CHAPTER 21 The New Deal, 1932–1940
This chapter concentrates on the history of the New Deal era, examining legislation, protest movements, and the impact of the New
Deal on minorities. The chapter opens with the story of the Grand Coulee Dam—a magnificent piece of civil engineering, but one that
flooded hundreds of acres of Indian hunting and farming land for which the Indians were not compensated. Roosevelt’s New Deal
accomplished significant achievements, but also had many limitations. In his fireside chats, President Roosevelt spoke directly to
Americans in their homes and mobilized support for New Deal programs. The chapter explores the economic recovery programs of
the first New Deal and the subsequent wave of protests from men like Upton Sinclair, Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, and Dr.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction: The Columbia River Project
II. The First New Deal
A. FDR and the Election of 1932
1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) came from a privileged background but served as a symbol for the ordinary man.
B. The Coming of the New Deal
2. On the other side of the Atlantic, Roosevelt 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.
3. For advice, FDR relied heavily on a group of intellectuals and social workers who held key positions in his
administration.
a. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
4. The presence of these individuals reflected how Roosevelt drew on the reform traditions of the Progressive era.
C. The Banking Crisis
1. FDR spent much of 1933 trying to reassure the public.
3. Further measures also transformed the American financial system.
a. Glass-Steagall Act
D. The NRA
1. An unprecedented flurry of legislation during the first three months of Roosevelt’s administration was a period known as the
Hundred Days.
3. The NRA reflected how, even in its early days, the New Deal reshaped understandings of freedom.
a. Section 7a
4. Hugh S. Johnson set standards for production, prices, and wages in the textile, steel, mining, and auto industries.
E. Government Jobs
1. The Hundred Days also brought the government into providing relief to those in need.
F. Public-Works Projects
2. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
G. The New Deal and Agriculture
2. The AAA succeeded in significantly raising farm prices and incomes for large farmers.
a. The policy generally hurt small farms and tenant farmers.
4. The Resettlement Administration set up relief camps and new communities for the displaced.
H. The New Deal and Housing
1. Home ownership had become a mark of respectability, but the Depression devastated the American housing industry.
2. Hoover’s administration established a federally sponsored bank to issue home loans.
3. FDR moved energetically to protect homeowners from foreclosure and to stimulate new construction.
4. There were other important measures of Roosevelt’s first two years in office.
a. Twenty-First Amendment
I. The Court and the New Deal
1. In 1935, the Supreme Court began to invalidate key New Deal laws.
III. The Grassroots Revolt
A. Labor’s Great Upheaval
2. A cadre of militant labor leaders provided leadership to the labor upsurge.
4. Roosevelt’s election as president did much to rekindle hope among labor.
5. 1934 saw an explosion of strikes.
B. The Rise of the CIO
1. The labor upheaval posed a challenge to the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
3. The United Auto Workers (UAW) led a sit-down strike in 1936.
5. Union membership reached 9 million by 1940.
C. Labor and Politics
2. CIO leaders explained the Depression as the result of an imbalance between wealth and income.
D. Voices of Protest
1. Other popular movements of the mid-1930s also placed the question of economic justice on the political agenda.
E. Religion on the Radio
2. “Radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin preached against banks, capitalists, the shortcomings of the New Deal, and
eventually in favor of European fascism.
IV. The Second New Deal
A. The WPA and the Wagner Act
1. Spurred by the failure of his initial policies to pull the country out of the Depression and by the growing popular clamor
2. Under Harry Hopkins’s direction, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) changed the physical face of the United
States.
4. The Wagner Act
B. The American Welfare State
1. The centerpiece of the Second New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935.
a. The Social Security Act launched the American version of the welfare state.
C. The Social Security System
1. Roosevelt himself preferred to fund Social Security by taxes on employers and workers.
V. A Reckoning with Liberty
A. FDR and the Idea of Freedom
1. Roosevelt was a master of political communication and used his fireside chats to great effect.
2. FDR gave the term “liberalism” its modern meaning.
B. The Election of 1936
1. Fighting for the possession of “the ideal of freedom” emerged as the central issue of the presidential campaign of 1936.
