Franklin D. Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression and implemented his New Deal programs to provide Relief, Reform, and Recovery. His first hundred days saw the passage of 15 major bills to address the banking crisis and provide relief to the unemployed. New programs included the CCC, FERA, PWA, CWA, TVA, AAA, and SEC to stimulate the economy through jobs, infrastructure, and regulation while providing relief through public assistance. The New Deal aimed to restore prosperity and trust in government.

1. Chapter 28: The New Deal
Section 1: Roosevelt Takes Charge

2. The Great Depression
• At the point of Roosevelt’s election,
bankers, or “the unscrupulous
moneychangers,” were receiving the
majority of the blame
• President Roosevelt agreed, and said
that the nation was in a sort of war and
needed a strong leader
• Therefore, Congress should give him
whatever he needs
I will ask Congress for “as
great as the power that
would be given to me if we
were in fact invaded by a
foreign foe.”

3. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Master Politician
• His distant cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, had been
president previously
• The only child of wealthy parents he attended the
best schools
• At age 39, Roosevelt had contracted polio
• He regained full use of his hands and arms, but
remained paralyzed from the waist down
• His painful recovery from this serious physical handicap
toughened him up, but also gave him sympathy for the
less fortunate
• Master of the art of politics

4. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Master Politician
• He had varied political experience…
• Elected to the New York legislature in 1910, at the
height of Progressivism
• Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WWI
• Governor of New York when the stock market crashed
• And he had a warm and understanding approach
to the American people
• Held Fireside Chats with the American nation via
radio
• Informal talks where Roosevelt calmly and
confidently explained his policies and the state of the
nation in terms the people would understand

5. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Master Politician
• He also knew how to deal with the press
much more effectively than Hoover
• Hoover had avoided reporters and
refused to answer questions he didn’t
have a prepared response to
• Roosevelt held frequent press
conferences and allowed reporters to ask
him anything
• This made him popular with the press
and allowed him to focus the nation’s
attention on him and his New Deal

6. Roosevelt’s Brain Trust
• Coming out of the Progressive Era, Roosevelt was a pragmatist and
trusted that experts could help him come up with a plan for
society
• Even before his nomination, he gathered a group of professors
from Columbia University to advise him so he would be ready for
reform upon entering office
• He brought them to Washington and filled the rest of his cabinet
with people that came from varying viewpoints
• i.e. Northerners and Southerners, liberals and conservatives, a woman,
etc.

7. Women in the White House
• Roosevelt appointed the first female
cabinet position to Frances Perkins, the
Secretary of Labor
• She had previously worked as a child labor
reformer
• Women, most of them social workers, also
held important positions in Roosevelt’s
New Deal agencies
• Roosevelt’s most relied on advisor
outside of the government was his wife,
Eleanor

8. Eleanor Roosevelt
• She was his “eyes and ears” outside of the White House, because of
his disability
• Eleanor travelled, sometimes unaccompanied by the president, to
political rallies, factory tours, coal mines, and to meet with people
her husband would have never been able to meet with
• She shared her husband’s concern for
society and believed government action
was necessary
• Even after her years in the White House,
she continued to advocate for social
justice

9. The First Hundred Days

10. The First Hundred Days
• Roosevelt had promised immediate action while campaigning, and
he did not disappoint
• One day after his inauguration he called a special session of
Congress and used an old law to suspend the nation’s banking
activity
• He only reopened healthy banks
• This helped the nation rebuild their trust in banks
• His first hundred days, Roosevelt and Congress passed 15 major
bills
• Most of them drew little debate

12. Question
• Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act in just four
days. Would something like that happen today?
• How did they pass it so quickly?

14. The New Deal
• Roosevelt knew he would have to take the nation’s problems one
day at a time
• Did not have a carefully worked out plan, but instead enacted quick
measures drawn up to attack the Depression in many ways at once
• The New Deal programs had three general purposes:
• Recovery from the Great Depression
• Relief for its victims
• And Reform of the economic system

17. Chapter 28: The New Deal
Section 2: Reform, Relief, and Recovery

18. Quote
• “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American
people.”

19. The First New Deal
• Hoover and Roosevelt both used businesses to
try and help the economy recover
• Unlike Hoover, Roosevelt was going to use the
government to help people during the Great
Depression
• Many Historians split the New Deal programs
into the First New Deal (1933-1934) and the
Second New Deal (1935-1938)
• The First New Deal dealt first with the banking
crisis

20. Question
• The programs that Roosevelt came up with as part of his New Deal
are often called the Alphabet Agencies or Alphabet Soup. Why do
you think that is?

