FDR & a New Deal for America

“It is hard, today, to imagine the level of expectation that greeted Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he ascended to take the reins from the much-maligned Hoover” (Jennings 155). By the end of his twelve years as president, “people would find it hard to remember a day when he was not their leader, when they could not expect, at a time of need, to hear his soothing voice” (Jennings 157). “People are looking to you almost as they look to God” (qtd. in Jennings 157).

FDR’s First Inaugural Address http://www.hpol.org/record.php?id=2 FDR’s First Inaugural Address President Hoover, Mr. Chief Justice, my friends: This is a day of national consecration, and I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our nation impels. This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. 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. . . nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. Thoreau had once written, “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.”

First Step: Stabilize Bank Holiday (deliberate positive terminology) Closed all banks to prevent panicked withdrawals, which could lead banks to fail, causing thousands to lose their savings In one day, rushed legislation through Congress that propped up banks with federal loans Explained the process and promise of the government’s actions in the first of a series of “fireside chats.”

RESULT: People returned to banks I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking . . . I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be. . . . First of all let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault. It invests your money in many different forms of credit-bonds, commercial paper, mortgages and many other kinds of loans. In other words, the bank puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around. A comparatively small part of the money you put into the bank is kept in currency -- an amount which in normal times is wholly sufficient to cover the cash needs of the average citizen. In other words the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a small fraction of the total deposits in all of the banks. The success of our whole great national program depends, of course, upon the cooperation of the public -- on its intelligent support and use of a reliable system. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system; it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail. RESULT: People returned to banks $600 million by the end of the week $1 billion by the end of the month There was obvious confidence in FDR’s plan.

The First Hundred Days “Without a doubt, the greatest period of reform in American history” (Jennings 159). 15 new initiatives in Congress = the First New Deal: Emergency Banking Relief Act Economy Act Beer-Wine Revenue Act Civilian Conservation Corps Federal Emergency Relief Act (later Admin) Agricultural Adjustment Act Tennessee Valley Authority Federal Securities Act Abandonment of Gold Standard 10) National Employment System Act 11) Home Owners Refinancing Act 12) Banking Act 13) Farm Credit Act 14) Emergency Railroad Transportation Act 15) National Industrial Recovery Act (later the NRA)

Objectives of the First New Deal SHORT TERM Provide relief and temporary work for the jobless LONG TERM Restore prosperity by creating federal agencies to establish a proper balance among Supply Demand Prices Investment Attempted to replace unrestricted competition with a planned economy managed through voluntary cooperation by representatives from labor, business and government.

FDR’s Second Inaugural (Jan. 1937) But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life. I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day. I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

FDR’s Second Inaugural continued I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children. I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions. I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

FDR’s Second Inaugural continued But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

The Second New Deal Accepted the idea of a competitive marketplace and free enterprise, abandoning the First New Deal’s concept of an economy managed through strict codes and federal agencies. Concentrated on other measures, like government regulation and anti-trust laws. Focused on continued farm regulation/relief efforts and strengthening the power of labor unions.

Limited Economic Success of New Deal

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Employment Success Created May 1935 Most important federal employment program employing avg. 2.3 million per month! 8.5 million different people employed overall 1.4 million projects funded Types of workers: manual laborers, authors, artists, photographers Types of work: built bridges, roads, parks, airfields, schools, hospitals, wrote & produced plays, made educating and advertising posters, documented slave narratives, photographed the Depression, etc.

WPA Success at UNITING America The economic crisis of the 1930s focused the attention of Americans on the lives and struggles of ordinary folk. Not surprisingly, much New Deal art reflected this preoccupation with "the people." Visual artists, writers, filmmakers, and playwrights concentrated many of their creative efforts on the patterns of everyday life, especially the world of work. A recurring theme was the strength and dignity of common men and women, even as they faced difficult circumstances.

WPA Success at UNITING America This helped to unite Americans in their understanding of the Depression, of the vastness of the land they occupied and needed, of the common concerns they had, and of the need for them to share the responsibility of citizenship that a democracy requires. With art, the WPA also provided a different kind of “relief” from the Depression – psychological.

Wall Hanging by WPA Handcraft Project, Milwaukee, Wisconsin By an unknown artist, Milwaukee Handcraft Project, WPA, ca. 1935-42 Block-printed cloth Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 70-117B)

New York : Federal Art Project, 1936 or 1937 Poster promoting better living conditions by keeping tenement neighborhoods clean. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress)

New York : Federal Art Project, between 1936 and 1941 Poster promoting early treatment for syphilis, showing cured and sick men. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress).                                                                                                              

[1936 or 1937]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [1936 or 1937]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-5332.                                                                                                               

Handbills for Chicago, Illinois, production of Spirochete Illinois Federal Theatre Project, WPA, 1938 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (Federal Theater Records, Vassar Collection of Programs and Promotional Materials, Box 156) A "Living Newspaper," Spirochete describes the history of humanity's struggle against venereal disease. Public health experts such as the Surgeon General assisted with the script's development and endorsed its proposed solution--nationwide premarital screening. The advertisement shown here emphasizes the play's position that prudery and ignorance only aided the spread of this scourge.

