“Hoover sent the troops. Roosevelt sent his wife.” - one of the marchers from the Bonus Army Differences between Hoover and FDR

EQ: To what extent were appropriate actions taken to address American suffering during the Great Depression?

Effects of Oct. 1929 Stock Market Crash?

Why were banks failing? Bank runs  No deposit insurance! 

Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

1930, NYC, Nearly 6,000 unemployed individuals work at selling apples for five cents apiece.

Homelessness Evicted family with belongings on street, December 14, 1929.

Christmas Day Breadlines in New York City, 1931 Poverty Christmas Day Breadlines in New York City, 1931

Soup kitchen in Chicago, sponsored by Al Capone

Hoover’s attempts to address situation? Rejected direct govt relief Volunteerism “rugged individualism” 1929 Federal Farm Board 1930 Hawley-Smoot Tariff 1931 Hoover Moratorium 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corp. (RFC) loaned $ to banks, insurance co.s, RRs

Responses

“Hoovervilles” Hooverville in Seattle, Washington

Should Hoover be blamed for the economic conditions? “Hoover happened to be in a bad spot. The Depression came on, and there he was. If Jesus Christ had been there, he’d have the same problem…This was a world-wide Depression. It wasn’t Hoover’s fault. In 1932…a monkey could have been elected against him, no question about it.” - Martin Devries, Wall Street investor, 1932

Election of 1932 Dem. Franklin D. Roosevelt Rep. Herbert Hoover

FDR’s first inaugural address, March 4, 1933 “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” FDR’s first inaugural address, March 4, 1933

-John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath Dust Bowl Causes – Overgrazing, Destroyed soil, High temperatures & little rainfall Farmers forced to move West (“Okies”) “Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry…streamed over the mountains…scurrying to find work to do – to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut – anything, any burden to bear, for food. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most all for land.” -John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath 8:00

"Migrant Mother," one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange took of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in 1936 in Nipomo, California.

Problem-solving groups Form a group! As a group, make a list of actions that the government could/should have taken to address American suffering

“Alphabet soup” of agencies Approach = “Take a method and try it. If it fails, try another.” Relief, Recovery, Reform Activity!

Legacy of the New Deal Lasting measures Labor Social Security, minimum wage, FDIC, SEC, farm subsidies Labor Wagner Act (1935) Rise of unions ex. C.I.O. (1935) Frances Perkins – Sec. of Labor (1st woman cabinet member!) Expanded role of federal govt Concept of the welfare state

Projects built (Nearby) Lincoln Tunnel (PWA) Triborough (RFK) Bridge (PWA) LaGuardia Airport (WPA)

Critics of Roosevelt 1934 American Liberty League (anti-New Deal) Father Charles E. Coughlin: “The great betrayer and liar, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised to drive the money changers from the temple, had succeeded [only] in driving the farmers from their homesteads and the citizens from their homes in the cities. . . I ask you to purge the man who claims to be a Democrat, from the Democratic Party, and I mean Franklin Double-Crossing Roosevelt.”

1937 Attempted court-reorganization plan Justification = “A lower mental or physical vigor leads men to avoid an examination of complicated and changed conditions. Little by little, new facts become blurred through old glasses fitted, as it were, for the needs of another generation; older men, assuming that the scene is the same as it was in the past, cease to explore or inquire into the present or the future.”

Read 3 views of New Deal Which do you agree with? EQ: To what extent were appropriate actions taken to address American suffering during the New Deal? Read 3 views of New Deal Which do you agree with?