Roosevelt went on to meet the urgetn needs of the poor. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration provided the unemployed and homeless with money and shelter. $500 million was spent onsoup kitchens, blankets, employment schemes and nursery schools. Most states were not happy to dish out all this money to the poor, so the governemnt gave every stat $1 for every $3 spent. This scheme gave help to the desperate and desolate. This scheme was very successful. Unempolyment decreased, homeless people were relieved and it provided help for short and long term causes. The Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration also tackled unemployment by getting people back to work. The PWA, in the first New Deal, employed skilled workers to build public works of lasting value; it spent $7 billion employing them. It was successful as it provdide widespread employment, however this employment was only temporary. The WPA, in the second New Deal then extended work beyong building projects, even employing artists and actors. These programs provided much employment for the poor hit by the Depression.
The Civilian Conservation Corps is a prime example of short term employment provded by the new deal which lead to long term employment. Single men under 25 were given food, shelter and money in return for six months work. The scheme not only boosted America’s natural rescources, but laso employers greatly respected the scheme so were likely to hire men who had worked on it. 2.5 million men joined the scheme and it was a great success.
Roosevelt also focused on helping farmers and those who worked in agricultural. They had suffer greatly during the 1920’s, a time seen as one of prosperity, so the Depression hit them harder than most. Loans were given to farmers, to help them keep their farms as many couldn’t pay their mortgages and were getting evicted. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration dealt with overproduction and under pay and increased farmer’s profits. It did so by providing farmers with new machinery, paying them to produce less which caused the prices ot go up and reducing livestock. To some extent, this scheme was a great success as between 1933 and 1935 farmers’ income doubled and over-production ceased, but it also failed because the tenants and sharecroppers who lived on the land were evicted and their jobs were taken over by machinery. The Resettlement Administration also helped small holders and tenant farmers who hadn’t been helped by the AAA, by moving over 500,000 families to better quiality land and housing. The Farm Security Administration which replaced it in 1937 gave farmers loans and built camps to provide decent living conditions and work for migrant workers.
Roosevelt took the opportunity to improve the country’s infrastructure whilst impriving it’s unemployment rate at the same time.a large part of the natural landscape was conserved as well as many hospitals (35% of the countries), bridges and roads beign built. Also, the Tennessee Valley Authority was a huge success as it completley transforemd the aress, and also cut accorss state power for the first time (although the Supreme Court later ruled it unconsitutional). 35 dams were built, the quality of the soil improved a waterway system and power stations built. Thousands of jobs were created from this scheme as well as the land being conserved and improved health and welfare services provided. It gave a chance for an entire region to recover from the Depression; farming and manufacturing flourished, cheap electricity was provided and flooding problems solved. This was on of the New Deals most sucessful campaigns.
The New Deal was also very successful in establishing worker’s rights. The National Industrial Recovery Act was the first step in making employers recognise and respect trade unions. If employers signed upto this voluntary scheme, workers got better hours, better pay, adnb etter conditions. Child labour was also abolished. This scheme was very succesful as 2.5 million emplyers, with 22 million workers joined. However, many didn’t, so in the second New Deal Roosevelt introduced the Wagner Act which made it mandatory for employers to allow trade unions to operate in their companies and let htem negotiate for better pay and conditions. It was also illegal to sack an employee for being in a trade union. The Social Security Act provided state pensions for the elderly and widows and an unemployment insurance scheme. All these benefited America for many years.
However, not everyhitng in the New deal was a success. Although it helped the economy, it did not bring full economic recovery, which only came with Second World War. The level of production did not rise significantly until then either as only the demand from other countries and the armed forces drove up the demand for goods which got production going and people working. Unemployment was still high througout the 1930s. Also, when the government stopped feeding people money unemployment rose again, showing that people had become dependant on government money and were not sufficiently recovered enough to stand on their own two feet.
Minorities still suffered greatly, even after the New Deal. Although around 200,000 black americans gained benefits for the Civilian Conservation Corps and other new deal agencies, many others discriminated against blacks and gave then lower wages than whites and treated them worse. Roosevelt also appeased to his southern colleagues, by not passing laws to stop the lynching of blacks, as he feared they would no support him. Blacks also got the worst jobs and received less relief than whites.
Women didn’t do particularly well either. Most women did not get important posts, and even those who did were stil discrimnated against. For instance, Frances Perkins became the secretary of labour and was aey figure in making the second New Deal feasible. However she was attacked viciously as a Jew and a Soviet spy, and even her colleagues ignored her in social situations. Local governments also introduced requirements to receive social security payments, preventing a lot of women from receiving them and most New Deal schemes were aimed at male workers; only 8,000 women were involved in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Native Americans seemed to benefit form the New Deal, as the Indian Reorganisation Act and the Indian Reservation Act both aimed to improve their lives; they provdied money to help them buy and improve land, and also helped Native American keep and practice their laws and culture. However, they remained a poor and excluded section of society, ostracized by mainstream American culture, often denied work on the basis of their race and colour.
In conclusion, whether the New Deal was a success or not, depends on the definition of success. It did not eliminate unemployment completely, it did not eliminate poverty completely and it did not completley recover the economy. So by looking at that, one would say it was a failure. However, it did decreases unemployment by a third, which meant getting 4 million people into jobs who weren’t in them before. It also gave people the hope confidence and determination to work and succeed which was so quickly taken away by the Wall Street crash. Although the economy did not completley recover, it was much improved. All these things would have happened eventually, wihtout the New Deal, but they definiteley wouldn’t happened as quickly or efficiently. Roosevelt reformed America and its politics in a way that made the country a much better place than it had been in the hands of Hoover. The New Deal was a success, not because it completley eliminated all of America’s problems and ended the Depression, because it didn’t; but because it changed the way Americans think forever, reformed the system to make it better not just for the generation at the mtime, but for many generations after that and generally improved the country for the better. Success is not all about unemployment figures and the New Deal is a prime example of that.
