Chapter 21 - The New Deal

- Published by Herbert Hoover in 1934. - Called the New Deal the most stupendous invasion of the whole port of liberty that nation had even seen even though his own administration had abandoned laissez-faire in the face of economic disaster.

"The Challenge of Liberty"

- A Supreme Court case in 1936. - Declared the AAA unconstitutional due to its exercise of congressional power over local economic activities.

"US v. Butler"

- A Supreme Court case in 1935. - Brought to court by the Schechter Poultry Company Brooklyn - charged for violating the code adopted by the chicken industry. - Unanimously declared the NRA unconstitutional due to its codes and other regulations it delegated legislative powers to the president and attempted to regulate local business that did not engage in interstate commerce.

"US v. Schechter"

Scottsboro case took place.

1931

21st Amendment was ratified.

1933

Bank holiday was declared.

1933

Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated.

1933

Hundred Days and the First New Deal was launched.

1933

American Liberty League established.

1934

Herbert Hoover published "The Challenge of Liberty."

1934

Huey Long launches the Share Our Wealth movement.

1934

Height of the Dust Bowl.

1934-1940

John L. Lewis organized the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

1935

Second New Deal was launched.

1935

Supreme Court ruled the National Recovery Association unconstitutional in "US v. Schechter."

1935

John Maynard Keynes's published "The General Theory of Employment, Interests, and Money."

1936

New Deal coalition led to Democratic landslide.

1936

Supreme Court ruled that the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional in "US v. Butler."

1936

United Auto Workers' sit down strike occurs.

1936-1937

Fair Labor Standards Act was passed.

1938

John Steinbeck published "The Grapes of Wrath."

1939

- Ratified in 1933. - Moved inauguration day from March 4th, to January 20th.

20th Amendment

Ratified in 1933 to repealed Prohibition.

21st Amendment

- "Last hired, first fired." - Hit the hardest by the Depression. - Now faced competition with unemployed whites for lower jobs. - Their rate of employment doubled that of whites - disproportionally benefited from direct government relief and New Deal projects. - Ex: 1/2 the families in Harlem received public assistance in 1930s. - Propelled economic survival to the top of their agenda. - Ex: those in Harlem demanded jobs in the neighborhood's white-owned stores - "don't buy where you can't work." - Enjoyed the right to vote in the North and West. - In 1934 and 1936 those who could note abandoned their alliance to the party of Lincoln and emancipation in favor of Democrats and the New Deal. - Their hopes for broad changes in the nation's race system were disappointed - despite its campaign for antilynching laws, southern congressmen prevented it's passage.

African-Americans

- Established in 1933 as part of FDR's First New Deal. - Also referred to as the AAA. - Authorized the federal government to set production quotas for major crops and pay farmers to plant less or nothing at all in an attempt to raise farmer prices. - Ex: the government ordered 6 million pigs be slaughtered as part of the policy - critics found it strong in a time of widespread hunger. - Succeeded in significantly raising farm prices and incomes. - Money only flowed to property-owning farmers - ignored the large number that worked on land owned by others. - Thousands of poor tenants and sharecroppers were evicted due to its policy of only paying landowning farmers - they were forced to join rural migrant to cities or farms or the West Coast. - Tens of thousands of sharecroppers were driven off their land due to their policy of raising crop prices by paying landowners to reduce cotton acreage.

Agricultural Adjustment Act

The program through which the states paid most of the cost of direct poor relief.

Aid to Dependent Children

- A Los Angles revivalist. - Had her own radio station during the 1920s that broadcasted sermons from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel she had founded. - She also traveled the country as a revivalist preacher - her sermons used elaborate sets, costumes, and special effects borrowed from the movie industry.

Aimee McPherson

- FDR's Republican opponent in the election of 1936. - denounced Social Security and other measures of the New Deal as threats to individual liberty.

Alfred Landon

- Primarily concerned with government repression in the 1920s was focused on local and private repression in the 1930s - Ex: the struggle to launch industrial unions encountered sweeping local restrictions on freedom of speech and repression by private and public police forces.

American Civil Liberties Union

- A modern dance masterpiece by Martha Graham in 1938. - An embodiment of Popular Front aesthetics. - Put empties on America's folk traditions and multiethnic heritage. - Centered its account of history on the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. - Graham did not neglect the things the US was ashamed of in this - the dispossession of Indians and the plight of the unemployed. - Believed Americans not only consisted of middle-class Anglo Saxons, but also blacks, immigrants, and the working class.

American Document

- Formed in 1934 by businessmen and politicians in opposition of FDR's policies. - Liberty became their fighting slogan. - Their principle critique of the New Deal was that its reckless spending undermined responsibility.

American Liberty league

- The 1930s witnessed an acceleration in this. - Different than that of the corporate-sponsored plans prior. - Labor and political activism became agents of a new kind of this. - One could participate fully in the broader society without surrendering their ideals and ethnic identity.

Americanization

- Released by Earl Robinson. - A typical expression of Popular Front culture that celebrated the religious, racial, and ethnic diversity of American society. - Became a national hit. - Was performed in 1940 at the Republican national convention. - Reached the top of the charts in a version performed by black singer, Paul Robeson.