C. The Court Fight
1. FDR proposed to change the face of the Supreme Court for political reasons.
3. The Court’s new willingness to accept the New Deal marked a permanent change in judicial policy.
D. The End of the Second New Deal
2. The year 1937 witnessed a sharp downturn of the economy.
VI. The Limits of Change
A. The New Deal and American Women
1. Eleanor Roosevelt transformed the role of First Lady.
B. The Southern Veto
1. The power of the Solid South helped to mold the New Deal welfare state into an entitlement for white Americans.
C. The Stigma of Welfare
1. Blacks became more dependent on welfare because they were excluded from eligibility for other programs.
D. The Indian New Deal
1. Under Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, the administration launched an Indian New Deal.
E. The New Deal and Mexican-Americans
1. For Mexican-Americans, the Depression was a wrenching experience.
F. Last Hired, First Fired
1. African-Americans were hit hardest by the Depression.
G. A New Deal for Blacks
2. The 1930s witnessed a historic shift in black voting patterns.
H. Federal Discrimination
1. Federal housing policy revealed the limits of New Deal freedom.
3. Not until the Great Society of the 1960s would those left out of New Deal programs win inclusion in the American
welfare state.
VII. A New Conception of America
A. The Heyday of American Communism
1. In the mid-1930s, the left enjoyed a shaping influence on the nation’s politics and culture.
B. Redefining the People
1. The Popular Front vision for American society was that the American way of life meant unionism and social citizenship,
not the unbridled pursuit of wealth.
2. The “common man,” Roosevelt proclaimed, embodied “the heart and soul of our country.”
C. Promoting Diversity
1. Popular Front culture presented a heroic but not uncritical picture of the country’s past.
D. Challenging the Color Line
1. Popular Front culture moved well beyond New Deal liberalism in condemning racism as incompatible with true
Americanism.
2. The communist-dominated International Labor Defense mobilized popular support for black defendants victimized by
E. Labor and Civil Liberties
1. Another central element of Popular Front public culture was its mobilization for civil liberties, especially labor’s right to
organize.
3. In 1939, Attorney General Frank Murphy established a Civil Liberties Unit in the Department of Justice.
F. The End of the New Deal
1. FDR was losing support from southern Democrats.
G. The New Deal in American History
1. Given the scope of the economic calamity it tried to counter, the New Deal seems in many ways quite limited.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• How did the New Deal reshape the lives of the American people?
• How did the New Deal create a new meaning for liberalism?
• Describe Roosevelt’s image and popularity during the 1930s. Why did Americans have such strong feelings about him?
• Thinking back to previous chapters, what programs of the New Deal were first suggested by earlier radical groups?
SUPPLEMENTAL WEB AND VISUAL RESOURCES
America from the Great Depression to World War II
Civilian Conservation Corps
Dorothea Lange Archive
Eleanor Roosevelt
FDR’s Fireside Chats
Federal Theater Project
Flint Sit-Down Strike
Huey Long
Scottsboro Boys
Social Security
WPA
SUPPLEMENTAL PRINT RESOURCES
Amenta, Edwin. When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Bernanke, Ben. Essays on the Great Depression. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Carpenter, Joel A. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Dickstein, Morris. Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009.
Ekbladh, David. “ ‘Mr. TVA’: Grass-Roots Development, David Lilienthal, and the Rise of the Tennessee Valley Authority as a Symbol for U.S.
Overseas Development, 1933–1973.” Diplomatic History 26, no. 3 (2002): 335–374.
Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Hapke, Laura. Daughters of the Great Depression: Women, Work, and Fiction in the American 1930s. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.
INTERACTIVE STUDENT ACTIVITIES
1. Photographic Analysis: The Images of Dorothea Lange
Show a series of images produced by photographer Dorothea Lange during the 1930s. Lange’s images can be accessed through the Oakland Mu-
seum at http://museumca.org/collection/dorothea-lange-archive.
Select images that focus on migrant farm life and the Dust Bowl. Ask the students a series of questions to generate a discussion about the impact
of the Depression on American families:
1. How do the people in the images appear to you?
2. What challenges do the people in the images appear to be dealing with?
3. Does the photographer focus more on women and children or men in her images?