APUSH AMSCO Chapter 24: The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929 - 1939

National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act (1935)

A 1935 act that guaranteed a worker's right to join a union and a union's right to bargain collectively. It outlawed business practices that were unfair to labor.

Father Charles Coughlin

A Catholic priest who founded the National Union for Social Justice, which called for issuing inflated currency and nationalizing all banks. His radio program attacks on the New Deal were anti-Semitic and Fascist.

Twentieth Amendment ("lame-duck")

Also known as the lame-duck amendment, this amendment shortened the period between the presidential election and inauguration. The new president's term would start on January 20.

Marian Anderson

An African American singer who had been refused the use of Constitution Hall, she performed a special concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

3. Which of the following would most likely support a belief that the government was "against the common people"?

B. Treatment of the Bonus Marchers

John Maynard Keynes

British economist, whose theory said that in difficult times government needed to spend well above its tax revenues in order to stimulate economic growth. After the 1937 recession, Roosevelt adopted this strategy, which was successful.

overproduction

Business growth, aided by increased productivity and use of credit, had produced a volume of goods that workers with stagnant wages could not continue to purchase.

unemployment

By 1933 25% of the workforce, not including farmers, did not have employment.

1. Which of the following most directly supports the author's analysis?

C. Farm income fell from $11.4 billion in 1929 to $6.3 billion in 1932

6. Which of the following New Deal policies most clearly addressed "job security" for workers?

C. Federal programs to collect funds for retirement, unemployment, and injuries on the job

7. Eleanor Roosevelt expressed the most independence from President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers in her

C. opposition for racial discrimination

excessive debt

Consumers and businesses believed the economic boom was permanent so they increased borrowing, which later led to loan defaults and bank failures.

5. Which of the following New Deal policies most directly addressed "security for capitalists"?

D. Regulations to curtail fraud in investment baking and the stock markets

8. The excerpt suggests that Eleanor Roosevelt knew that her positions could most harm her husband's standing with which of the following groups?

D. Southern Democrats

2. Which of the following was most directly related to the phrase in the testimony "the necessity for relied for our suffering fellow citizens"?

D. Twenty-five percent of the workforce was unemployed

National Recovery Administration

Directed by Hugh Johnson, this agency attempted to guarantee reasonable profits for business and fair wages and hours for labor. The complex program operated with limited success for two years before the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

Public Works Administration

Directed by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, it allotted money to state and local governments for building roads, bridges, dams, and other public works.

minimum wage

Establish minimum pay for workers, initially set at 40 cents per hour.

postwar Europe

Europe had not recovered from World War I and the U.S. insistence on loan repayment and tariffs weaken Europe and contributed to the Worldwide depression.

Brain Trust

For advice on economic matters, Roosevelt turned to a group of university professors.

election of 1936

Franklin D. Roosevelt easily defeated the Republican nominee, Alf Landon.

New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to help people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

repeal of Prohibition

In 1933, the 21st Amendment was passed. It repealed the 18th Amendment. This ended Prohibition.

Schechter vs. U.S.

In 1935, the Supreme Court declared the National Recovery Administration (NRA) unconstitutional.

Hundred Days

On March 4, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt started his term and called Congress into a one hundred day session. They passed into law all of Roosevelt's legislation.

Black Tuesday

On October 29, 1929, millions of panicky investors sold, as the bottom fell out of the stock market.

Harold Ickes

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of the interior.

fireside chats

President Franklin Roosevelt spoke on the radio to the American people.

Eleanor Roosevelt

She was the most active first lady in history, writing a newspaper column, giving speeches, and traveling the country. She served as the president's social conscience and influenced him to support minorities.

debt moratorium

Suspension on the payment of international debts. In 1931, President Hoover proposed a suspension of international debt payments.

relief, recovery, reform

The New Deal included the three R's: relief for people out of work, recovery for business and the economy, and reform of American economic institutions.

Dow Jones Index

The Wall Street stock market index. In September 1929 the index was at a high of 381, in three months it fell to 198. Three years later, the index would finally hit bottom at 41, less than one-ninth of the peak.

Gross National Product

The value of all the goods and services produced by a nation in one year. In 1929, the United States Gross National Product was $104 billion, but it dropped to $56 billion in 1932.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

This Democratic candidate won the 1932 presidential election. As a candidate, he promised a "new deal" for the American people, the repeal of Prohibition, aid for the unemployed, and cuts in government spending.

Works Progress Administration

This agency created in 1935, part of the Second New Deal, it was much more ambitious than earlier efforts. Between 1935 and 1940 up to 3.4 million people were hired to construct bridges, roads, airports, and public buildings. Artists, writers, actors, and photographers were also employed.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

This agency guaranteed individual bank deposits.

Securities and Exchange Commission

This agency was created to regulate the stock market and to place strict limits on the kind of speculative practices that led to the 1929 stock crash.

Congress of Industrial Organizations

This labor union concentrated on organizing unskilled workers in the automobile, steel, and southern textile industries.

Civilian Conservation Corps

This organization employed young men for projects on federal lands and paid their families small monthly sums.

stock market crash

A boom stock market of 1928 led to a sell off starting in October 1929. Within three years the stock market would decline to one-ninth of its peak.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

A novelist that wrote about hardships in his classic study of economic heartbreak in 1939, "The Grapes of Wrath".

drought; dustbowl; Okies

A severe drought in the early 1930s and poor farming practices led to the Oklahoma dust bowl. High winds away large amounts of topsoil.