Balled for Americans

- One of FDR's first acts on taking office. - An anticipation of the 21st Amendment. - Promoted as a way to revive employment in the liquor industry and boost tax revenues. - Represented the repudiation of that linkage between politics and Protestants; church and state. - Legalized the selling of liquor with a law alcohol content.

Beer and Wine Revenue Act

- Established in 1939 by Attorney General Frank Murphy. - The full weight of this was thrown behind the effort to preserve liberty in America - first time in the nation's history. - That the same time as its establishment the Supreme Court was moving to expand its authority over civil liberties. - Ex: the justices insisted that constitutional guarantees of free through and expression were essential to freedom - civil liberties replaced liberty of contract as the judicial foundation of freedom.

Civil Liberties Unit in the Department of Justice

- Launched by the Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. - Also referred to as the CWA. - Directly hired workers for construction projects. - By 1934 it employed more than 4 million persons in the construction of highways, tunnels, courthouses, and airports. - Complaints about the New Deal creating a class of Americans permanently dependent on the government jobs caused FDR to order it to be dissolved.

Civil Works Administration

- Established in 1933 as part of FDR's First New Deal. - Also referred to as the CCC. - Succeeded Federal Emergency Relief Administration (made grants to local agencies that aided those impoverished by the Depression). - Created because FDR preferred to created temporary jobs (combating unemployment while also improving the nation's infrastructure of roads, bridges, public buildings, and parks. - Sent unemployed young men to work on projects like forest preservation, flood control, and the improvement of national parks and wildlife preserves. - End in 1942 - more than 3 million persons had passed through it by then (received $30 per month) and it made a major contribution to the enhancement of the American environment. - Restricted work camp to men. - established segregated worker camps.

Civilian Conservation Corps

- Winds its way on a 1200 mile course from Canada through Washington and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. - It produces an immense amount of energy due to its steep descent from uplands to sea level. - Residents of the economically underdeveloped Pacific Northwest had long dreamed of tapping this unusual energy for electricity and irrigation. - Federal government finally launched a program for dam, Grand Coulee Dam, construction here in the 1930s that transformed the region.

Columbia River

- Became a focal point for a broad social and intellectual impulse that helped to redraw the boundaries of American freedom. - A concealed and divided organization when the Depression began. - experienced remarkable growth during the 1930s. - Is commitment to socialism resonated with the widespread idea that the Depression had represented a failure of capitalism. - It was not as much the party's ideology, as it was its spirit that for a time made it the center of broad democratic upsurge. - It was involved in an immense array of activated, including demonstrations of the unemployed, struggles for industrial unionism, and a renewed movement for black civil rights. - Gained an unprecedented repeatability through the Popular Front. - Helped to integrate New Deal liberalism with a fighting spirit and a more pluralistic understanding of Americanism - ironic. - The party's leader was Earl Browder and their candidate for President in the 1936 election. - James Ford, an African-American, was their Vice President candidate in the 1936 election. - The era's only predominantly white organization to make fighting racism a top priority - whether in Harlem and or East LA. - Their influence even spread to the South. - Dominated the International Labor Defense mobilizing popular support for black defendants victimized by a racist criminal justice system. - Ex: Scottsboro case.

Communist Party

- Established in 1935 due to a walkout led by the head of the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis, when the AFL convention of 1935 refused to create a union of industrial workers. - Also referred to as CIO. - Set out to create unions in the main industries of the American economy securing economic freedom and industrial democracy. - The unions they helped to create stabilized a chaotic employment situation and offered members a sense of dignity and freedom. - Unlike the AFL (did not support government interference) it put forward an ambitious program for federal action to shield Americans from economic and social insecurities (public housing universal health care, and employment and old age insurance). - Explained the Depression as an imbalance of wealth and income (undercomsumptionism) to argue that unions would raise wages and redistribute wealth creating a sufficient consumer demand). - Organized females workers but adhered to the idea that women should be supported by men. - "Unionism in Americanism" became their rallying cry." - Became a focal point for a broad social and intellectual impulse that helped to redraw the boundaries of American freedom. - Enthusiastically promoted the idea of ethnic and racial inclusiveness - Broke with the AFL's tradition of exclusion unionism - even included Mexican-Americans. - Faced considerable resistance for white workers determined to preserve their monopoly and skilled positions and access to benefits and promotions. - Welcomed black members, and advocated the passage of antilynching laws and the return of suffrage for southern blacks. - Brought large numbers of blacks into the labor movement for the first time and ran extensive educational campaigns to persuade white workers to recognize the interests they shared with their black counterparts. - Black workers respond enthusiastically to their union organizing efforts - were perviously hostile to this idea due to exclusion. - The union they proposed offered the promise of higher wages, dignity in the workplace, and an end to the tyrannical power of often racist supervisors. - Nationwide publicity about the wave of violence directed against this in industrial communities in the North along with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in the South elevated right of labor to a central place un discussions of civil liberties.

Congress of Industrial Organization

- Its transformation in the 1930s was overseen by FDR. - Called for a repeal of Prohibition. - Changed into a coalition of farmers, industry workers, the reform-minded urban middle class, liberal intellectuals, northern African-Americans, and, somewhat, the white supremacists of the South. - United under the belief that the federal government must provide Americans with protection against the dislocations caused by modern capitalism. - Brought ethnic and northern black voters into its political coalition. - Said little about the ethno-cultural issues - feared the rekindling of the divisive battles of the 1920s.