21. Financial Reform
• The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933
• Prohibited banks from investing in the stock market
• Created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to insure
depositors’ savings and increase the public’s confidence in banks
• The Federal Securities Act of 1933
• Helped to prevent stock market fraud by requiring companies selling
stocks and bonds to provide buyers with complete and true information
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of 1934
• Federally regulated the stock market

22. Deficit Spending and Pump Priming
• Roosevelt realized that to keep his relief
agencies open and prevent millions of
Americans from starving he would have to
approve deficit spending
• This meant that the government’s annual
spending would exceed its income
• Roosevelt also approved pump priming
• This meant the government would pour money
into the economy with loans and federal
spending programs in order to stimulate the
economy
I want to give the
money directly to
the people who
will use it!

24. Relief for the Jobless
• By 1933, 1 out of 4 workers were
unemployed
• State and local charities had exhausted their
resources
• To combat this, Congress passed the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
in May 1933
• This was the first of many New Deal relief
organizations
• Their job was distribute doles, or direct gifts of
money, food, and clothing, to people throughout
the country

25. Question
• How does the purpose of the FERA differ from how Hoover was
attempting to bring the nation out of the Great Depression?

26. Relief for the Jobless
• Public Works Administration of 1933
• Offered jobs, mostly in construction,
instead of handouts
• Improved highways
• Built dams, sewer systems, waterworks,
schools, etc.
• Broke down long standing racial
barriers by insisting private contractors
hire black workers

27. Relief for the Jobless
• Civil Works Administration of 1933
• Large-scale work relief that hired the unemployed and put them to
work
• By Winter 1934, 4 million people had been employed with
300,000 being women
• Built or improved airports, roads, school buildings, parks,
playgrounds, and playing fields
• Cancelled the program in Spring 1934 because of Conservative
criticism (he had spent $1 billion in just 5 months!)

28. Relief for the Jobless
• Like his cousin before him, Roosevelt had a heart for
conservation
• The Civilian Conservation Corps of 1933 offered
outdoor work in conservation
• Hired unemployed, single men ages 18-25
• Made $30 a month, $22 of which went straight to
their families
• Planted trees, fought forest fires, built reservoirs, and
helped to stop soil erosion
• Workers would return home after 6-12 months well-
nourished

29. Relief for the Jobless
• Tennessee Valley Authority of 1933
• Combined emergency relief and pump priming
• Designed to promote the development of land across 7 states
• The land in this area had been abused and depleted up until this point
• Built 20 dams for flood control, which also produced a massive
amount of cheap electricity
• Allowed farmers to upgrade and brought industry to the region
• Gave the government control over private power

30. Question
• Why was the TVA so controversial? It created over 40,000 jobs
and tons of cheap electricity in rural areas. What groups of people
might not be happy about this?
• The program was criticized for only affecting a small region of the
nation
• Power companies were upset at the federal government for trying
to control the cost of electricity while they had a personal stake in
it

31. Relief for Agriculture
• Since 1929, banks had foreclosed on
10% of the nation’s farms
• Foreclosed actions take place when a
borrower cannot make loan payments
• Groups of farmers came together to try
and prevent foreclosures and they even
threatened to stop producing food
• In response, the federal government
placed a five year moratorium, or freeze,
on mortgage foreclosures

32. Relief for Agriculture
• Congress realized that the reason farmers were so
poor was because of the low agricultural prices
• Roosevelt suggested they solve this problem by
paying farmers to stop producing crops to eliminate
surpluses
• The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 allowed
the government to do just that
• Raised farm income by 50%
• Hurt migrant and tenant farmers and sharecroppers

33. Question
• Why did it hurt migrant and tenant farmers and sharecroppers?
• Migrant farmers moved from farm to farm for work
• Tenant farmers worked land that they rented
• Sharecroppers worked land they were allowed to live on by the
owner and received a share of the crops

34. Relief for Agriculture
• The AAA caused many tenant farmers and
sharecroppers to lose their jobs, which caused
nearly 350,000 farmers to leave farming and
look for work elsewhere
• To stop this from happening, the government
passed the Farm Security Administration was
created in 1937 to provide loans that helped
tenant farmers and sharecroppers purchase land
• Only 3,400 black farmers got loans through this
program

35. The Dust Bowl
• To grow more grain and cotton during WWI,
farmers broke up sod that held in moisture
and prevented erosion
• The area became unusually dry, almost
desert, and dust storms became a serious
problem
• Topsoil would become loose and produce a
haze that obscured the sun, preventing
productive farming from 1934-1939
• Many families had no choice but to flee

37. The Dust Bowl
• Congress provided farmers with new seed and livestock as a short
term solution
• For long term solutions, trees were planted to slow winds and
provide moisture and farmers were encouraged to return lands to
grazing (instead of planting)

39. Quote
• “Sure, cried the tenant men, but it’s our land…We were born on it, and we got
killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours….That’s what makes
ownership, not a paper with numbers on it."
"We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man."
"Yes, but the bank is only made of men."
"No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than
men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet
the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the
monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.”

