Ammar Mahmood HISTORY COURSEWORK 9 September 2005
St. Benedict’s Final Draft Upper 5th Orchard
Q7. Study the following interpretations of the effects of the New Deal.
- The New Deal helped many Americans and by doing this it gave them self respect. It gave them confidence to lift the United States out of Depression.
- The New Deal wasted a lot of money. It made people dependent on the government and led to the government becoming too powerful. It did not solve America’s problems – the Second World War did that.
Which interpretation is best supported by the evidence in the sources and your own knowledge of American history? Explain your answer.
A7. Most historians disagree about the effective ness of the New Deal. Some say that it hardly did anything. Others maintain that without it, millions would have starved to death. Looking at some of the sources, we shall see who to side with.
The first interpretation of the New Deal is one with which many will part with. Even though almost everyone was hit by the Depression, the New Deal was designed to help only the ones that really needed it. It did not help the rich as much as it helped the poor and the needy. Source A, which is an excerpt from a speech Roosevelt made during the 1932 elections, tells us that even before he took the office, Roosevelt had plans to bring in a lot of changes in the way America was being run, especially how the Depression was being handled. Ironically this was also the speech where the phrase ‘New Deal’ was coined. I think this source would have to go with the first interpretation as it is highly unlikely for Roosevelt to ever condemn his own work. Also, as this was an election speech, people tend to speak more than they mean on these kinds of occasions. The author of Source B clearly supports this interpretation as well. He says that the New Deal saved millions of lives and without it the American people would never have been able to pull themselves out of the Depression. He/she also talks about how the numerous ‘alphabet agencies’ gave jobs and work to the 14 million unemployed by 1932. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave urgent food aid and basic needs products to the poor. The Tennessee Valley Authority worked across multiple states and got the dustbowl area under control by building dams and irrigation control. This source is also very reliable in my opinion as it was written in 1945 and by a professional historian. Source F is pro Roosevelt because it shows Roosevelt as a strong man who gets rid of all the rubbish that Herbert Hoover put them through. I think this cartoon reflects the feeling of the people who were tired of Hoover not doing anything to help his people and welcomed Roosevelt as a man of action. As it was published in a well known magazine, we can say that the message this cartoon portrays was widely accepted. Source H totally supports the New Deal and fits well with the first interpretation. However the authenticity of the letter is in question. The fact that it was used by the Democrats in the 1936 elections does not add up to its credibility. For all we know, this letter could have been written by someone working for the Democrats just to get votes – not that they needed them after winning the elections with 27 million votes! As explained in the letter, someone from one of the alphabet agencies had obviously come to them and got them a loan extension of some sort. This was a one off case. There was no way the government could have helped any more people than they did, even the ones that needed it more. Source I is taken from a popular song which was probably released after the 1936 elections. The song praises Roosevelt and the Democratic Party, which is called a ‘donkey’, not in disrespect, but rather for all the hard work they did for the American people, just like a donkey does. The fact that it was a popular song means that a lot of people shared the opinion expressed in this song and supported Roosevelt in trying to pull America out of the Depression. Source C is a rather defensively written text by Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labour, a person who was directly responsible for the New Deal. The text may be highly biased and might be unreliable but it does have some truth in it. The New Deal was never designed to help the rich and the aristocrats. It was aimed at the ordinary people on the streets, the shopkeeper and the farmer who were the ones in desperate need. The dislike of the rich is understandable in this position. They felt that the New Deal robbed them by taxing them so highly, only to help someone who ‘didn’t work hard enough’.