Democratic Party

- A CA physician. - Won support for a plan by which the government would make a monthly payment of $200 to older Americans with the requirement that they immediately spend it to boost the economy. - Townsend Clubs claimed more than 2 million member by 1935.

Dr. Francis Townsend

- Reached its height from 1934-1940. - Caused by unusually dry weather at the beginning of the 1930s, the century's most severe drought suffered by the US heartland, and mechanized agriculture in this region pulverized the topsoil and killed native grasses that prevented erosion. - The areas of OK, TX, KS, and Co in which the wind blew much of the soil away were called this. - On of the storms in 1934 carried dust as far as DC. - The drought and dust storms displaced more than 1 million farmers. - "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck was published in 1939 capturing the plight of the farmers, tracing the disposed family's trek fro OK to CA (aided by its accompanying film).

Dust Bowl

- Most prominent woman in the 1930s that shaped public policy and advised the president. - FDR's distant cousin whom he married in 1905. - She transformed the role of the First Lady - turned a position with no formal responsibilities into a base for political action. - She traveled widely to speak out on public issues, wrote a regular newspaper column that sometimes disagreed openly with her husbands policies, and worked to enlarge the scope of the New Deal in ares like civil rights, labor legislation, and work relief. - Directed national attention to the injustices of segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching along with Harold Ickes (Secretary of interior and former NAACP leader). - Resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when it refused to allow black singer, Marian Anderson, to perform a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington.

Eleanor Roosevelt

- FDR was the Democrat nomination for president in this election. - FDR promised a "new deal" in his campaign - vague. - Rosevelt campaigned for expansion of government control to provide security to the people and a balanced federal budget. - FDR criticized Hoover for excessive government spending. - Biggest difference between parties regarded Prohibition. - Americans were desperate for new leadership during the time of this election - FDR suggested a greater awareness of the plight of ordinary Americans and a willingness to address the Great Depression in new ways. - FDR won a resounding victory - 57% of the popular vote. - Democrats swept to a commanding majority in Congress.

Election of 1932

- Politics during the time period in which this election took place reflected class divisions more completely than any other time in American history. - A fight for the possession of the ideal freedom emerged as the central issue in this presidential campaign. - The Democratic Party platform insisted that in a modern economy the government had an obligation to establish a democracy of opportunity for all people. - Throughout the campaign FDR would insist that the threat posed to economic freedom by the tyranny of large cooperations was the main issue of the election. - Alfred Landon was the Republican candidate in this election. - FDR won a landslide reelection with more than 60% of the popular vote - carried every state except ME and VT. - FDR's victory was even more remarkable because of the immensely Republican press and business community. - His success stemmed from strong backing by organized labor and the so-called New Deal coalition.

Election of 1936

- Part of FDR's confrontation of the banking system on the verge of collapse - his First New Deal - Result of bank holiday and Congress's special session. - Passed in 1933. - Provided funds to aid threatened institutions. - First act passed during the hundred days. - Reduced federal spending in an attempt to win the confidence of the business community.

Emergency Banking Act

- Passed in 1938 as part of FDR's Second New Deal. - Banned goods produced by child labor from interstate commerce, set 40 cents as the minimum hourly wage, and required overtime pay for hours of work exceeding 40 per week. - Did not include blacks the minimum wages it established.

Fair Labor Standards Act

- The "radio priest." - Attracted millions of listeners with weekly broadcasts attacking Wall Street bankers and greedy capitalists, and calling for government ownership of giant industries as a way of combating the Depression. - Initially a strong supporter of FDR, he became increasing more critical of the president for his failure to promote social justice. - Efforts would later shift to anti-Semitism and European oppression.

Father Charles Coughlin

- Established in 1934 as part of FDR's First New Deal to oversee the nation's broadcast airwaves and telephone communications.

Federal Communications Commission

- Established by FDR in 1934, along with the Home Owners Loan Corporation (1933) as part of FDR's First New Deal. - Also referred to as the FHA. - Insured millions of long term mortgages issued by private banks. - Had no hesitation about insuring mortgages that contained clauses baring further sales to non-white buyers. - It refused to channel money into integrated neighborhoods. - Ex: a single black family could led the agency to declare the entire block off-limits for federal mortgage insurance. - Private lenders of this received red-lining maps for many cities from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation resulting in massive disinvestment in "red" districts.

Federal Housing Administartion

- Passed in 1935. - Offered free transportation to those born in the Philippines and willing to return there. - Due to the annual immigration quota of 50 in the Philippines and the lack of economic opportunity there, out of the 45000 Filipinos in America, only about 2000 accepted the offer.

Filipino Repatriation Act

- An Italian-American that was elected as mayor of NYC in 1933. - His victory symbolized the coming power of new immigrants. - Although he was a Republican, he worked closely with FDR. - Launched his own program of spending on housing, parks, and public works - one of numerous "little new deals" (brought ethnic working-class voters to power in industrial communities).

Fiorello La Guardia

- Established by FDR in 1933. - Incorporated the views of the brains trust. - Focused on economic recovery. - A series of experiments - some succeeded some did not. - Transformed the role of the federal government, constructed numerous public facilities, and provided relief to millions in need. - Improved the economy somewhat, but about 10 million Americans (over 20% of the workforce) still remained unemployed by 1934. - Having failed to end the Depression of win judicial approval, it ground to a halt.

