100 Hundred Days, Fireside Chats, AAA, TVA, etc.

1. New Deal Era
690-697

3. FDR’s 1st
Inaugural Address
• “This great Nation will endure as it has
endured, will revive and will prosper.”
• “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
• “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining
instrument to meet the crisis—broad
Executive power to wage a war against the
emergency”
• Full Text of Speech:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/17/washing
ton/20090117_ADDRESSES.html

4. The New Deal Era
• New Deal Era
• FDR was willing to try new things to try to turn
the economy around.
• Fireside chats: FDR’s regular talks with the
American people via radio in the 30’s and 40’s
– They suggested an intimate conversation
– Demonstrated the president’s effective use of the
new electronic political medium

5. New Deal—3 R’s
• Relief
– Direct assistance to the poor &
unemployed
• Recovery
– Stimulating the economy;
recovery of the economy to
normal levels
• Reform
– Policies to prevent another
economic collapse; long-term
policies

6. • FDR enlarged the role of the executive branch
in initiating policy, giving the president more
power
• He used his cabinet to formulate the policy
after he would suggest/initiate it

7. First New Deal
• First hundred days
• Banking crisis was the largest problem for FDR
at first
• This is what brought the depression to the
middle class
• 9 million had lost their savings since beginning
of depression
• By Jan. 1933, 38 states had closed their banks,
and the other 10 were close

8. • Banks were closed on March 5th
, not to open
until March 13th
when an emergency banking
bill was passed as long as the Treasury
Department had enough in reserve
• Emergency Banking Act : FDR used the federal
gov’t to investigate the nation’s banks and
restored confidence in banks
• 4,000 banks failed in 1933, most before the bill passed
• 61 in 1934

9. This was the first of 15 pieces of legislation enacted by
Congress in the first 100 days of Congress’ session
• Home Owners Loan Corporation established
to refinance home mortgages
• Glass-Steagall Act separated investment
banking from commercial banking and created
the FDIC, which insured deposits up to $2,500
• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was
developed, which sent young men to do
reforestation and conservation work

10. • Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) government
sponsored approval for innovation of
government sponsored regional development
and public energy
• FDR legalized beer in April 1933
• 18th
Amendment repealed in December 1933
• Agricultural Adjustment Act: December 1933
– Agricultural overproduction
– Business failures
– Unemployment relief

13. Norris Dam in
Tennessee,
completed in 1936

14. • AAA also established a system for 7 major
commodities that provided cash subsidies to
farmers who cut production
• The hope was that prices would go up
because the subsidies would cause goods to
become scarce
• Larger farms seemed to benefit most:
– The large owners would reduce renter’s and
sharecroppers’ acreage rather than their own
– In the South, many sharecroppers were black, so
there were racial overtones
– Up to 200,000 tenant farmers were displaced, and
moved largely to northern cities and to CA

15. National Recovery Administration
• Established a system of industrial self-gov’t to
handle the problems of overproduction,
competition, and price instability
• Each industry decided on a code for prices and
quotas for production
• Established minimum wages and maximum
hours and outlawed child labor
• Also gave workers the right to collective
bargaining.

16. Unemployment Legislation
• FERA: Federal Emergency Relief Administration
set up in 1933 by Harry Hopkins
• Offered federal money to the states for relief
programs
• Allowed for people to have emergency money
until they could find some money to survive
• Program lasted 2 years, and gave out over $1
billion in relief
• Generally a short-term fix for people in need

17. Other programs:
• Public Works Administration (PWA)
• Civil Works Administration (CWA)

18. • What was another goal of these programs???
• **to create price increases, an inflationary
tactic
• Necessary to stimulate recovery and stop
deflation
• Also to abandon the gold standard and allow
its value to rise like other commodities
• It ultimately provided the Federal Reserve to
promote stability!
• Stable prices and full employment w/o being
tied to gold

19. Second New Deal
• Wagner Act
• Upheld the right of industrial workers to join a
union and outlawed unfair labor practices
– Ex: Firing workers for union activities
-Established the National Labor Relations Board
which protected workers from employer
coercion, supervise elections for union
representation, and guarantee the process of
collective bargaining

20. Social Security Act:
• Provided pensions for most workers
• Domestics were not covered, which greatly
affected poor African American women
• Pensions were financed by a federal tax that
all employers and employees would pay
• Established a joint federal-state system of
unemployment compensation

21. Works Progress Administration
• Harry Hopkins
• Main federal relief agency for remainder of
depression
• WPA put federal relief workers directly on the
payroll
• Built roads, public buildings, parks, airports,
bridges

22. Construction on
the Grand
Coulee Dam in
1938; a PWA
project

23. • WPA employed 8.5 million people
• Did not pay well, but better than nothing
• Ended in 1943 when WWII produced full
employment
Harry Hopkins

24. Revenue Act of 1935
• Increased estate and corporate taxes
• Instituted higher personal income tax rates in
top income brackets