The Federal Emergency Relief Administration purpose was to help the poor. $500 million was spent on soup kitchens, blankets, employment schemes and nursery schools.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) purpose was for the unemployed young men. They would receive benefits for 6 months and if they still couldn’t find a job, they would receive more benefits until they found a job. The jobs that the CCC provided were council work. 2.5 million helped with this scheme.
The Agricultural Adjustment (AAA) purpose was to help farmers. They helped farmers modernise their machinery but this mean a loss of jobs for some.
The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) set up two organisations.
The Public Works Administration (PWA), which funded schools, roads, dams, bridges and airports. These would be useful in future as it would provide hundreds of jobs for the unemployed.
The National Recovery Administration (NRA), which improved working conditions in the industry and banned child labour. This organisation provided fair wages giving workers money to spend without wasting it. 2 million employers joined this scheme.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) put dams on the Tennessee Valley because in the wet season it would flood and in the dry season it would only produce very little. Electricity was also at a low so by putting dams on provided electricity to work because the Tennessee Valley was no longer producing too much or too little water. By building the dams it also provided many people with jobs.
With all these changes the faith and trust was brought back to America.
To sum up this is what happened in the hundred days.
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4th March Roosevelt began his plan of action
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5th March He closed the banks
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9th March Banks were re-opened
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12th March Fireside Chat’s began
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31st March CCC set up
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12th May AAA passed
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18th May TVA creates
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18th June NIRA passed
Now on to the Second deal.
In May 1935 FDR was criticized by his decisions. Senator Huey
Long said he was doing very little, others too much. USA was recovering less than Europe from the depression and Henry Ford even had to cut wages because of this.
Tuesday, 14th May 1935 FDR met up with a group of senators he made more laws and these were called the Second New Deal. Some of the laws were the Wagner Act, which made trade unions in thee work place. The Social Security Act provided pensions. The Works Progress Administration (WOA) later named Works Project Administration brought together all the agencies that created jobs. If the others had too much on their hand then this agency would sort some of the unemployed out. The Resettlement Administration (RA) helped those who weren’t helped by AAA but the Farm Security Administration (FSA) took over this agency in 1937.This provided Migrant workers with camps and gave loans to farmers.
Regardless of FDR’s measures black Americans and poor farmers were still struggling.
One person in particular who was against FDR was Huey Long. He gained power, sometimes illegally by intimidation and bribery. Although he supported FDR’s views at first he thought the second deal was making things to complex and not enough to help Americans. He decided to put forward his own scheme called Share our Wealth. All personal fortuned where reduced to $3 million maximum and maximum income would be $1 million a year. Gov taxes where to be shared, pensioners to everyone over 60 including free washing machines and radios. FDR thought he was one of the two men most dangerous in USA until he was assassinated in 1935.
Another man who criticized FDR’s views was Dr. Francis Townsend of the Townsend Club. His deals where for pension to be $200 per month for people over 60 baring in mind that it was spent within the month. A catholic priest attacked FDR on national radio.
On the other hand the New Deal was doing too much. Some reasons were that it was too complicated and too many rules and regulations where in order and everyone was getting confused. Gov shouldn’t support trade union, the market should do so. TVA put private companies under pressure. FDR was behaving like a dictator. The wealthy worked hard for the money they receive but the poor receive money for not working. The wealthy thought this was very unfair.
The opposition played very dirty and made up allegations that he had a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) rather than polio. But this didn’t change the effect of the vote in the 1936 election. He won by 27 million votes, which were the highest any US president received.
Even though he won the election he still had to win over the Supreme Court. They could over line laws that had been previously passed if they were against the terms of constitution. The Supreme Court found the strange case of the NRA agency of having diseased chickens on sale, filed false sale claims, exploited workers and threatened Gov Inspectors.
In 1937 prosperity seemed to be returning and FDR decided to cut the New Deal budget because he thought that USA was getting back on track. This lost peoples hope and prosperity seems much further away than FDR had expected.
Now that I have explained about the background of the New deal I will now explain my reasoning of whether the New Deal was a success.
I think that the new deal was a success in many ways. It restored faith in the American People. I think Americans faith was restored because they had a huge hit of depression after the wall street crash and when Hoover did nothing too help America out of this rut then the whole US were in shock but when FDR made promises that he was going to help, Americans thought that they had nothing to loose and trusted him which gained trust back because he made several changes such as checking banks and making new regulations to stop the wall street crash happen again. FDR succeeded in regaining Americans confidence.
The New Deal was also a success because the NRA measures strengthened labour unions. This meant that Americans could trust being a work because they wouldn’t get unfair dismissal or under paid wages. This was especially important for Americans because USA was in depression and American citizens needed all the help with money they could get.
The New Deal also created new jobs. Americans were able to raise money of their own and help get themselves back on the road to riches. The American Banking system was trusted again therefore people deposited money into banks and the stock market rises again. Provided USA with precious assets such as schools, roads and power stations. Not only did these benefit the new generations to come but more jobs where created to keep these assets running.
200,000 black Americans gained benefits from CCC and other agencies meaning that everyone got equal rights.
Women achieved high-flying jobs, equal to men. Mary Macleod Bethune, a black American headed the National Youth Administration. This showed America that racism was not an issue here. Francais Perkins, secretary of labour removed 59 corrupt officials. This meant that she kept Americans safe from ‘crooks’.
The Indian Reorganisation Act 1934 provided money to help Native Americans but and improve land and preserve and practise their traditions, laws and culture.
All those factors benefited people but what where the failures of these views?
The union became suspicious of employers and got very uneasy. Strikes were broken up by violence in the 1930’s and companies such as Ford, Republic steel and Chrysler employed their own mobs to ‘deal’ with these strikers.
The US took longer in recovery than Europe causing them to loose trade of ammunitions and products. Not all Americans trusted the banks and were still wary off them and 6 million people were unemployed when war broke out in 1941.
The Agencies were sometimes racist and refused benefits to Black Americans and FDR was unable to pass the law against lynching. Which left some states not supporting him.
The women were refused benefit because local Govs were making new ‘special qualifications and conditions’. Francis Perkins was attacked because she was Jewish and a soviet spy which caused many people to ignore her and not listen to her views.
Native American remained poor even though the Indian Reorganisation Act provided money.
In conclusion I have briefly explained the background of the New Deal and discussed the successes and failures of it. I believe that in some aspects the New deal was a success because it regained trust (which Hoover provided none of), helped workers who were unemployed and provided benefits, Helped Black Americans receive equal rights as whites, Women treated equally as men and basically got Americans out of depression gradually from 1932 till 1937.
Although I do believe that there were many failures of the New Deal because many oppositions argued against him faulting everything and anything, violence was caused because of disagreements, 6 million unemployed because of the war, racist and sexism still occurred and the matter of FDR cutting the New Deal budget.
I think that although there were many successes and failures in the New deal plans, FDR certainly helped the USA for 5 years after Hoover did nothing to ensure Americas trust. I also think that the big problem that brought FDR to failure was the cut in the New deals budget. People’s faiths were broken and it was such a big downfall especially with the war just around the corner.
So to answer the question ‘How successful was the New Deal in solving the problems of the depression in the USA?’, I would say it was successful up to the point where FDR cut the New Deal Budget and when war broke out soon after.
