How far do you agree that the New Deal was a success up to 1941

How far do you agree that the New Deal was a success up to 1941?

I do agree that the Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was a success as it created jobs, saved banks from an upcoming crisis and restored confidence in millions of Americans, but I only agree that it was successful to a certain extent. Even though the New Deal has been praised for its ‘three R’s’ plan (Relief, Recovery and Reform) America was never able to get past the relief stage, although this never hindered plans and works of relief and recovery e.g. The Civilian Conservation Corps were initially a relief project which was supposed to give immediate help for jobless Americans. However, it lasted for eight years, until World War Two stopped the depression. Since the Second World War ended the depression the recovery part of the New Deal did not contribute in helping the country as it was intended too, but rather improving the state of the country. I think that the New deal was definitely successful when it focussed on Reform e.g. The blue eagle badge, the NIRA established the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which attempted to stabilize prices and wages through cooperative "code authorities" involving government, business, and labour. The NRA allowed business to create a multitude of regulations imposing the pricing and production standards for all sorts of goods and services. With these set prices there was sales distribution between different, competitive companies and initially, American would buy from blue eagle badge stores as it is presidentially approved.

One of the most important aspects of the New Deal was people’s attitudes towards it and the government. In many ways this aspect was a success as it had a generally positive effect and helped to restore faith in the government. Although the government used a lot of tax payer’s money, the majority of the money was spent on improving America’s economy and the American people’s lives. This allowed the public to have a positive attitude of the government as they were now being an active government (compared to Hoover’s ‘laissez-faire’ concept which meant the republicans thought would sort itself out), and using the money to improve the lives of the population. This is in comparison to the previous republican president who mainly believed in the concept of “laissez-faire” which meant that this government was not an active one and believed that the economy would sort itself out without any government aid. This took advantage of the ‘American dream’ (based on the idea of being an individual where you are responsible for your own success or failure with no government intervention). However, Roosevelt and his government worked on a basis of government intervention as they believed that a capitalist society would create problems and would not be able to solve the crisis.

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The New Deal had its critics which were negative to the New Deal, but this was foreseen and the Democrats were able to punch back at the critics e.g. Roosevelt telling a critic that if he is wrong then so are the majority of the American people who voted for him. These critics claimed that the New Deal divided the country, as these people believed that Roosevelt and his officials were acting like communists and undermining American Values. People blew out of proportion that the Democrats were acting like communists because the New Deal was similar to Russia’s economic plan which was based over several years as well. Another negative aspect of the New Deal is that it undermined local state governments by creating more federally operated organisations, hence, causing the smaller organisations to do badly. However, overall I believe that this was a positive aspect as it gave hope, belief and faith in their government to the American people.

Next is the economy and unemployment by looking at the state of the workers and the help that the government offered to try and solve this problem of unemployment. The New Deal focused a lot of its money on industrial workers for this sector to improve; it did not allow the government to have complete control over these industries. This resulted in big businesses still being immensely powerful in America despite being challenged by the American government. Roosevelt, with his organisations such as the NRA and the Wagner act, strengthened and encouraged labour unions to negotiate with the large American industrial giants. At first this worked, because of concepts such as the “blue eagle badge” which encouraged businesses to join this scheme and encouraged trade unions. This progress was shown as unions began to be recognised by large industrial giants who they then negotiated with. However, it did not bring enough change as their were still dominating industrial businesses controlling America, the employers were still very suspicious of trade unions and many strikes were broken up by violent measures which questioned the control that the government really had. Another problem was that large companies employed their own thugs or controlled local police forces, so that they could not be linked to any crime they had committed and were able to (violently) deal with those who questioned their control.

However, in many ways the New Deal was a failure in that it failed to fix any of the fundamental economic issues which are shown by America’s economy taking longer to recover than most of the European countries economies. Although the New Deal did improve the American peoples confidence in the economy this is shown by the increasing amount of investment by these people in business’ to keep them thriving. Still, this investment was only 70% of what these people were previously investing before the Wall Street Crash and so it didn’t completely solve or restore the American people’s confidence in the economy and their government. Another problem with the amount of government intervention was that people began to relyy on it too much. This is shown when Roosevelt reduced the New Deal’s budget in 1937 the country went back into recession. The problem of Unemployment in the U.S. was still apparent as there were still six million people unemployed in 1941. The USA’s entry into the Second World War was the end to America’s dilemma of unemployment. Overall I believe that this aspect was a success as it improved employment rates and conditions for workers however, like many of these aspects it did have some eventual problems because outsized companies still dominated industry and the economy never truly recovered.

The New Deal improved the situation and opportunities available for women and allowed women to get important jobs e.g. Eleanor Roosevelt, the president’s wife, who became a fundamental campaigner on social matters of the country. She inspired thousands of women to get jobs and work hard and fight for equality. Even though the government increased the opportunities available it still restricted women from their full possible potential and did not aim to specifically help them in its New Deal agencies which were predominantly aimed at men not women. Although the federal government tried to improve women’s lives and opportunities, local governments tried to avoid paying out social security payments to women by introducing special qualifications and conditions. As a result of this women’s lives weren’t very directly changed by the New Deal, but it was able to start women’s aspirations to get jobs.

The New Deal did target and improve black American’s lives although it did not fully solve the racial discrimination and segregation against them. The New Deal helped the black Americans housing problems, by clearing evicting slums and ‘Hoovervilles’ and creating new cheap houses for ex-residents. The Works Progress Administration and National Youth Administration, relief programs allocated ten percent of their budgets to black Americans as African-Americans at that time in total were approximately ten percent of the population the agencies operated separate all-black units with the same pay and conditions as white units

However, Roosevelt’s New Deal could have done more for African-Americans. Not all of the New Deal agencies were fair to black Americans in terms of social. In general although this aspect did still have problems with general discrimination against black people, they were still helped in terms of employment and the majority benefitted from the New Deal’s policies.

The final ethnic group to assess is the Native Americans. When Roosevelt became president in 1933 he appointed John Collier as commissioner of Indian affairs. John Collier, newly appointed commission of Indian affairs in India asked of Congress to make the Indian Emergency Conservation Program. This was a project which employed more than 85,000 Indians and paid them fairly for work. He also made sure that other New Deal agencies would hire Native America’s and not discriminate. In 1934 because of Collier the federal government grants were provided to local school districts, hospitals, and social welfare agencies to help Native Americans.

IN conclusion I think that the New Deal was a semi-success as it did have some negative aspects to it and did not entirely solve the crisis of that the U.S.A was suffering from. The New Deal proved that if the government could stand up and take charge of a country with great potential and restore it, it could be on it’s way to having another ‘Roaring’ decade. Even though It was the Second World war which ultimately ended the depression, it was because of the Democrats that America was able to prosper in the years prior to the war. At a deeper level, the New Deal reawakened in millions of Americans the faith in their democratic way of life which the great depression had gone far to extinguish

Books

GCSE modern world history by Ben Walsh

People in History no specific author

GCSE History by CGP

The USA 1917-45 by Doug and Susan Willoughby

Websites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/usa/successorfailurerev1.shtml

http://www.slideshare.net/ccarter333/was-the-new-deal-a-success-part-3/ (Slideshow of Walsh’s key terms of New Deal Success)