First New Deal

- FDR's secretary of Labor. - A veteran of Hull House and the NY Consumers' League who had been among eye witnesses of the triangle fires of 1911. - The first women appointed to the US cabinet. - During the 1930s many Americans wrote letters to the president and herself - demonstrated the widespread struggle endured by workers due to their terrible and inhumane working conditions. - Along with powerful members of Congress she wished to keep relief in the hands of state and local authorities and believed that workers should contribute directly to the cost of their own benefits.

Frances Perkins

- 1933-1945 - Democrat - Founder of the New Deal. - Spent far more money on building roads, dams, airports, bridges, and housing then on any other activity. - Believed regional economic development would promote economic growth, ease the domestic and working lives of ordinary Americans, and keep control of key natural resources in public rather than private hands. - Won election to the New York legislature in 1910, served as undersecretary of the navy during WWI, and ran for vice-president on the ill fated democratic ticket of 1920, headed by James M. Cox. - Contracted polio in 1921 and lost the use of this legs - few Americans were aware of his condition. - Hoped to reconcile democracy, individual liberty, and economic recovery and development. - Relied heavily for advice on a group of intellectuals and social workers who took up key positions in his administration. - Himself, along with his advisers shared the fear that direct government payments to the unemployed would undermine individual self-reliance. - Believed home security = the security of livelihood and social insurance - in 1933 and 1934 his administration moved to protect home owners for foreclosure and to stimulate new construction. - His election as president did much to rekindle the hope among "slaves of the depression" (mistreated workers). - Believed the Industrial Recovery Act was the most important and far-reaching legislation ever passed by Congress in the US. - Preferred to fund Social Security through taxes on employers and workers, rather than out of government revenues to give contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their old age pensions and unemployment benefits. - Master of political communication - first president to make effective use of the radio to promote his policies through his fireside chats. - Gave the term liberalism a modern meaning - a large, active, socially conscious state (had referred to limited government). - Reclaimed the word freedom from conservatives and made it a rallying cry for the New Deal. - Consistently linked freedom to economic security and identified economic inequality as its greatest enemy. - In his speech accepting renomination in 1936 he launched an attack on the upper class, who he believed sought to exert power over the common man. - He believed economic rights were the precondition of liberty. - In his second inaugural address he admits that the Depression was not over. - Adopted Keynesian economics when asking Congress for billions more for work relief and farm aid in 1938. - Made the federal government the symbolic representative of all people, including racial and ethnic groups ignored prior. - Felt he could not challenge the power of southern Democrats. - Seemed to have little personal interest in race relations of civil rights - he appointed Mary McLeod Bethune (advisor on minority affairs) and a number of other blacks to important federal positions. - Offered little support to blacks - did not want to jeopardize his economic programs by alienating powerful member of Congress. - Catholics and Jews occupied prominent posts in his administration and new immigrant workers formed an important part of his support. - Believed the common man embodied the heart and soul of the US. - Saw the South as the nation's number 1 economic problem. - Believed the future of the New Deal required a liberalization of the southern Democratic Party - tried to persuade the region to replace conservative congressmen with ones who would support him in 1938. - Towards the end of the 1930s his administration focused more on WWII rather than reform and the New Deal.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

- Passed in 1933. - Part of FDR's confrontation of the banking system on the verge of collapse - his First New Deal - Barred commercial banks from becoming involved in the buying and selling of stocks. - Prevented many irresponsible practices that had contributed to the stock market crash. - It established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) - a government system that insured the accounts of depositors.

Glass Steagall Act

- It created thousands of jobs for the unemployed, and its network of dams produced abundant, cheap power. - Went into operation in 1941 located in the Columbia River. - Also referred to as the Columbia River project. - The largest man-made structure in world history. - Soon produced over 40% of the countries hydroelectric power. - Provided the cheapest electricity in the country for towns that sprang up out of nowhere, farms on what had once been deserts in eastern Washington and Oregon, and factories that would soon produce aluminum for WWII airplanes. - Had consequences - did not allow for the passage of fish causing the salmon that once filled the Colombia River to vanish. - Written about by Woody Guthrie in "Roll on, Columbia." - Flooded thousands of acres where Indians had hunted and fished for centuries.

Grand Coulee Dam

- 1929-1933 - Republican. - Believed home ownership was an American birthright. - Convened a Conference of Home Building and Home Ownership to review the housing crisis - revealed that millions of Americans lived in overcrowded, unhealthy, Hoovervilles. - It was clear that private enterprise alone would not solve the nation's housing crisis - his administration established a federally sponsored bank to issue home loans - not enough. - Launched strident attacks on FDR for endangering fundamental American liberties - published "The Challenge to Liberty." - His administration prohibited both members of a married couple from holding federal jobs to prevent the rise in working women - it was repealed in 1937.

Herbert Hoover

- Established in 1938 by the House of Representatives. - Invested the disloyalty. - Demonstrated that the new appreciation of free expression was hardly universal. - Its expansive definition of "un-American" included communist, labor radicals, and the left of the Democratic Party. - Its hearings led to the dismissal of dozens of federal employees on charges of subversion. - Ex: Congress enacted the Smith Act in 1940 making it a federal crime to teach, advocate or encourage the overthrow of the government. - Similar pursuit of radical views took place at the state level.

