The New Deal and its Legacy FDR and the Bank Crisis and Response to the Depression racked nation

What are some remnants?  Are there any programs today that are a result of the New Deal? –Social Security –Public Housing –How many of you buy school lunches? –Anyone a member of a labor Union? –Does your bank have deposit insurance?

The US in the Depression  ¼ of the American population was unemployed –The goal was to get Americans working as quickly as possible CCC – Yorktown Virginia, Vocational Projects for “colored veterans.”

The First 100 Days – “First New Deal”  Repeal of Prohibition  TVA – bring electricity to impoverished south  CCC – planted 2 billion trees across the country  Control placed on Wall Street, labor relations and farm output  Federal Emergency Relief and National Industrial Recovery – created bureacracy to institute public relief by funding large scale public works –Civil Works Admin (CWA) –Public Works Admin (PWA) –Works Progress Admin – (WPA)

“He was at the center of it all”  Harry Hopkins – a competent social worker who had created a program to deliver services to mothers with dependent children in NYC  After 5 minutes of speaking with FDR on his 1 st day of work, was released to a cockroach infested building in NYC. –By the end of the day he released $5.3 billion on aid to eight states –Within a year he employed nearly 3 million people ($13/week)

Was it all successful?  He spent money quickly, some say too quickly. –Responding to FDR’s promise of quick relief  He was not a welfare statist and his year as a social worker proved that people did not want to be “on the dole.” –Felt that putting people to work restored pride and boosted morale, which is what families were looking for.

Work as a means of happiness  New Deal art which included murals, often glorified labor  Frescos from San Francisco to New York depict scenes of men hard at work.