1. The Great Depression & New Deal, 1929-1941

2. Origins and Causes Extreme wealth inequalities
Unwise borrowing and too much debt
Overproduction and uneven distribution
Ballooning stock market
Too much speculation & buying on margin (borrowing money from a broker to purchase stock)
Stock Market crash was trigger
Banks lacked money, people lost savings, debts were called in
Production stopped, workers fired, no income, consumption declined, no profits, more workers fired
Smoot-Hawley Tariff dampened commerce globally and intensified Depression. 2

3. President Herbert Hoover
Hoover’s response was to do
little (Laissez-faire: let things take
their course w/o interference)
Only state & local, not Federal, governments should provide relief to the needy
Self-help & volunteerism
Self-help cooperatives
As Depression deepened:
Federal loans to banks, states, & local governments 3

4. Hoovervilles 4

5. The Bonus Army/March WWI veterans Gov’t denied early service bonus
Marched on Washington (1932)
Camped around White House & Capitol
Military led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur
evicted veterans from D.C.
Anger at Hoover’s gov’t
Deep class divisions

6. Roosevelt and the New Deal
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)
”First Hundred Days” - Programs to address the Depression
“Relief, Recovery, Reform”
Deficit spending/Debt
Consume our way out of the depression
Role of government enlarged 6

7. Immediate Responses, 1933 “Bank Holiday” & Emergency Banking Act
Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)
Federal funds for relief
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)
Fair work and competition codes
Labor rights 7

8. Bank run: people rushing to the bank to withdraw their savings.

9. Financial System Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Insured individual bank deposits
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Regulated trading practices in stocks and bonds 9

10. New Deal Programs Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Soil Conservation Service
Building roads, park trails
Planting trees
Irrigation and range management
Targeted young men age who were housed in work camps
ch?v=qolPqXNGW3I 10

11. Public Works Administration (PWA)
-Managed all large public works projects that used skilled labor, putting millions back to work.
-Set work hours and minimum wage
-Didn’t allow child labor

12. Tennessee Valley Authority12

13. TVA (1933)
One of the most innovative ideas of Roosevelt’s recovery plan: He asked Congress to create “a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise.”
Flood control, Electricity, Irrigation, Jobs
Still functioning today

14. Second New Deal ( )
After pulling back on federal government spending in 1934 over concern about the rising national debt and fear that Americans would become too dependent on government-provided jobs, FDR saw unemployment shoot up again sharply and the recovery stall.
In 1935, he launched another series of programs and reforms to speed up the recovery, provide economic relief/security to more Americans, and ensure his re-election in 1936.

15. Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Biggest agency
1935 employed 8 million and
$2 billion fund
Bridges, reservoirs, irrigation, sewage, schools, playgrounds, education, training
Work Programs paid minimum wages, pulling people off charity and soup lines
“We Work Again”
TOi9Aw 15

16. Propaganda/Education
Government Promotional Film 16

17. 1935 Social Security Act
Safety net for all Americans (unemployment system, disability insurance, old-age pension, child-welfare benefits)
Percentage of paycheck (payroll tax)
Based on shorter life-span
Intended to supplement (not replace) income 17

18. Wagner Act, officially National Labor Relations Act (1935)
Single most-important piece of labor legislation enacted in the U.S. in the 20th century.
Main purpose was to establish the legal right of most workers (excepting agricultural and domestic workers) to organize or join labor unions and to bargain collectively with their employers.
Prohibited employers from engaging in unfair labor practices, and set up a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with the power to hear and resolve labor disputes.

19. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (Wage & Hours Bill)
 FLSA establishes:
Federal Minimum Wage
Forty-hour Work Week
Overtime Pay
FLSA prohibits:
Oppressive child labor

20. The Dust Bowl
1930’s economic and environmental disaster in Southern Plains states
Overproduction, monocrops
Farmers plowed up native grasses to meet needs of booming wheat market
Soil exhaustion, soil erosion
Drought and winds = dust storms
1935 “Black Blizzard”: Winds blew soil from CO and NE, blackened the sky across the plains, into the East Coast and Atlantic Ocean 20

21. Responses
Killed millions of animals, destroyed millions of tons of food
Soil Conservation Service
Taylor Grazing Act 21

22. Migrants: Okies Poor whites and sharecroppers
Evicted from homes in OK, TX, MI, ARK
Going to CAL
L.A. Police Chief “bum blockade” 22

23. Mexican and Okie Farmworkers23

24. Problems with New Deal Favored large industries and business
Hurt some small farmers
Local agencies administered relief and ran programs
Relief based on race: scaled payments
Criticism of new deal: werpoint/New%20Deal/The%20New%20Deal%2 0and%20FDR.swf 24

25. Mexican Repatriation - Nearly 1 million Mexicans and
Mexican-Americans sent to Mexico
- L.A. County deported 12,000
- Colorado deported 20,000 25

26. Indian Reorganization Act (1934)
Economic & political assistance
Business Councils
Tribal Constitutions
Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interior Dept
Although the IRA was meant to reverse assimilation policies & provide tribes with greater autonomy, some rejected it 26

27. Women Eleanor Roosevelt
Work: women made less money than men and were discouraged from taking jobs men needed.
Patriotic home: conserve, recycle, help America “as a woman” (sewing, canning, etc.) 27

28. African Americans Unemployment rate reached 50% Sharecropping
Jobs in gov’t, “Black Cabinet”
Mary McCloud Bethune
100,000 blacks evicted by AAA
No loans from FHA
h?v=Gk0SpTOi9Aw 28

29. Criticisms of New Deal Claims: Gave Federal Government too much power
Piled up national debt
Telling businesses how to operate was destroying our free enterprise system
Undermined individualism and promoted Socialism
Focused too much on helping “big business” and didn’t tackle wealth inequalities

30. Major Critics
Senator Huey Long
Father Charles Coughlin
Liberty League

31. “Share the Wealth” Huey Long
Populist Governor and Senator from Louisiana
Use of radio and sensational claims
Rhetoric of poverty / class tensions
“Share the Wealth” Plan
Social Justice
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(start video 3:40)

32. Father Coughlin utilizes Radio
A Catholic priest from Detroit who outwardly criticized the New Deal because he thought its reforms and relief efforts were too moderate.
Began broadcasting a weekly radio show in 1930 that amassed a following of 40 million listeners.
He blamed the Great Depression on Wall Street, crooked financiers, and Jews.
Demanded higher taxes on the rich and nationalization (government takeover) of the entire American banking system.

33. Liberty League
Group of business leaders and anti-New Deal politicians of both parties
Alarmed by growing deficit spending and government intervention in business, their purpose was to organize opposition to the New Deal and “teach…respect for the rights of persons and property.”

34. Public Art and Culture Federal Writers Project Theater
Oral histories of slavery, folk lore, Indian stories, Mexican Revolution, cowboys, frontier life, etc
National cultural resources and heritage
Federal Arts Program
BBKU&feature=related 34

35. Federal Theatre Project35

36. Writer’s & Theater Project36

37. WPA Posters 37

38. Travel through the West38

39. New Deal Work Mural 39

40. End of the Depression
Federal spending on an unprecedented level failed to stop it, but buffered its effects on the public.
Expanded role of the federal government in the American economy and increased power of Executive Branch
Made the federal government into a “broker state” between labor and capital, and other competing economic interests
Social programs and “safety net”
Brought fed gov’t into lives most Westerners
WWII ended the Depression 40

41. Comparisons with the Present?
Wealth inequalities
Deregulation
Bad Home mortgages
High level of individual debt
Inflated costs & uncontrolled speculative investments in commodities
Collapse of investment-debt-loan system
A Vicious Cycle:
Retraction of loans, increase in job losses, fall in investments, layoffs, decline in consumption, reduced production, layoffs, no consumption…