1. No bellwork today, but be ready to review!
The New Deal
No bellwork today, but be ready to review!

2. Federal Emergency Relief Administration
New Deal Relief

3. Background & Passage
When the stock market crashed, Hoover initially thought that “the key to recovery was confidence”
As the situation worsened, civilians demanded President Hoover grant aide for relief
In 1932, Hoover established the Emergency Relief Administration
Gave aide to state and local governments for relief programs
Coincided with Hoover’s beliefs of Laissez-faire and lack of direct government aide to individuals
When FDR was elected in 1932, he renamed the program and expanded the funding ($500 million/year)

5. Description Became the first relief operation under the New Deal
The goal of FERA was to alleviate unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government
It also aimed to distribute funding on a more local level

6. FERA camp for unemployed secretaries in Pennsylvania
Projects
FERA operated a wide variety of work relief projects, including construction, projects for professionals (e.g., writers, artists, actors, and musicians), and production of consumer goods.
Production of consumer goods was useful…….. canned food, garments, mattresses, bedding, and other goods were produced and then distributed to relief recipients
FERA camp for unemployed secretaries in Pennsylvania

8. Community House built by FERA workers in Mississippi (1934)

9. Success and Outcome By 1935, FERA gave states a total of $3.1 billion.
FERA provided work for over 20 million people and developed facilities on public lands across the country.
Increased involvement of women and minorities in the work force
Faced with continued unemployment, FERA was broken up into two separate agencies in 1935:
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Social Security Administration (SSA)

10. Native American women (Cheyenne) pose with a stack of mattresses they made under a FERA program

11. Controversy
FERA came under fire from capitalists for competing with the private sector.
As a result, production-for-use projects that capitalists found offensive were terminated by late 1935
Government production of consumer goods was never used again

12. Work Cited….. Yes, even teachers cite their sources 
Bremer William W. "Along the American Way: The New Deal's Work
Relief Programs for the Unemployed." Journal of American History. Dec. 1975,
Singleton, Jeff. The American Dole: Unemployment Relief and the
Welfare State in the Great Depression. Cambridge; NY. Print. 2000