40. Relief for Industry
• National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of
1933
• Roosevelt believed that industries were
suffering from overproduction
• Proposed a partnership of business, labor, and
government
• Called on labor representatives and
management to come up with “codes of fair
competition” for each industry
This is “the most
important and far-
reaching law ever passed
by an American
Congress”

41. Relief for Industry
• These “codes of fair competition”
• Set prices of products to eliminate discount
selling
• Shortened worker hours to create more jobs
• Established minimum wage levels
• In addition, factories were limited to two
shifts a day
• To direct this program, the National
Recovery Administration was created

42. Relief for Industry
• National Recovery Administration
(NRA) of 1933
• Used the power of public opinion to get
businesses to cooperate
• Consumers were encouraged to only
purchase goods from businesses that
displayed the NRA Blue Eagle
• Did not work out because prices
continued to rise faster than wages

44. Relief for Industry
• Wage workers suffered particularly during this time
• One-third of them lost their jobs
• Women were earning as little as $3 a week
• There was a revival of unionism and labor union
membership in 1933, but they did not include mass
production industries
• There was a wave of strikes in 1934 demanding better
wages and job security
• Many of these ended in violence
• The NRA could do practically nothing to help the workers

46. Chapter 28: The New Deal
Section 3: The Second New Deal

47. Critics of the New Deal- Father Charles
Coughlin
• Called the “Radio Priest,” he made a
weekly address broadcast to 40
million listeners
• Though the New Deal reforms were
too moderate and called it the “Raw
Deal”
• His organization, the National Union
for Social Justice, called for heavy
taxes on the wealthy and a guaranteed
income for everyone
• Socialistic

48. Quote
• "Oh you poor laborers and farmers, we have tried,
time and again, to tell you that there can be no
resurrection for America until Congress begins to
coin and regulate the value money. We have
endeavored to teach you, time and again, that there
can be no coming out of this depression until what
you earn goes to sustain your wife and your
children."

49. Critics of the New Deal- Senator Huey Long
• Senator of Louisiana
• Supported and was supported by the rural
poor
• He proposed confiscating the property of
the rich and giving every family…
• A home
• $2,000 a year
• A free college education
• Followers organized “Share-our-Wealth”
clubs

50. Quote
• “I'm for the poor man — all poor men, black and
white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have
a home, a job, and a decent education for their
children. 'Every man a king' — that's my slogan."

51. Critics of the New Deal- Dr. Francis
Townsend
• Upset because of the treatment of older
Americans no longer able to compete for
jobs
• His plan proposed relief for the elderly by
having the federal government pay all
Americans over 60 years a pension of $200 a
month
• The only catch was the elderly would have to
spend their entire pension check within 30 days
• This would help stimulate the economy

52. Quote
• “It is estimated that the population of the age of 60
and above in the United States is somewhere
between nine and twelve millions. I suggest that the
national government retire all who reach that age
on a monthly pension of $200 a month or more, on
condition that they spend the money as they get it.
This will insure an even distribution throughout the
nation of two or three billions of fresh money each
month.”

53. Question
• If you were president, how would you respond to these criticisms?
• Keep in mind they all had pretty large bases of support.

54. Roosevelt’s Response to Critics
• Responded at the 1935 State of the Union
with the Second New Deal
• This would show greater concern for the less
fortunate, abandon efforts to enlist the
support of business, and abandon attempts
to balance the national budget
• Focused on gaining the support of the
Democratic Party ONLY through the
formation of a coalition
“We have not weeded out the
overprivileged and we have
not effectively lifted up the
underprivileged”

55. Roosevelt’s Response to Critics
• Coalition- a combination of separate
groups whose members could be
counted on to vote for a particular
party
• In this case, the Democrats
• Roosevelt attempted to bring labor
unions, farmers, and African Americans
into a Democratic coalition
• His Second New Deal programs would
appeal to these groups

56. Question
• How was work relief going to help America out of the Great
Depression?
• Why hadn’t President Roosevelt focused on work relief before
1935?

