Agricultural Adjustment Act - PowerPoint Presentation

Agricultural Adjustment ActCourt packing planDust BowlHouse of Un-American Activities CommitteeHundred DaysIndian New DealNational Recovery AdministrationPopular FrontPublic Works AdministrationScottsboro caseShare Our Wealth movementSit-down strikeSocial Security ActWorks Progress Administration Ch. 21: The New Deal, 1932-1940

I. The First New Deal

A. FDR and the Election of 1932FDR promised a "new deal" for the American people, but his campaign was vague in explaining how he was going to achieve it.

B. The Coming of the New DealRoosevelt saw his New Deal as an alternative to socialism on the left, to Nazism on the right, and to the inaction of upholders of unregulated capitalism.For advice, FDR relied heavily on a group of intellectuals and social workers who took up key positions in his administration.Secretary of Labor Frances PerkinsHarry HopkinsSecretary of the Interior Harold IckesJustice Louis BrandeisThe view of these individuals prevailed during what came to be called the First New Deal.

C. The Banking CrisisRoosevelt declared a bank holiday, temporarily halting all bank operations, and called Congress into special session.Emergency Banking ActFurther measures also transformed the American financial system.Glass-Steagall ActFederal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

D. The NRAAn unprecedented flurry of legislation during the first three months of Roosevelt's administration was a period known as the Hundred Days.The centerpiece of Roosevelt's plan for combating the Depression was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA).The NRA reflected how even in its early days, the New Deal reshaped understandings of liberty.Section 7aHugh S. Johnson set standards for production, prices, and wages in the textile, steel, mining, and auto industries.

E. Government JobsThe Hundred Days also brought the government into providing relief to those in need.Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)Civilian Conservation Core (CCC)

F. Public Works ProjectsThe Public Works Administration (PWA) was created to build roads, schools, hospitals, and other public facilities.The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created to build dams.

G. The New Deal and AgricultureThe Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) authorized the federal government to try to raise farm prices by setting production quotas for major crops and paying farmers not to plant more.The AAA succeeded in significantly raising farm prices and incomes for large farmers.The policy generally hurt small farms and tenant farmers.The 1930s also witnessed severe drought creating the Dust Bowl.

The Dust Bowl, 1935-1940

H. The New Deal and HousingThe Depression devastated the American housing industry.Hoover's administration established a federally sponsored bank to issue home loans.FDR moved energetically to protect homeowners from foreclosure and to stimulate new construction.Home Owners Loan CorporationFederal Housing Administration (FHA)There were other important measures of Roosevelt's first two years in office:Twenty-first AmendmentFederal Communications Commission (FCC) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC )

The Building Boom and Its Collapse, 1919-1939

I. The Court and the New DealIn 1935, the Supreme Court began to invalidate key New Deal Laws:National Recover AdministrationThe Agricultural Adjustment Act

II. The Grassroots Revolt

A. Labor’s Great UpheavalA cadre of militant labor leaders provided leadership to the labor upsurge.Workers' demands during the 1930s went beyond better wages.All their goals required union recognition.Roosevelt's election as president did much to rekindle hope among labor.1934 saw an explosion of strikes.

B. The Rise of the CIOThe labor upheaval posed a challenge to the American Federation of Labor (AFL).John Lewis led a walkout of the AFL that produced a new labor organization, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).The United Auto Workers (UAW) led a sit-down strike in 1936.Steel workers tried to follow suit.Union membership reached 9 million by 1940.

C. Labor and PoliticsThe labor upsurge altered the balance of economic power and propelled to the forefront of politics labor's goal of a fairer, freer, more equal America.CIO leaders explained the Depression as the result of an imbalance of wealth and income.

D. Voices of ProtestOther popular movements of the mid-1930s also placed the question of economic justice on the political agenda.Upton Sinclair and the End Poverty in California movement (EPIC)Huey Long and Share Our WealthCharles CoughlinDr. Francis Townsend

III. The Second New Deal

A. The REARoosevelt in 1935 launched the Second New Deal with an emphasis on economic security.The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) provided electricity to rural areas.

B. The WPA and the Wagner ActUnder Harry Hopkins's direction, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) changed the physical face of the United States.Perhaps the most famous WPA projects were in the arts.The Wagner Act brought democracy into the American workplace.