House Un-American Activities Committee.

- Offered a sign of dissatisfaction with the slow pace of economic recovery. - His career embodied LA's Populist and Socialist traditions and the state's heritage if undemocratic politics. - Won election as governor in 1928. - Won election as US senate member in 1930 - used his power to dominate each branch of state government - construction of roads, schools, and hospitals and increases on LA's oil company taxes). - One of the most colorful charities of 1930s politics driven by intense ambition and the desire to uplift LA's common people. - Referred to by his admirers and critics as "Kingfish" because of the slogan of the movement he launched, Share Our Wealth. - Claimed a following of 5 million. - He was on the verge of annoying a run for president when the son of a defeated political rival assassinated him in 1935.

Huey Long

- Launched in 1934 by Commissioner of Indian Affair, John Collier. - ended the policy of forced assimilation and allowed Indians unprecedented cultural autonomy. - Replaced boring schools meant to eradicate the tribal heritage to Indian children, with schools on reservations. - Dramatically increased spending of Indian health. - Secured the passed of the Indian Reorganization Act.

Indian New Deal

- Passed in 1934 due to the Indian New Deal and John Collier. - Ended the policy, dating back to the Dawes Act of 1887, of dividing Indian lands into small plots for families and selling off the rest. - Federal authorities once again recognized Indians' right to govern their own affairs - limited by national laws. - Navajos, nation's largest tribe, refused to cooperate with as a protest against a federal soil conservation programs that required them to reduce their herds of livestock.

Indian Reorganization Act

- Passed in 1933. - The centerpiece of FDR's First New Deal plan for combating the Depression. - To a large extent modeled on the government-business partnership established by the War Industries Board of WWI. - Built on Hoover's efforts to construct a stronger government-business cooperation. - Established the NRA, PWA, and CWA. - Provided workers the right to unionize along with the Wagner Act. - Industry-wide arrangements were exempted from antitrust laws.

Industrial Recovery Act

- Actively promoted ethnic and religious tolerance In the 1930s. - Defined pluralism as the American way.

Jewish Committee and National Conference of Christians and Jews

- Introduced by Maynard Keyes through his book "The General Theory of Employment, Interests, and Money." published in 1936. - Challenged the traditional belief of economists' in the positives of balanced budgets. - Promoted large-scale government spending during economic downturns to sustain purchasing power and stimulate economic activity. - By 1938 FDR was read to follow this prescription - marked a major shift in Nw Deal philosophy.

Keynesian economics

- Introduced by Congressman Ernest Lundeen in 1935. - Established a federally controlled system of old age, unemployment, and health benefits for all wage workers, plus support for female heads of households with dependents. - Supported by black organizations like the Urban Labor and NAACP who lobbied tirelessly for a system that enabled agricultural and domestic workers the same benefits as industrial workers. - Social Security Act was passed instead do the immense power of Democratic southerns.

Lundeen bill

- With the demand for labor plummeting, more than 400000 (1/5 of their population) were forced to return to Mexico - even citizens. - Those who remained worked in grim conditions in CA's vegetable and fruit fields - corporate farms. - The Wagner and Social Security Acts did not apply agricultural laborers. - when they tried to organize a union as part of the decade's labor upsurge they were brutally suppressed. - The 1939 book by Carey McWilliams, "Factories in the Field," exposed the low wages, inadequate housing, and political repression under which, they, and all migrant workers suffered. - Their leaders struggled to develop a constant strategy for their people - wanted to embrace their culture but also claimed white. - They sought the backing of the Mexican government and promoted a mystical sense of pride and identification with Mexican heritage - la raza.

Mexican Americans

- Launched by the Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. - Also referred to as the NRA. - Would work with groups of business leaders to establish industrial codes and set standards for output, prices, and working conditions. - Prevented cutthroat competition that resulted in companies taking losses to drive competitors out of business. - Reflected how even in the early days of FDR's New Deal, understanding of freedom were being reshaped - allowed for market competition to operate with out government interference, and recognized worker's right to unionize (industrial freedom). - Headed by Hugh Johnson (retired general and businessman) who launched a publicity campaign to promote it. - quickly established codes that set standards for production, prices, and wages in the textile steel, mining, and auto industries. - It symbol was a Blue Eagle - stores and factories that abided by its codes displayed it. - Large companies used it to drive up prices, limit production, lay off workers, and divide markets among themselves at the expense of smaller competitors (some just ignored it entirely). - Produced neither economic recovery nor peace between employers and worker - government could not fully enforce it. - It did help to create the sense that the federal government was doing something to aid America's economic crisis.

National Recovery Administration

- Established in 1935 as part of FDR's Second New Deal. - Provided relief to American teenagers and young adults.