57. Work Relief
• The Works Progress Administration
(WPA) of 1935
• Created under the direction of Harry
Hopkins
• Provided a chance for people; such as
writers, teachers, librarians, actors,
musicians, and artists; to use their
skills to earn an income
• Also included some work relief projects

58. Work Relief
• The National Youth
Administration (NYA) of 1935
• “Junior WPA”
• Helped high school and college
students stay in school by providing
them with stable part-time jobs
• Typing and Library Cataloguing
• Other organizations, such as the
CCC, began hiring more people

59. Work Relief
• Some Americans had no support or ability to earn
an income
• So, Congress passed the Social Security Act (SSA)
of 1935
• The federal government gave grants to find state
unemployment insurance plans, as well as to care
for dependent mothers and children
• The core of the program focused on retirement
benefits that people could collect at the age of 65
• The retirement funds were paid for through taxes on
workers and employers

60. Congress
• During the Second New Deal, Roosevelt and Congress were making
moves to appeal to his new political coalition
• This included passing tax increases on the wealthy, inheritance
taxes on the deceased, and higher taxes on corporations
• Redistribution of the nation’s wealth
• How do you think Roosevelt’s target audience (farmers, Labor
unions, and African Americans) felt about these changes?

61. Work Relief
• After the Social Security Act, the National Labor
Relations Act (NLRA), or Wagner Act, of 1935
was the most important piece of legislation passed
• This was passed because the Supreme Court had
declared the NIRA unconstitutional
• Set up the National Labor Relations Board which
held secret elections in factories to figure out if
workers wanted to unionize or not
• Could also reinstate workers fired for union
membership and get companies to cease
antiunion activity

63. Labor Unions
• The Wagner Act led to a burst of labor union activity,
including a split between craft and industrial unions
• Craft Union- unions where all members have the same
skill
• The American Federation of Labor (AFL)
• Industrial Union- a union to which all workers in a
single industry belong, regardless of the job they
perform
• Factories are more likely to have workers from many
different skill sets
• The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

64. Labor Unions
• The CIO worked with industries that the
AFL had neglected
• Helped steel workers with the U.S. Steel
Corporation negotiate new contracts in
1937, and the entire steel industry by 1941
• Helped to organize automobile industry
workers, who historically had been
discouraged from unifying
• Also willing to unify women workers who
the AFL had simply ignored

65. Election of 1936
• Republican Candidate- Alfred
M. Landon
• Governor of Kansas
• Criticized much of Roosevelt’s
New Deal
• Even though he was from an
agricultural state, many
farmers gave their support to
Roosevelt and his New Deal
Roosevelt is endangering the
“American system of free
enterprise.” Social Security is
“unjust, unworkable, stupidly
drafted, and wastefully
financed!”

66. Election of 1936
• Democratic Candidate- Franklin D. Roosevelt
• The business community and newspapers did not
support Roosevelt nearly as much as they had in
1932
• However, his New Deal Coalition was in full swing
• Farmers, labor unions, retirees, and ethnic groups
supported Roosevelt
• Black American voters abandoned their allegiance
to the Republican Party that had existed since
Reconstruction

68. Roosevelt and the Supreme Court
• With a Democratic Congress and
Presidency, Roosevelt also wanted a
Democrat controlled Supreme Court
• He was still a little upset that they
declared the NIRA and AAA
unconstitutional
• 7 of the 9 justices had been
appointed by Republican presidents
• With public support on his side,
Roosevelt thought they would
support his “court packing” scheme

69. Roosevelt and the Supreme Court
• Roosevelt suggested that he should be
allowed to appoint an additional Supreme
Court justice for each member over the
age of 70
• This did not interfere with their constitutional
term limits
• This act would increase the size of the
court from 9 to 15
• Americans saw this as a threat to the
system of checks and balances and did not
support him

72. Recession
• By 1937, the economy had nearly recovered
to pre-stock market crash levels
• Employment had not recovered
• Roosevelt was advised to cut back spending
and attempt, once again, to balance the
budget
• The Federal Reserve tightened credit and the
WPA cut their number of employees in half
• This led to a national recession, or small
downturn in the business cycle
• The “Roosevelt Depression”

73. Recession
• Roosevelt blamed the recession
on businesses that did not
reinvest their profits in
production, as well as
monopolies that kept prices
high
• To help the nation out of it, the
president expanded work relief
programs and increased
military spending

