Chapter 26

UAW

(United Auto Workers) a labor union which represents workers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Founded in order to represent workers in the automobile manufacturing industry

Fair Labor Standards Act

1938 act which provided for a minimum wage and restricted shipments of goods produced with child labor

Harry Hopkins

A New York social worker who headed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Civil Works Administration. He helped grant over 3 billion dollars to the states wages for work projects, and granted thousands of jobs for jobless Americans.

Federal Farm Board

Agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; it offered farmers insurance against loss of crops due to drought; flood; or freeze. It did not guarantee profit or cover losses due to bad farming.

AAA

Agricultural Adjustment Administration: attempted to regulate agricultural production through farm subsidies; ruled unconstitutional in 1936; disbanded after World War II

Huey Long

As senator in 1932 of Washington preached his "Share Our Wealth" programs. It was a 100% tax on all annual incomes over $1 million and appropriation of all fortunes in excess of $5 million. With this money Long proposed to give every American family a comfortable income, etc

CWA

Civil Works Adminstration: emergency work relief program, put more than four million people to work during the winter of 1933-34

CCC

Civilian Conservation Corps (1933)- Relief- Young men between the ages of 18 and 25 volunteered to be placed in camps to work on regional environmental projects, mainly west of the Mississippi; they received $30 a month, of which $25 was sent home; disbanded during World War II.

Liberty League

Conservatives who did not agree with Roosevelt, they wanted government to let business alone and play a less active role in the economy

Eleanor Roosevelt (impact on New Deal)

FDR's Wife and New Deal supporter. Was a great supporter of civil rights and opposed the Jim Crow laws. She also worked for birth control and better conditions for working women

FSA

Farm Security Administration (1937)- Relief, Recovery- Granted loans to small farmers and tenants for rehabilitation and purchase of small-sized farms; Congress slashed its appropriations during World War II when many poor farmers entered the armed forces or migrated to urban areas.

Townsend Plan

Francis Townsend; federal government pay citizens over 60 a pension of 200$ a month; might lead to more spending =fear of a coalition against Roosevelt because of popularity of the idea

Indian Reorganization Act

Government legislation that allowed the Indians a form of self-government and thus willingly shrank the authority of the U.S. government. It provided the Indians direct ownership of their land, credit, a constitution, and a charter in which Indians could manage their own affairs.

Charles Coughlin

In 1930 he began radio broadcasts of his sermons, into which he gradually injected reactionary political statements and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

NRA

National Recovery Administration: established and adminstered a system of industrial codes to control production, prices, labor relations, and trade practices

NLRB

National labor Relations Board: (established by Wagner Act) Greatly enhanced power of American labor by overseeing collective bargaining; continues to arbitrate labor-management disputes today

Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act)

Part of "Second" New Deal Programs (1935-1938), collective bargaining rights, closed shops permitted (where workers must join unions), outlawed anti-union tactics

PWA

Public Works Administration. Part of Roosevelts New Deal programs. Put people to work building or improving public buildings like schools, post offices,etc.

Alf Landon

Ran against FDR in the 1936 election. He was weak on the radio and weaker in personal compaigning, and while he criticized FDR's spending, he also favored enough of FDR's New Deal to be ridiculed by the Democrats as an unsure idiot.

RFC

Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Hoovers response to the Depression. Passed in January 1932, this measure loaned billions money to banks and insurance companies and RRs. and provided funds for state and local programs providing relief

Great Depression impact on political parties

Republicans pretty much died out, while Democrats became much stronger in power during FDR.

REA

Rural Electrification Administration: made electricity available at low rates to American farm families in areas that private power companies refused to service

Charles Evans Hughes

Secretary of State under Harding, Proposed a 10-year moratorium on the construction of major new warships at the Washington Conference

Harold Ickes

Secretary of the interior who headed the Public Works Administration, which aimed at long-range recovery by spending over $4 billion on some 34,000 projects that included public buildings, highways, and parkways

New Deal impact on women, African Americans, Mexicans

The Roosevelt administration's attempts to aid the downtrodden were least effective with African Americans and other racial minorities. The Great Depression had hit blacks with special force. The New Deal helped African Americans survive the depression, but it never tried to confront squarely the racial injustice built into the federal relief programs. The New Deal did far less for Mexican Americans. They cut off the import of Mexicans, and even created new acts to deport them. The decade witnessed no significant gain in the status of women. There was little concern expressed for protecting or extending their rights. Many working women in the 30s were either single or sole supporters of an entire family, and married women in the workforce increased. Their wages were lower than men, and their unemployment rate was much higher. The New Deal offered little encouragement. In sum, a decade that was grim for most Americans was especially hard on American women.

TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority federation was created in 1933 in order to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly impacted by the Great Depression

Fireside Chats

The informal radio conversations Roosevelt had with the people to keep spirits up. It was a means of communicating with the people on how he would take on the depression.

New Deal

The name of President Roosevelt's program for getting the United States out of the depression

Francis Townsend

Townshend was a retired physician who developed a plan in which the government would give monetary resources to senior citizens ages sixty and over He and other demagogues pushed FDR to move the New Deal to help people directly and laid the foundations of the creation of Social Security.

Bonus Army

Unemployed World War I veterans who came to Washington in the spring of 1932 to demand the immediate payment of the bonus congress had voted them in 1922. The veterans were forcibly removed from Anacostia Flats by federal troops under the command of Douglas MacArthur.

Hattie Carraway

Wife that succeeded her husband in the Senate. She was the first woman in the Senate.

WPA

Work Progress Administration: Massive work relief program funded projects ranging from construction to acting; disbanded by FDR during WWII

CIO

a federation of North American industrial unions that merged with the American Federation of Labor in 1955

Court Packing

attempt by Roosevelt to appoint one new Supreme Court justice for every sitting justice over the age of 70 who had been there for at least 10 years. Wanted to prevent justices from dismantling the new deal. Plan died in congress and made opponents of New Deal inflamed.

New Deal Coalition

coalition forged by the Democrats who dominated American politics from the 1930's to the 1960's. its basic elements were the urban working class, ethnic groups, Catholics and Jews, the poor, Southerners, African Americans, and intellectuals.

Social Security Act

guaranteed retirement payments for enrolled workers beginning at age 65; set up federal-state system of unemployment insurance and care for dependent mothers and children, the handicapped, and public health

John L Lewis

long-time labor leader who organized and led the first important unskilled workers labor union, called in to represent union during sit-down strike

"Hooverville's"

shanty towns for homeless people who lost everything as a result of the Great Depression; named after the President Herbert Hoover who was blamed for the Great Depression

Hundred Days

the special session of Congress that Roosevelt called to launch his New Deal programs. The special session lasted about three months: 100 days.