National Youth Administration

- Founded by FDR in the 1930s. - Consisted of the First and Second. - Elevated a public guarantee of economic security to the forefront of American discussion of freedom - united the people. - Significantly expanded the meaning of freedom but did not erase its boundaries for farmers, women, and blacks. - FDR claimed it to be an alternative to socialism on the left (Stalin), Nazism on the right (Hitler), and the inaction favored by upholders of unregulated capitalism. - It's economic measures rescued the finial system and greatly increased the government's power. - Its housing policy represented a remarkable departure from serious government practice, allowed for home ownership to come within reach of tens of millions of families, and made it cheaper for most Americans to buy single-family homes than rent apartments. - Before the 1930s national political debate revolved around whether or not the government should interfere, after this it revolved around how the government should interfere. - Caused the government to assume the responsibility of guaranteeing Americans a living wage and protecting them against economic and personal misfortune. - Killed Laissez-faire. - Recast the idea of freedom by linking it to the expanding power of the federal government and public guarantee of economic security that identified economic inequality as the greatest threat to freedom. - 1933-1934 - focused on economic planning. - 1935-1936 - focused on economic redistribution. - 1937-1938 - focused on public spending. - Different Americans experienced this in radically different ways. - Did not really ever stop unemployment. - Brought more women into government than ever before in American history - but organized feminism disappeared. - Marked the most radical shift in Indian policy in the nation's history. - Its programs often ignored Indians' interests - the living conditions of desperately poor reservations did not really improve and the government did not make any of the irrigation water available to the region's reservations. - The decade witnessed a historic shift in black voting patterns thanks to this. - The federal housing policy it implemented powerfully reinforced residential segregation - revealed its limits on freedom. - Began the process of modernizing southern agriculture - the consequences fell on tenants, black and white. - Helped to create an atmosphere that made possible changes to the racial and ethnic status quo, and the rise of new more inclusive vision of American freedom. - Made ethnic pluralism a reality in American politics. - Civil liberties assumed a central place in its understanding of freedom by the eve of WWII. - Its era began to recede by the end of the decade due to southern Democrats finding themselves at odds with FDR's policies. - Failed to address the problem of racial inequality - in some ways actually made it worse. - Expanded the federal government's role in the economy and made it an independent force in relations between industry and labor. - Ex: government influenced what farmers could and could not plant, required employers to deal with unions, insured bank deposits, regulated the stock market, loaned money to home owners, and provided payments to the majority of elderly and unemployed. - Transformed the physical environment of the US. - Ex: hydroelectric dams, reforestation projects, rural electrification, and the construction of numerous public facilities. - Restored faith in democracy. - Made the government an institution directly experimented in Americans' daily lives and directly concerned with their welfare. - Did not generate sustained prosperity - improved economy.

New Deal

- Aided FDR's success in the election of 1936. - Made up of southern whites and northern blacks, Protestant farmers and urban Catholic and Jewish ethnics, and industrial workers and middle-class home owners. - Would dominate American politics for nearly 50 years.

New Deal coalition

- Board left-wing culture. - Period during the mid-1930s when the Communist Party sought to ally itself with socialists and New Dealers in governments for social change, urging reform of the capitalist system rather than revolution. - Sank deep roots in theater, film, and dance - survived much longer than the political movement from which it arose. - Believed true Americanism was defined by social and economic radicalism, not support for the status quo. - Believed ethnic and racial diversity was the glory of US society. - Believed the American way of life meant unionism and social citizenship, not the unconstrained pursuit of wealth. - Rediscovered the American people as embodiments of democratic virtue, not insensitive fundamentalist and consumers. - Sought outright to promote the idea that the country's strength lay in diversity, tolerance, and the rejection of ethnic prejudice and class privilege. - Presented a heroic but no uncritical picture of the country's past. - Ex: the American Document and Balled for Americans. - Moved well beyond New Deal liberalism in condemning racism as incompatible with true Americanism. - One of its central elements of public culture was its mobilization for civil liberties (especially the right of labor to organize)

Popular Front

- Launched by the Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. - Also referred to as the PWA. - Appropriated $3.3 billion. - Directed by FDR's Secretary of Interior, Harold Ickes. - Contracted with private construction companies to build roads, schools, hospitals, and other public facilities.

Public Works Administration

- Established in 1934 as part of FDR's First New Deal. - Headed by Columbia University economist and FDR advisor, Rexford Tugwell. - Sought to relocate rural and urban families suffering from the Depression to communities planned by the federal government. - Set up relief camps for migrant workers in CA (many of whom were displaced by the dust storms. - Built several new communities including Greenbelt near DC.

Resettlement Administration

- Established by the Second New Deal in 1935. - Also refereed to as the REA. - Created to bring electricity in 1934 - in part to enable more Americans to purchase household appliances. - Proved to be ones of the Second New Deal's most successful programs. - Ex: by 1950, 90% of the nation's farms had been wired with electricity and left almost all of them with radios, electric stoves, refrigerators, and mechanical equipment to milk cows.

Rural Electrification Agency

- Revolved around 9 young black men arrested for the rape of 2 white women in AB in 1931 . - The defense lawyer was Samuel Liebowitz. - Despite the weakness of the evidence against the "Scottsboro boys" and the fact that one of the two accusers recanted, AB authorities still put them on trial and won convictions 3 times. - A Landmark Supreme Court decision overturned the first 2 verdicts but allowed for the tried set of conviction to stand - 5 of the defendants faced prison sentences - not until 1937 would a lawyer work out a deal that allowed for the release of nearly all the boys on parole - though one did not leave prison until 13 years later. - Its outcome established legal principles that greatly expanded the definition of civil liberties - defendants have a constitution right to effective legal representation, and states cannot systematically exclude blacks from juries.