74. Other New Deal Programs
• The Fair Labor Standards Act
• Abolished child labor
• Placed a ceiling on hours and a floor under wages
• The Second Agricultural Adjustment Act
• The first one had been declared unconstitutional
• Paid farmers to produce less, improve the soil, and control erosion
• Allocated food stamps to distribute farm surplus
• After Republicans gained seats in the 1938 midterm election,
Roosevelt announced he would stop proposing New Deal
programs

75. Chapter 28: The New Deal
Section 4: The Impact of the New Deal

76. The New Deal and Society
• Decreases in births and divorces
• Elderly Americans moved in with relatives
• Families rented rooms to boarders or moved to smaller homes
• Housewives took up laundry and sewing services
• Canning of food increased
• Competition for jobs between adults led to stronger child labor
laws
• This also led to an increase in high school and college attendance

77. The New Deal and Women
• Roles for many women changed during the
Great Depression, with some even
becoming the breadwinners of the family
• Working women, with the exception of farm
and domestic workers, saw an increase in
wages and better working conditions
• The Women’s Division of the WPA
employed around 400,000 women
• Some in white-collar jobs like teachers, nurses,
and librarians
• Most in canning and sewing projects

78. The New Deal and Minorities
• African Americans were the poorest
group in America during the Great
Depression but did not benefit equally
from New Deal programs
• The AAA gave money to rural
landowners in the South, but 80% of
black farmers owned no land
• In addition, with all of Roosevelt’s
New Deal programs, not one was
focused on civil rights

79. The New Deal and Minorities
• President Roosevelt did not challenge segregation,
and even allowed job discrimination based on race
• Within his agencies that would hire blacks, they
received lower wages and less desirable assignments
• Somehow, he still managed to appoint more
African Americans to government positions than
anyone before him
• Called the “Black Cabinet” even though most of them
held secondary positions
• Mary McLeod Bethune, friend of Eleanor Roosevelt,
headed the Negro Affairs Division of the NYA

80. The New Deal and Minorities
• During the Great Depression, there was an
increase in lynching and mob violence
against African Americans
• The Anti-Lynching Bill of 1934 attempted
to address this issue by holding local sheriffs
responsible for the frequent lynchings
• Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s support for this bill
was minimal, so it died before reaching the
house floor
• Many powerful Congressman were from the
South and they were more likely to support
white ethnic groups than blacks

81. Think-Pair-Share
• Franklin Roosevelt targeted the African American vote with his
New Deal Coalition. Why do you think he didn’t do more for them
when it came to equality?

82. The New Deal and Immigrants
• The Office of Education ran a radio series called
“Americans All…Immigrants All”
• This program celebrated the cultural strength of a
democracy made up of people from different
countries
• Immigrants tended to vote in groups and had the
power to swing elections
• They made up 40% of the white population at the time
• Democrats wanted this vote and eventually
Polish, Italian, and Irish descendants became a
part of the New Deal Coalition

83. Literature during the New Deal
• John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was
easily the most powerful novel of the era
• It tells the story of a family forced to leave
Oklahoma because of the Dust Bowl and
head West searching for a better life in
California
• Many Americans could relate to the
hardships the Joad family faced

84. Movies during the New Deal
• Some Americans wanted to escape their
reality, and movies such as Gone with the
Wind enabled them to do that
• “Talkies,” or films with sound, became
common during the 1930s as they allowed
85 million people to escape the realities of
the Great Depression for a few hours
• Usually about happy and successful people
• Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

85. Radio during the New Deal
• Programs like “Amos ‘n Andy” were
broadcast from coast to coast
• Daytime radio offered “soap operas”
• Why were they called “soap operas”
• There was music, comedy, and variety
shows, including the NBC Symphony
Orchestra which brought classical
music to millions
• “Little Orphan Annie” started as a comic
and became a popular radio program
for kids

86. The Federal Arts Program
• The WPA sponsored putting on plays,
writing guidebooks, collecting oral
histories from former slaves, immigrants,
and Native Americans
• Sent photographers around the nation to
document what America was like
• Gave funds to the Federal Arts Project
which beautified America with murals,
paintings, public sculptures, and art
classes

87. The Automobile
• This provided a physical escape from
everyday life during the Great Depression
• Even though gasoline was expensive,
people continued to drive
• The number of automobiles on the road
increased from 26 million in 1933 to 32
million in 1940
• This led to the need for more and better
roads, which were sponsored by
government work relief programs