On Many 12th 1933 the Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed to try and solve the problems of farmers. The scheme took a long term views and set quotas to reduce farm production so that prices would eventually increase. Another important act that was introduced was the National Industry Recovery Act that set up two organisations: The PWA – Public Works Administration and the NRA – National Recovery act. The PWA used government money to create millions of jobs building roads, bridges, and dams, schools and airports that would be important once the USA had recovered. The NRA improved working conditions and banned child labour. It also set up a minimum wage and set out industry’s level of production. This helped the economy because it meant employees had money to spend. The scheme was voluntary and those companies who joined used the Blue Eagle as a symbol of government approval. More than 2 million employers joined the scheme.
Another great success for the government was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). This organisation set about improving the huge Tennessee Valley dustbowl. They did this by building damns along the river, creating jobs, electricity and making it possible to irrigate the surrounding area, The TVA revitalised an area hard hit by depression.
- Explain why Roosevelt introduced the New Deal
Roosevelt came into power in America during the depression, as a president he felt inclined to help America as his people were suffering and he did not want that. The biggest problem at this time was unemployment; at least 12 million citizens were out of work when Roosevelt came to power. As there was no unemployment pay, people had to queue up for soup, bread and sometimes the queues were 10, 000 men long. As a result of the lack of money less people were buying clothes so many textile workers lost their jobs whilst their companies went bust. Other companies began overproducing and people could not afford the products and so the companies kept going bankrupt – a vicious circle. These problems led to people losing their faith in industries.
Mortgages and repayments could not be met, so people were moving to shantytowns. Even people who once had expensive cars etc now had nothing, and were even unable to pay for bus fare. Farmers suffered the most. Thousands of families who farmed had to sell their land, as it became uneconomical to grow crops. Millions of farmers went to live in the big cities looking for work. America’s foreign trade value dropped from $9 billion to $3 billion whilst other countries retaliated against US import tariffs. One result of this meant that share values changed dramatically, for example, the shares of union cigar fell from $113 each to just $4.
Many people blamed the depression on Hoover as he and the government believed they should not interfere in the economy or with companies’ etc. When Roosevelt won the presidential election, he promised the “New Deal” and which was to bring into practice the “3r’s” – relief, recovery and reform. He wanted to restore confidence in the nation. There are many reasons why he introduced the New Deal. Before he became president, he was mayor of New York and he was spending huge sums of public money on getting people back to work – presidency meant he could do it nation wide. Before he became president he promised to sort out the rest of America like he had done to New York, once he was president he had to keep his word – which was a major reason he introduced the new deal. Also, he believed in an “active government” to solve the problems of America and the New Deal meant that an active government would be possible. Of course, every president wants to be popular to improve his chances of being elected in the future – if the New Deal was a success, he would not only be hugely popular but he would also be a legendary president – the one man who could pull America out of the depression.
- “The New Deal was not a complete success”. Explain how far you agree with this statement.
America elected Roosevelt to be the President in the hope that he would get them away from the depression that was badly affecting everyone at the time. He introduced the New Deal to try and achieve this. The New Deal included many measures to try and make America prosperous again. His main aims were to reduce unemployment, protect people’s savings, homes and livelihoods, to provide relief for the ill, elderly and unemployed and to get American industry and agriculture running once again. To do this he introduced the Emergency Banking Act and the Securities Exchange Commission, The Federal Emergency Relief Administration, The Civilian Conservation Corps, The Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the National Industrial Recovery Act, The Public Works Administration and the National Recovery Administration. These were known as alphabet agencies. Some people believed they were successful but others believed that they failed.
There is a lot of evidence that suggests the New Deal was successful. Unemployment fell from 25% to 14% when the C.C.C employed many single men who restored forests beaches and parks, in turn these young men received training which helped them to get jobs in later life. Not only were men helped by the alphabet agencies, but women were too – they were finally able to work in important positions within society. Also, black women were helped by the New Deal – one black woman even headed the National Youth Administration. This was unheard of before the New Deal.
There were no corruption scandals during the New Deal because Frances Perkins (the secretary of labour) removed 59 corrupt officials from the labour department. This restored the American’s faith in their government.
On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence that suggests the New Deal was not successful. Although unemployment rates had dropped, there were still six million unemployed that found it impossible to find jobs until the USA entered the war – only then was an end put to unemployment. Also, even though black Americans were now able to receive benefits, there were no laws against the lynching of black Americans so they either got no work or received worse wages/treatment than white people did. Most of the New Deal programmes were aimed to help male manual workers (only 8000 women were involved in the Civilian Conservation Corps.)
The US economy took longer to recover than most European countries which meant that confidence in Americans was low, in the 1930’s they only spent and invested 75% of what they had before the depression. Finally, when Roosevelt cut the New Deal budget in 1937 the country went straight back into recession.
In conclusion, I agree with the statement to a certain extent however, the amount of jobs the New Deal created, and the stability it brought the banking system is credible. Therefore I agree with the statement about 75%.