C. The American Welfare State: Social SecurityThe centerpiece of the Second New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935.The Social Security Act launched the American version of the welfare state.Social Security represented a dramatic departure from the traditional functions of government.

IV. A Reckoning with Liberty

A. FDR and the Idea of FreedomRoosevelt was a master of political communication and used his fireside chats to great effect.FDR gave the term "liberalism" its modern meaning.As the 1930s progressed, proponents of the New Deal invoked the language of liberty with greater and greater passion.

B. The Election of 1936Fighting for the possession of "the ideal of freedom" emerged as the central issue of the presidential campaign of 1936.Republicans chose Kansas governor Alfred Landon, a former Theodore Roosevelt Progressive.Roosevelt won a landslide reelection.New Deal coalition

C. The Court FightFDR proposed to change the face of the Supreme Court for political reasons.The Court's new willingness to accept the New Deal marked a permanent change in judicial policy.

D. The End of the Second New DealThe Fair Labor Standards bill banned goods produced by child labor from interstate commerce, set forty cents as the minimum hourly wage, and required overtime pay for hours of work exceeding forty per week.The year 1937 witnessed a sharp downturn of the economy.

V. The Limits of Change

A. The New Deal and American WomenEleanor Roosevelt transformed the role of first lady.However, organized feminism, already in disarray during the 1920s, disappeared as a political force.Most New Deal programs did not exclude women from benefits, but the ideal of the male-headed household powerfully shaped social policy.

B. The Southern VetoThe power of the Solid South helped to mold the New Deal welfare state into an entitlement for white Americans.The Social Security law excluded agricultural and domestic workers, the largest categories of black employment.Political left and black organizations lobbied for changes in Social Security.

C. The Stigma of WelfareBlacks became more dependent on welfare because they were excluded from eligibility for other programs.

D. The Indian New DealUnder Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, the administration launched an Indian New Deal.It marked the most radical shift in Indian policy in the nation's history.

E. The New Deal and Mexican-AmericansFor Mexican-Americans, the Depression was a wrenching experience.

F. Last Hired, First FiredAfrican-Americans were hit hardest by the Depression.FDR appointed a number of blacks to important federal positions.Mary McLeod BethuneThe 1930s witnessed a historic shift in black voting patterns.

G. Federal DiscriminationFederal housing policy revealed the limits of New Deal freedom.Federal employment practices also discriminated on the basis of race.Not until the Great Society of the 1960s would those left out of New Deal programs win inclusion in the American welfare state.

VI. A New Conception of Freedom

A. The Heyday of American CommunismIn the mid-1930s, the left enjoyed a shaping influence on the nation's politics and culture.The CIO and Communist Party became focal points for a broad social and intellectual impulse that helped to redraw the boundaries of American freedom.The Popular Front

B. Redefining the PeopleThe Popular Front vision for American society was that the American way of life meant unionism and social citizenship, not the unbridled pursuit of wealth.Artists and writers captured the common man.

C. Challenging the Color LinePopular Front culture moved well beyond New Deal liberalism in condemning racism as incompatible with true Americanism.The Communist-dominated International Labor Defense mobilized popular support for black defendants victimized by racism in the criminal justice system.Scottsboro caseThe CIO welcomed black members

D. Labor and Civil LibertiesAnother central element of Popular Front public culture was its mobilization for civil liberties, especially the right of labor to organize.Labor militancy helped to produce an important shift in the understanding of civil liberties.In 1939, Attorney General Frank Murphy established a Civil Liberties Unit in the Department of Justice.Civil liberties replaced property rights of business as the judicial foundation of freedom.The House of Representatives established an Un-American Activities Committee in 1938 to investigate disloyalty.

E. The End of the New DealFDR was losing support from southern Democrats.Roosevelt concluded that the enactment of future New Deal measures required a liberalization of the southern Democratic Party.A period of political stalemate followed the congressional election of 1938.

F. New Deal in American HistoryGiven the scope of the economic calamity it tried to counter, the New Deal seems in many ways quite limited.Yet even as the New Deal receded, its substantial accomplishments remained.One thing the New Deal failed to do was generate prosperity.