The New Deal
The New Deal was a plan created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He created this plan before he became president. The reason he created this plan was that the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. Roosevelt wanted to help the country improve. The New Deal was a series of programs that the government started implementing as soon as Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1932.
The Purpose
Roosevelt saw the country suffering. He came from a very political family. He was also very logical. Roosevelt wanted to find a way to make sure the millions of people that were homeless would have new homes. He also wanted to make sure that children and all Americans would be taken care of. He felt that this was not happening. This prompted him to come up with the New Deal and run for President so he could implement his plan.
The First Hundred Days
Roosevelt took office in March 1933. This was one of the lowest points of the Depression. The majority of banks was closed and up to 15 million people was without jobs. When creating the New Deal he did not focus on one specific area or plan. He realized that in order to heal the country of such a devastating problem that a little experimentation would be necessary.
Herbert Hoover was the president before Roosevelt. Many people blamed the Depression on him. His way of handling the Depression was very different then what Roosevelt wanted to do. Hoover did not believe in giving direct federal assistance. He felt this would weaken the country by allowing people to stop trying to better themselves. Roosevelt, on the other hand, believed that it was the government’s duty to provide aid. If Americans could not take care of themselves, it was the government's job to do so.
Roosevelt focused on ideas that had never been tried because he felt there was nothing to lose. The main goals of the new deal seemed to be relief for the people that needed it the most. Once that had been accomplished, he wanted the overall nation to improve with his help.
Agencies of the New Deal
Many of the New Deal policies went into affect in the first one hundred days of Roosevelt's term. The first thing Roosevelt did was to declare a three¬day bank holiday in order to get things stable in the banking arena. From there many committees’ were created. The idea was to have each committee working on a problem area. This would allow the president to see which parts of the New Deal were working and which parts would need more work. Roosevelt began to work closely with his advisers and Congress to establish the committees he felt were necessary. One of the first agencies they created was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). FERA was there to assist needy citizens. This money was given directly to them. Previous plans for assistance were not enough to help the people. Instead, this plan was money that was given to them without them having to work for it. Many agencies were created to provide work for needy Americans, as well.
The Civilian Conservation Corps, The Public Works Administration, The Works Progress Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority were all agencies that were made to put millions of Americans to work again. All of these agencies were created between 1933 and 1935.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was responsible for offering 2.5 million jobs to young men around the country. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Civil Works Administration spent more than two billion dollars on different forms of work relief. Both the Civil Works Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration were led by Harry Hopkins.
The Home Owners Loan Corporation was created to help homeowners and lenders through the 1930's. However, the most important and successful agency was the Works Progress Administration. This agency was created in 1935. This was the third agency that was run by Harry Hopkins.
This agency was in business for eight years. During that time, the agency was responsible for building 2,500 hospitals, 5,900 schools, and 13,000 public play areas. It also provided funds for theater and cultural projects. This organization was given $11 billion by the mid 1940's. This money was all used to assist people that were in need of work. The Works Progress Administration was responsible for helping 3 million people get work.
Eventually, a second division of the Works Progress was created specifically for youths. This organization was known as the Works Progress Administration's National Youth Administration. The goal of this sector of the organization was to offer financial aid to high school students hoping to go to college. The group gave over two million students financial aid. An additional 3 million people that were not in school received financial aid so they could go to school.
These agencies were necessary to better the welfare of the American people. Many minorities benefited from these programs. African¬Americans and other men that were not given a chance were able to benefit the most from these programs. This made the country gain some hope and look towards the possible end to the Depression.
The FDIC
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created at this time. This was a very important move to comforting the nation. The goal of the FDIC was to protect people who put money in the bank. The FDIC was a special insurance that allows people to get some of their money back if a bank goes bankrupt or loses their money. During the Depression if a bank closed people lost all their money. This was why a number of people went homeless.
National Recovery and Agricultural Adjustment
Two other important agencies were the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The National Recovery Administration was put in place to regulate prices for products and wages for employees. This allowed workers to know they were involved in fair business. People no longer had to worry about other people coming along and offering to work for less.
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration was there to help farmers in business. The main goals were to help farmers remove any excess that they did not need. This would help them save a good deal of money. In addition to this, the organization wanted to help farmers increase their prices to something more suitable for them.
New Deal Opponents
Critics believed that the New Deal was not all it needed to be to get the country back in order. The biggest complaint was that there were still millions of people not getting any help. There were up to 7 million people still unemployed. People that were ill or disabled were not able to work with these programs. The same could be said about people that were too old or too young. Even the people that were employed made extremely low wages. This caused many critics to view the New Deal as only half of a success.
The Second Term
President Roosevelt was elected for a second term in 1936. The New Deal had been going well enough to see that Roosevelt would remain president. However, towards the second term of the presidency the New Deal began to fall apart. Factories and other workers began striking. These events made politicians nervous because they did not want the country to get any worse. Conservatives and Democrats began to fight against one another about their beliefs on the New Deal.
During this period, Congress was not as generous as they were the first term. The only things the Congress approved in the second term were aid for farmers and money meant to promote public housing. All other New Deal ideas were turned down.
The New Deal began to fail around 1937 when the country went back into a recession. People believed the president caused this recession when he cut much of the federal spending he had made earlier in the term. This period made people weary of the New Deal for the first time. The Great Depression continued through this period and did not actually begin to improve until around the 1940's.
The New Deal Successes
Despite the New Deal failing in some respects, it did improve many areas. Labor Unions and management relationships improved during the New Deal. Rights about bargaining and fairness for the laboring unions were created to ensure workers were treated the right way by the factories and companies.
The Fair Labor Standards Act brought minimum wage into affect. It also made sure that people would work a maximum amount of hours per job. Child labor laws were abolished at that time, as well.
The Social Security Act of 1935 was another positive part of the New Deal. This created old¬age pensions, unemployment insurance, and assistance for disabled people.
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