Scottsboro case

- Launched by FDR in 1935. - Spurred by the failure of the First New Deal to end the Depression, the growing clamor for greater economic equality, and the Democratic gains of the 1934 elections. - Focused on economy security - a guarantee that American would be protected against unemployment and poverty. - FDR's relief administrator Harry Hopkins believed this was the administration's chance to get everything they wanted (a public works program, social security, regulated wages and hours, etc.). - Attacked head on the problem of weak demand and economic equality that was popularized as the cause of the Depression by the CIO, Long, and Townsend. - Failed to stop the trend toward larger farms and fewer farms. - Transformed the relationship between the federal government and American citizens (provided security).

Second New Deal

Established in 1934 as part of FDR's First New Deal to regulate the stock and bond markets.

Securities and Exchange Commission

- Launched by Huey Long in 1934. - It slogan was "Every Man a King." - Through this he called for the confiscation of most of the wealth of the richest Americans in order to finance an immediate grant of $5000, a guaranteed job, and annual income for all citizens. - Congress levied a highly publicized tax on large fortunes and corporate profits as a direct response to this.

Share Our Wealth movement

- Passed in 1935 as the centerpiece of FDR's Second New Deal. - Embodied FDR's conviction that the nation's government had a responsibility to ensure the material well-being of all Americans. - Created a system of unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and aid to disabled, elderly poor, and families with dependent kids. - It's ideas for old age pensions and public aid to those in need came from the Progressive platform of 1912. - It's idea for unemployment insurance came from European countries who had already adopted it. - The new aspect of this act was that the American government would supervise a permanent system of social insurance through it. - Launched the American version of the welfare state. - Emerged as a hybrid of both national and local funding, control, and eligibility standards due to divided opinion on it. - At first it excluded large numbers of Americans due to the unequal local administration (included unmarried women, non-whites, and domestic and agricultural workers). - Unemployment insurance and old age pensions were payed for by taxes on employers and employees. - Represented a dramatic departure from the traditional functions of government. - Since paying taxes on one's wages made one eligible for the most generous of it's programs, it left all non-working women uncovered. - Excluded 3 million mostly female domestic workers altogether. - At the insistence of the southern Democrats, this law excluded agricultural and domestic workers - major black workforces. - Its public assistance programs were open to all Americans who could demonstrate finical need - decided by the state allowing for widespread discrimination in the distribution of its low benefits. - Compared with later European welfare states, it remained restricted in scope and modest in cost.

Social Security Act

- Recognized by US Steel in 1937 due to fear of a sit-down campaign and awareness that they could not count on state government aid. - Smaller steel firms like, Republic Steel, refused to follow suit.

Steel Workers Organizing Committee

- Established in 1933 as part of FDR's First New Deal. - Also referred to as TVA. - A New Deal public-work initiative that looked to government-planned economic transformation as much as economic relief. - Built a series of dams to prevent floods and deforestation along the Tennessee River and to provide cheap electric power for homes and factories in the 7 state region where many families were still isolated. - Put the federal government for the first time, in the business of selling electricity in competition with private companies. - Greatly improved the lives of many southerns - previewed the program of regional planning that spurred development in the West.

Tennessee Valley Authority

- Passed in 1937 as part of FDR's Second New Deal. - Initiated the first major effort to build homes for the poorest Americans.

US Housing Act

- A fledging CIO union. - Also referred to as the UAW. - Unveiled the sit-down strike (effective tactic) created by the IWW. - In their first sit-down strike 7000 GM workers seized control of the Fisher Auto Body plant in Cleveland - sit-downs soon spread to GM factories in Flint, MI. - Strikers fought off police, cleaned the plant, oiled the idle machinery, settled disputes among themselves, prepared meals, and held concerts of labor songs - strongly unified. - With the help of the government, like CIO supporter Frank Murphy, GM finally agreed to negotiate with them. - By the end of 1937, they claimed 400000 members.

United Auto Workers

- Won the Democratic nomination for governor in CA in 1934. - The head of the End Poverty in CA movement. - Called for the state to use idle factories and land to provide jobs for the unemployed. - Lost the election after being subjected to one of the first modern negative media campaigns - his opens circulated fake newsreels showing armies of unemployed men marching to CA in his support with a fake endorsement from the Communist Party.

Upton Sinclair

- Abandoned his earlier belief that blacks should accept discrimination - racial integration was unrealistic. - Called on blacks to organized economic survival by building an independent cooperative economy within segregated communities and gain control of their own schools - "nation within a nation." - His new position was reminiscent of that of Booker T. Washington - who he had early condemned.

W. E. B. Du Bois

- Passed in 1935 as part of FDR's Second New Deal. - Known as the "Labor's Magna Carta." - Brought democracy to the American workplace by empowering the National Labor Relations Board to supervise elations in which employees voted on union representation. - Outlawed unfair labor practices including the firing and blacklisting of union organizers. - Its main sponsor was Robert Wagner of NY who believed unionization was the next step in the evolution of US freedom - justified it by promising it would aid to undercomsumptionism.

