1. The Great Depression & New Deal (Part 3)

2. Tennessee Valley Authority
Flood control, Electricity, Irrigation, Water supply, Work program

3. Works Progress Administration WPA
Largest government agency and largest employer in the U.S. at the time
1935 employed 8 million
Bridges, roads, reservoirs, irrigation, sewage, schools, playgrounds, education, training
Work Programs paid minimum wages, pulled people off charity and soup lines
“We Work Again”

4. 1935 Social Security Act Safety net for all Americans
Percentage of paycheck
Federal old-age pension program
Funding for the States to administer:
Disability benefits
Mother and child benefits
Unemployment insurance
Public health programs

5. Financial Reforms **Glass-Steagall Act (Re: 2008?)
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Insured individual bank deposits
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Regulated trading practices in stocks and bonds

6. Problems with, and resulting from the New Deal
Local agencies administered relief provided by Feds and ran programs (deserving vs. undeserving model, sometimes race and class-based)
Conservatives and Republicans complained about the bloated bureaucracy (1 million government employees by 1943, compared to only 600,000 in 1932)

7. Problems with New Deal (cont’d)
However comprehensive the ND programs were, they failed achieve their goal of ending the Depression
Unemployment rate was still 19% by 1939, and gap between rich and poor remained largely unchanged
National debt rose from 23 billion at the end of Hoover’s term to 48 billion by 1940 (making conservative economists howl!)

8. The Dust Bowl Economic and environmental disaster
Overproduction, monoculture farming
Plowed up grasses and cleared trees during WWI for farms to meet the needs of a booming wheat market
Resulted in soil exhaustion, soil erosion
Drought and winds
1935: Dust flew on wind from CO and NE, blackened the sky across the plains, reaching the Eastern seaboard

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

10. Mexican and Okie Farmworkers

11. Mexican “Repatriation”
Mexicans & Mexican Americans sent to Mexico
Nearly 1 million
L.A. County deported 12,000
Colorado deported 20,000

12. The Indian New Deal John Collier Progressive
Reverse assimilation policies
Restore land rights
Focus on self government and tribal government
Preserve cultures

13. Indian Reorganization Act
IRA, 1934
Economic & political assistance
Tribal Constitutions overseen by the BIA
Out of 252 tribal groups, 174 voted “Yes” and 78 voted “No”