FDR’s ‘New Deal’

FDR’s ‘New Deal’

The Depression Sets In

• 1/4 of the American workforce was unemployed (15 million people)

• In rural areas in America prices for crops fell 40-60% and forced many farmers off their land

• Not only did the depression affect American’s but it spread to Europe and eventually led to a collapse in the global economy

Dust Bowl

• Series of Dust storms (1930-36) in the plains states resulting from sever drought and many years of over farming in the region

• These storms forced people to move west, to California, a migration captured in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

FDR’s Vision• Inaugurated in 1933-Franklin D.

Roosevelt campaigned on the premise that he would reform the economic situation in America.

• In is inauguration he asked for wide-sweeping executive power.

• In his ‘first hundred days’ he implemented many new reforms

The First Round of New Deal Programs

• 1933-aim was to provide short-term relief.

•These reforms were wide-sweeping and meant to reach all areas of society

•Created the AAA

•Economy Act cut government pay and pensions

AAA(Agricultural Adjustment Administration)

• Reduced the amount of crops grown through “domestic allotment”

• Limited the production of: Corn, Cotton, Hogs, Dairy, Rice, Tobacco, and wheat

• To supplement farmer’s income, the government paid farmers for the land they allowed to lay fallow

Constitutionality

• The AAA provided relief in the agricultural sector. It started a trend toward the federal governments’ involvement in the agricultural sector

• In 1936, concerns about the constitutionality of these programs

• The AAA was ruled as unconstitutional:

• "a statutory plan to regulate and control agricultural production, [is] a matter beyond the powers delegated to the federal government...”

• The AAA was replaced with other programs that were deemed constitutionally sound

The Second Round of New Deal Programs

• Took place in the period 1935–36

• Goal was to redistribute power away from the large corporations

• Giving more power to farmers, coal workers, and consumers

• The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)-created the Works progress Administration and employed many in low-skill labor

• The Second round of The New Deal also created the Social Security Act

• Social Security gave pensions, unemployment insurance, and befits to the disabled

WPAWorks Progress Administration

• Aim: To put people back to work

• How the WPA did this: aimed to employ workers who lost their jobs during the depression

• At it’s height the WPA employed over 3.3 million Americans

• Jobs included everything from building bridges and parks to taking photographs and collecting stories of the depression.

CCC• Workers, almost all men, lived in army style camps and worked

mostly outdoors.

• Employed over 3 million people

• The workers then sent back most of the wages earned to their families to support them.

• The CCC workers planted trees, cleared forests, and constructed roads.

Political Impact on Texas

• John Nance Garner “Cactus Jack” from Uvalde was Vice President during Roosevelt’s first term

•Sam Rayburn was the Speaker of the House longer than any other legislator

•Miram “Ma” Ferguson and W. Lee “Pappy”” O’Daniel were governors during the Depression

John Nance Garner

“Cactus Jack”

Sam Rayburn

Miriam “Ma”

Ferguson

W. Lee “Pappy”” O’Daniel

Economic Impact on Texas

•New Deal programs employed over 100,000 Texans, built and repaired bridges, dams, roads and parks.

Lasting Effects of The New Deal

•While programs like the CCC and AAA were cancelled during the depression or shortly after, others continue today in one form or another.

•Social Security benefits for retired people, welfare, and medicare benefits all continue today.