from TVA-generated electricity.

Electric lights and modern home appliances made life easier and farms more productive.

Electricity also drew industries into the region, providing desperately needed jobs.

Wilson Dam, completed in 1924, was the first dam under the authority of TVA, created in 1933.

The TVA revitalized a vast area of ruined rural America by building dams to provide cheap electricity.

In October 1933, construction began on Norris Dam, located on the Clinch River. The dam was named after Senator Norris, who had campaigned for TVA's creation.

The following month workers began building Wheeler Dam.

9,173 people were working for TVA by June 1934.

Sixteen dams were built by TVA between 1933 and 1944.

The Dams and the Builders

It took a Supreme Court ruling to allow this to happen because some objected that government shouldn’t be controlling the utilities.

In the decisions Ashwander v TVA the Supreme Court ruled that regulating commerce among the states includes regulation of streams and that controlling floods is required for keeping streams navigable.

The argument before the court was that electricity generation was a by-product of navigation and flood control and therefore could be considered constitutional.

How was this to work?

The development of the dams displaced more than 15,000 families.

This created anti-TVA sentiment in some rural communities.

Small privately owned utilities feared being put out of business.

Many local landowners were suspicious of government agencies.

But TVA successfully introduced new agricultural methods into traditional farming communities by blending in and finding local champions.

The electricity generated benefited rather than harmed the area.

New business was drawn in.

The work began but the battle wasn’t over.

Agricultural Adjustment Act Restricted agricultural production by paying

farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock.

Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus and therefore effectively raise the value of crops.

The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products.

The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies

This act was voided by the Supreme Court case United States v Butler.

Food Stamps issued under this act.

Wagner/Fair Labor Standards’Act Also called Wages and Hours Act The first act in the United States prescribing

nationwide compulsory federal regulation of wages and hours.

Signed on June 14, 1938, effective October 24. The law established a minimum wage of 25 cents

per hour for the first year, to be increased to 40 cents within seven years.

No worker was obliged to work, without compensation at overtime rates, more than 44 hours a week during the first year, 42 the second year, and 40 thereafter.

A United States government corporation operating as an independent agency created by the Banking Act of 1933.

As of January 2013, it provides deposit insurance guaranteeing the safety of a depositor's accounts in member banks up to $250,000 for each deposit ownership category in each insured bank.

As of September 30, 2012, the FDIC insured deposits at 7,181 institutions.

The FDIC also examines and supervises certain financial institutions for safety and soundness, performs certain consumer-protection functions, and manages banks in receiverships (failed banks).

The FDIC receives no Congressional appropriations – it is funded by premiums that banks and thrift institutions pay for deposit insurance coverage and from earnings on investments in U.S. Treasury securities.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

There were lots of factors, but for one thing, the New Deal gave people jobs again.

Of course, this meant money for people--money they could spend on food, clothes, medicine, and shelter.

Since people were spending more money, businesses became more successful, and they started hiring more people.

DID THE NEW DEAL FIX EVERYTHING RIGHT AWAY?

No! It took years and years for the country to get back on its feet again.

That’s why the Great Depression was such a difficult time for the country and the

world.

A Few Last Words!!