History essay "The United States"

“avalanche of mail”.       Source E shows figures from the United States government. This is a primary source as the figures were made at the time of the events. The figures show the percentage of unemployed from 1929 to 1933. During 1933 Roosevelt said he was going to get the American economy started and introduce the new deal. Unemployment rises due to depression. In 1934 unemployment starts to drop due to the new deal, but in 1938 Roosevelt stopped the money coming into businesses causing unemployment to rise again. Eventually Roosevelt realised this and put the money back in, unemployment the decreased.        Source F is a leaflet printed and circulated by an American Company, around 1936. It is a view of the new deal’s impact on the USA and is an unreliable source as the figures shown are far from accurate.         Source E is useful to historians because it shows you just how badly the Wall Street crash effected unemployment in Britain, it shows how much increase happened over the years and what exactly had an impact on the percentage. It also shows that the new deal did help unemployment a lot and worked and could mean the new deal can be supported; this is a positive and reliable source.          Source F in my opinion is not a very reliable source and is negative. It is mocking and making fun of the new deal, many Americans would have loved to work but 60 000 000 was not allowed as companies believed in ‘Laissez Faire’ and objected to the support from trade unions in attempt to boost their wages, they also opposed to the codes of fair competition.      Both sources are useful for different reasons; source E for showing how the new deal helped unemployment and source F for showing not everyone liked the new deal.       In my opinion Roosevelt was bold but could have been bolder. To be bold is to be brave, courageous and confident. By looking at source A you know straight away Roosevelt was a bold person as it describes him as having “an air of confidence” and he helped the “ordinary people” who were perhaps not as brave.The quote in source B “he told people what he was going to do and he did it” gives us evidence he had the ability and confidence a president should have. Source D is not very reliable as it is only a photograph and does not have any information, however it does show Roosevelt being brave and meeting new people. Source F is propaganda, and shows people thought Roosevelt was too bold and was left the only person working because of his interfering.Source G is a pamphlet by the American Liberty league and was formed in 1934 by a group of businessmen and politicians, it claims that the new is “begging the unfit to be more unfit” and that nothing could threaten the American people as seriously as the new deal.Source H gives us a view of prosperity in the USA. It is a poster which is part of a campaign financed by big companies in the USA in 1936. It suggests people are better off without Roosevelt, they thought the world’s highest standard of living was “there’s no way like the American way”.      From my own knowledge I know that many people felt let down by the new deal. Yes the number of unemployment did decrease but it was still a high percentage as shown in source E, and lives of black people and farm workers who lived in areas affected by the ‘dust bowl’ were still very unpleasant and hard.     Huey long was one of the three people who opposed strongly to the new deal and Roosevelt, he was perhaps Roosevelt’s rival, he became popular by bribing the Americans saying if they elected him to be president he would vow to give each of them between $500 and $4000 from $3 000 000 worth of his personal fortunes, (on average an American would get $2000 a year!).       In my opinion Roosevelt did work hard but he could have worked harder to improve the lives of everyone, most importantly black people and farm workers. He was bold, but not bold enough. Nonetheless people should be grateful and give him gratitude for the help and support he did give them.