4. Which of the following groups would most likely oppose the philosophy of the New Deal as explained in this excerpt?

A. Advocates of unregulated markets and balanced budgets

Mexican deportation

Discrimination in the New Deal programs and competition for jobs forced thousands of Mexican Americans to return to Mexico.

bank failures

During the Great Depression 20 percent of all banks failed.

poverty and homeless

During the Great Depression poverty and homelessness increased.

Federal Reserve

During the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve followed a tight money policy. Instead of trying to stabilize banks, the money supply and prices, they tried to preserve the gold standard.

New Deal Coalition

From the 1930s to 1960s, this political coalition consisted of the Solid South, white ethnic groups in cities, midwestern farmers, labor unions, and liberals.

Harry Hopkins

He headed the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s.

Huey Long

He proposed a "Share Our Wealth" program that promised a minimum annual income of $5000 for every American family to be paid for by taxing the wealthy. In 1935 he challenged Roosevelt's leadership of the Democratic party by becoming a candidate for president but was soon assassinated.

Francis Townshend

He proposed a simple plan for guaranteeing a secure income for the elderly. He proposed that a 2 percent federal sales tax be used to create a special fund from which every retired person over the age of 60 would receive $200 a month thus stimulating the economy.

John L. Lewis

He was President of the United Mine Workers Union and Leader of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Herbert Hoover

He was President of the United States at the time of the stock market crash. He thought that prosperity would soon return. He was slow to call for legislative action and he thought public relief should come from the state and local governments, not the federal government.

Supreme Court

In 1935, they declared two of President Roosevelt's recovery programs unconstitutional.

Fair Employment Practices Committee

It was set up to assist minorities in gaining jobs in defense industries.

debts and high tariffs

Leading up to the Great Depression, the United States insisted on full World War I loan repayments and high tariffs on imports. This weakened Europe and contributed to the worldwide depression.

depression mentality

Millions of people who lived through the Great Depression developed an attitude of insecurity and economic concern that remained throughout their lives.

Mary McLeod Bethune

One of the African Americans that was appointed to middle-level positions in federal government. She was a leader of efforts for improving education and economic opportunities for women.

bank holiday

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the banks to be closed on March 6, 1933. He made a radio address explaining that the banks would be reopened after allowing enough time for the government to reorganize them on a sound basis.

reorganization plan

President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a plan that allowed the president to appoint a new Supreme Court justice for each current justice over the age of 70. Congress refused to pass this legislation.

self-reliance

President Herbert Hoover did not ask Congress for legislative action on the economy until the summer of 1930. He was concerned that government assistance to individuals would destroy their self-reliance.

conservative coalition

Republicans and many Democrats were outraged by President Franklin Roosevelt's plan to reorganize the Supreme Court.

Frances Perkins

Roosevelt's secretary of labor, she was the first woman to serve in a president's cabinet.

buying on margin

This purchase method allowed people to borrow most of the cost of the stock, making down payments as low as 10 percent. Investors depended on the price of the stock increasing so they could repay their loans.

bonus march (1932)

Thousands of unemployed World War I veterans marched to Washington, D.C. and set up encampments to demand immediately payment of the bonuses promised to them at a later date. The Army, led by General Douglas MacArthur broke up the encampment.

uneven income distribution

Wages had risen relatively little compared to the large increases in productivity and corporate profits. Economic success was not shared by all, as the top 5 percent of the richest Americans received over 33 percent of all income.

Tennessee Valley Authority

A government corporation that hired thousands of people in the Tennessee Valley, to build dams, operate electric power plants, control flooding, and erosion, and manufacture fertilizer.

A. Philip Randolph

Head of Railroad Porters Union who threatened a march on Washington D.C. to demand equal job opportunities for African Americans.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

In 1932, Congress funded this government-owned corporation as a measure for propping up faltering railroads, banks, life insurance companies, and other financial institutions. President Hoover thought that emergency loans would stabilize key business and the benefits would "trickle down" to smaller businesses and ultimately bring recovery.

Indian Reorganization (Wheeler-Howard) Act (1934)

In 1934 Congress repealed the Dawes Act of 1887 and replaced it with this act which returned lands to the control of tribes and supported preservation of Indian cultures.

Social Security Act (1935)

In 1935, this act created a federal insurance program based on the automatic collection of taxes from employees and employers throughout people's working careers. Monthly payments would be made to retired people over the age of 65.

sit-down strike

In 1937 workers at the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan insisted on the right to join a union by sitting down at the assembly line.

Fair Labor Standards Act

In 1938 this act established a minimum wage, a maximum standard workweek with extra pay for overtime, and child labor restrictions.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)

In June 1930, President Hoover signed into law the highest tariff rates in history, ranging from 31 to 49 percent. In retaliation, European countries enacted their own tariffs. This reduced trade for all nations and worsened the worldwide depression.

recession of 1937

In the winter of 1937 the economy went into recession again. The new Social Security tax had reduced consumer spending and at the same time Roosevelt had cut back government spending in hopes of balancing the budget.

Federal Housing Administration

It insured bank loans for building new houses and repairing old ones.

Farm Board

It was authorized to help farmers stabilize prices by temporarily holding surplus grain and cotton in storage.