Wagner Act

- Established in 1934 as part of FDR's Second New Deal. - Also referred to as the WPA. - Hired about 3 million Americans. - Under the direction of Harry Hopkin's direction, it changed the physical face of the US. - Ex: It constructed thousands of public buildings and bridges, more than 500000 miles of roads, and 600 airports. - Ex: It built stadiums, swimming pools, and sewage treatment plants. - Unlike previous work relief programs, it also employed many out-of-work white-collar workers and professionals: doctors and dentists. - It's most famous projects were in the arts. - Audiences across the country got their first glimpse of love musical and theatrical performances and their first opportunity to new exhibitions of American art because of this. - Ex: Sent artists to decorate public buildings with murals. - Ex: Hired writers to produce history books about each of the states. - Ex: Federal Theater Project - put on plays. - Ex: Federal Music Project - created orchestras and choral groups. - Ex: Federal Dance project - promoted ballet and dance programs.

Works Progress Administration

- Declared by FDR in in 1933 which halted all bank operations. - Part of FDR's confrontation of the banking system on the verge of collapse - bank funds invested in the stock market and corporate bonds lost their value causing depositors to withdraw their savings (banking had been suspended in the majority of states and bank after bank failed entirely). - Along with this FDR called Congress in special session. - Resulted in the passage of the Emergency Banking Act.

bank holiday

- A group of academics that included a number of Columbia University professors. - Saw bigness as inevitable in a modern economy. - They argued that the competitive marketplace was a thing of the past, and large firms needed to be managed and directed by the government, not dismantled. - Their views prevailed during the First New Deal. - Supported one view that divided FDR's administration - Brandeis saw the other side (believed all large corporations should be dissolved - had excessive power and caused the Depression).

brains trust

- What many considered a serious political miscalculation by FDR. - Proposed that the president be allowed to appoint a new justice in the place of anyone over 70 - 6 out of the 9. - Its aim was to prevent any juices from growing too old to preform their duties and to change the balance of power on the Court, that FDR feared might invalidate some of his measures. - This plan aroused cries that FDR was an aspiring dictator. - Just the threat of this accomplished FDR's goal. - Ex: beginning in March 1937, the Court suddenly revealed a new willingness to support economic regulation by both the federal government and the states. - Ex: upheld a minimum wage law in WA. - Ex: Turned aside challenges to the Social Security and Wagner Act. - Ex: affirmed federal power to regulate wages, hours, child labor, agricultural production, and numerous other economic aspects. - Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes announced a new judicial philosophy beaus of this - freedom of contract is not in the Constitution, however liberty is. - The Court's willingness to accept the New Deal after this marked a permanent change in judicial policy.

court packing

- The name of FDR's radio addresses. - Listened o avidly by the Americans people. - In his second of these, he juxtaposed his own definition of liberty (greater security) for the common man, to the older nation of liberty (liberty of contract) for the privileged few.

fireside chats

- The name of the first three months of FDR's administration, in which he passed an unprecedented flurry of legislation. - Took place in 1933. - FDR seized the sense of crisis and the momentum of his electoral victory during this period. - FDR won rapid passage of laws he believed would promote economy recovery. - Persuaded Congress to create tons of new agencies who soon became part of the laugh of politics - NRA, AAA, CCC. - Never in American history had a president exercised so much power in peacetime or so rapidly expanded the role of the federal government in people's lives. - Brought the government into providing relief to those in need.

hundred days

- The most striking development of the 1930s. - The name of the extraordinary mobilization of workers in mass production industries in the 1930s- came as a surprise. - The federal government seemed to be on the side of labor unlike in the past - Industrial Recovery Act and Wagner Act. - leadership of this movement was provided by communists and socialist who had survived the repression of the 1920s. - The demands of workers in this included better wages, unionization, an end to employers' tyrannical power in the workplace, and basic civil liberties for workers (right to protest, distribute literature, and meet to discuss their grievances). - Organizers of this spread the message that political liberty had been made meaningless by economic inequality and tyranny of industrial leaders. - Exploded in 1934 - witnessed no fewer than 2000 strikes (many produced violent confrontations between workers and local police. - Posed a challenge to the AFL - traditional policy was to organize workers unions by craft. - Altered the balance of economic power and propelled to the forefront of politics, labor's goal of a fairer, freer, and equal US. - Helped to produce an important shift in the understanding of civil liberties - just as the national state emerged as a warrantor of economic security, it became a protector of freedom of expression.

labors great upheaval

- Grand Coulee Dam was part of this. - Transformed the US economy and landscape during the 1930s. - Occurred during FDR's administration - spent far more money on building roads, dams, airports, bridges, and housing then on any other activity.

public works revolution

- Unveiled by the UAW in 1936. - A strike in which workers halted production and remained inside the plant - strikebreakers couldn't be brought in.

sit-down strike

- Helped southern Democrats to mold the New Deal welfare state into an entitlement of white Americans. - Stemmed from FDR feeling as though he could not challenge the power of southern Democrats. - Because of it the majority of black workers found themselves confined to the least generous and most venerable wing of the new welfare state.

southern veto

- Most recipients of this did not pay Social Security taxes, they came to bear the humiliating stigma of dependency on government aid. - The National Resources Planning Board noted that because of blacks exclusion from the Social Security Act they were becoming disproportionately dependent on this stigmatizing them as recipients of unearned government assistance. - A program widely viewed with popular disfavor. - Began to be viewed as a program for minorities.

welfare

- The Social Security Act launched the American version of this. - Originated in Britain during WWII to refer to a system of income assistance, health coverage, and social services for all citizens. - Marked a radical departure from previous government policies but compared to similar programs in Europe however it was far more decentralized, involved lower levels of public spending, and covered fewer citizens.

welfare state