John Buczak. [1940]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-1592.

Benjamin Sheer. [1936]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-5647. Earl Schuler. [between 1936 and 1940]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-5660.

I am a photographer hired by a democratic government to take pictures of its land and its people. The idea is to show New York to Texans and Texas to New York. --Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration photographer, U.S. Camera One, 1941.

Dorothea Lange CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 June. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USZ62-56051 DLC (b&w film copy neg. from file print) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Home of a dust bowl refugee in California. Imperial County. Dorothea Lange, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1937 Mar. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-016264-C DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Russel Lee, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1942 Feb. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-072000-D DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress

Dust storm. Oklahoma. Arthur Rothstein, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1936 Apr. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-004085-E DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Arthur Rothstein, photographer. The winds of the "dust bowl" have piled up large drifts of soil against this farmer's barn near Liberal, Kansas. Arthur Rothstein, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1936 Mar.

CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 Apr CREATED/PUBLISHED 1935 Apr. REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-002812-E DLC (b&w film neg.) COLLECTION Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection Dust storm. It was conditions of this sort which forced many farmers to abandon the area. Spring 1935. New Mexico. Dorothea Lange, photographer.

"CCC Boys at Work" Prince George County, Virginia Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs 1882-1962 ARC Identifier: 195829

WPA Sewing Shop, New York City National Archives and Records Administration Works Progress Administration Record Group 69 ARC Identifier: 518269

Unemployed Men Eating in Volunteers of America Soup Kitchen, Washington, D.C. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs 1882-1962 ARC Identifier: 19582

"Stringing rural TVA transmission line "Stringing rural TVA transmission line." Rural Electrification Administration (REA) - Tennessee Valley Administration (TVA) Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs 1882-1962 ARC Identifier: 195878

Figures Silhouetted Against a Backdrop of the Constitution, WPA: Federal Theater Project Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs 1882-1962 ARC Identifier: 197267

In depicting the course of daily life, New Deal artists memorialized routine events such as waiting for a train or watching workers from a city window. Behind these celebrations of the mundane, however, lay a belief that such vignettes represented the essence of modern American life as lived by most individuals. Artists considered it to be their responsibility to capture such core experiences.

Michigan artist Alfred Castagne sketching WPA construction workers By an unknown photographer, May 19, 1939 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-AG-410)

The Riveter By Ben Shahn, Treasury Section of Fine Arts, 1938 Tempera on paperboard National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from General Services Administration (77.1.77)

Working Girls Going Home By Raphael Soyer, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1937 Lithograph Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-323)

El Station, Sunday Morning By Jack Markow, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, ca. 1935-39 Lithograph Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-271)

In the Dugout By Paul Clemens, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1938 Oil on masonite Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-330)

Waiting for the Mail By Grant Wright Christian, Treasury Relief Art Project, 1937 38 Oil on canvas National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from General Services Administration

"Federal Ballet Presents" Illinois Federal Theatre Project National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (Federal Theater Project, Vassar Collection of Programs and Promotional Material Jericho-PA folder, Box 159)

Children's festival for pupils of the Federal Music Project classes held in Central Park, New York City. By an unknown photographer, New York City Federal Music Project, undated National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-N-18359)

Fishermen's Village By Edmund Lewandowski, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1937 Watercolor and gouache over pencil Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-332)

History of Southern Illinois By Paul Kelpe, Illinois Federal Art Project, WPA, ca. 1935-39 Gouache Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-331)

Untitled Winter Scene (Chicago street) By Ceil Rosenberg, Public Works of Art Project, 1934 Oil on canvas Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 69-62)

Indian Village By Julius Twohy, Washington Federal Art Project, WPA, ca. 1935-39 Lithograph Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National Archives and Records Administration (MO 56-327)

"Church in shacktown community "Church in shacktown community. It is used by different sects, including Pentecostal. The curtains are made of flour sacks. . . . Near Modesto, Stanislaus County, California, May 10, 1940" By Dorothea Lange, Bureau of Agricultural Economics National Archives, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (83-G-41382)

Photograph from the "Food for New York City" series By Sol Libsohn, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, 1939 National Archives, Records of the Work Projects Administration (69-ANP-8-P3032-85)

Follow this link in order to see the series on working – a very impressive set http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/new_deal_for_the_arts/work_pays_america.html

SOURCES US National Archives (NARA) http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/fdr_inaugural_address/fdr_inaugural_address.html http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/new_deal_for_the_arts/celebrating_the_people1.html# Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html