APUSH Chapter 23 Vocab

Glass-Steagall Act

A 1933 law that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insured deposits up to $2,500 (and now up to $250,000). The act also prohibited banks from making risky, unsecured investments with customers' deposits.

Wagner Act

A 1935 act that upheld the right of industrial workers to join unions and established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency with the authority to protect workers from employer coercion and to guarantee collective bargaining.

Social Security Act

A 1935 act with three main provisions: old-age pensions for workers, a joint federal-state system of compensation for unemployed workers; and a program of payments to widowed mothers and the blind, deaf, and disabled.

Public Works Administration

A New Deal construction program established by Congress in 1933. Designed to put people back to work, the PW built the Boulder Dam (renamed Hoover Dam) and Grand Coulee Dam, among other large public works projects.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

A high tariff enacted in 1930 during the Great Depression. By taxing imported goods, Congress hoped to stimulate American manufacturing, but the tariff triggered retaliatory tariffs in other countries, which further hindered global trade and led to greater economic contraction.

Hundred Days

A legendary session during the first few months of Franklin Roosevelt's administration in which Congress enacted fifteen major bills taht focused primarily on four problems: banking failures, agricultural overproduction, the business slump, and soaring unemployment.

Townsend Plan

A plan proposed by Francis Townsend in 1933 that would give $200 a month (about $3,300 today) to citizens over the age of sixty. Townsend Clubs sprang up across country in support of the plan, mobilizing mass support for old-age pensions.

fireside chats

A series of informal radio addresses Franklin Roosevelt made to the nation in which he explained New Deal initiatives.

welfare state

A term applied to industrial democracies that adopt various government -guaranteed social-welfare programs. The creation of Social Security and other measures of the Second New Deal fundamentally changed American society and established a national welfare state for the first time.

John Collier

An intellectual and critic of past Bureau of Indian Affairs practices who worked to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1834.

Civilian Conservation Corps

Federal relief program that provided jobs to millions of unemployed young men who built thousands of bridges, roads, trails, and other structures in the state and national parks, bolstering the national infrastructure.

Agricultural Adjustment Act

New Deal legislation passed in May 1933 that aimed at cutting agricultural production to raise crop prices and thus famers' income.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Powerful voice to FDR's actions, she's the "conscience" behind the New Deal, lobbying for more rights and equalities for the underrepresented.

Frances Perkins

The first woman named to a cabinet post who served as secretary of labor throughout FDR's presidency

Indian Reorganization Act

a 1934 law that reversed the Dawes Act of 1887. Through the law, Indians won a greater degree of religious freedom, and tribal governments regained their status as semisovereign dependent nations.

Securities and Exchange Commission

a commision established by Congress in 1934 to regulate the stock market. the commision had broad powers to determine how stocks and bonds were sold to the public, to set rules for margin (credit) transactions, and to prevent stock sales by those with inside information about corporate plans

Liberty League

a group of Republican business leaders and conservative Democrats who banded together to fight what they called the "reckless spending" and "socialist" reforms of the New Deal

Roosevelt recession

a recession from 1937 to 1938 that occurred after President Roosevelt cut the federal budget

dust bowl

a series of dust storms from 1930 to 1941 during which a severe drought afflicted the semiarid states of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, and Kansas.

Federal Housing Administration

an agency established by the Federal Housing Act of 1934 that refinanced home mortgages for mortgage holders facing possible foreclosure

Rural Electrification Administration

an agency established in 1935 to promote nonprofit farm cooperatives that offered loans to farmers to install power lines

Tennessee Valley Authority

an agency funded by Congress in 1933 that integrated flood control, reforestation, electricity generation, and agricultural and industrial development in the Tennessee Valley area

National Association of Manufacturers

an association of industrialists and business leaders opposed to government regulation.in the era of the New Deal, the group promoted free enterprise and capitalism through a publicity campaign of radio programs, motion pictures, billboards, and direct mail

Keynesian economics

the theory, developed by British economist John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s, that purposeful government intervention int he economy (through lowering or raising taxes, interest rates, and government spending) can affect the level of overall economic activity and thereby prevent severe depressions and runaway inflation

Father Charles Coughlin

"Radio Priest"; the foremost critic of the New Deal, who believed that FDR had got gone far enough in their efforts to ensure the social welfare of all citizens.

Bonus Army

A group of 15000 unemployed WWI veterans who set up camps near the Capitol building in 1932 to demand immediate payment of pension wards due to be paid in 1945.

Mary McLeod Bethune

African American woman on the FDR's "black cabinet" of prominent AA intellectuals to advise the New Deal agencies. She served as president of the National Association of Colored Women.

Huey Long

Democratic Louisiana Senator who achieved huge popularity by doing much to ameliorate situation for his state in an almost dictatorial-like control. He threatened FDR's reelection.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Democratic NY governor who became president and initiated the New Deal

Works Progress Administration

Federal New Deal program established in 1935 that provided government-funded public works jobs to millions of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression in areas ranging from construction to the arts

National Recovery Administration

Federal agency established in June 1933 to promote industrail recovery during the Great Depression. It encouraged industrialists to voluntarily adopt codes that defined fair working conditions, set prices, and minimized competition.

Herbert Hoover

President during the beginning of the Great Depression who did little to help the situation.

classical liberalism

the principle ideology of individual liberty, private property, a competitive market economy, free trade, and limited government. The idea being that the less government does, the better, particularly in reference to economic policies such as tariffs and incentives for industrial development. Attacking corruption and defending private property, late-nineteenth-century liberals generally called for elite governance and questioned the advisability of full democratic participation.