Which of these two sources is the more useful to a historian studying the success of the New Deal?

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History Coursework

. Source A was written by someone who worked closely with Roosevelt.

Source B is a set of United States government statistics.

Which of these two sources is the more useful to a historian studying the success of the New Deal?

Source A is an extract from the memoirs of David Coyle, a friend and adviser of Roosevelt.

He was part of a group of young graduate students that formed the 'think-tank' that Roosevelt used for advice on the New Deal. It describes how Roosevelt's personality was his key to success; he was unafraid to try different tactics to defeat the depression and also how he was "willing to experiment" in national development and it was this courage to try anything to help others that persuaded people to vote for him.

Source B is a set of official statistics on unemployment and Federal Government spending in the United States. It is a primary source and shows government expenditure and the number of unemployed in the years from 1930 to 1940, and how spending increased marginally up until 1933 when Hoover was beaten in the election and Roosevelt gained office. This rise is due to Hoover's realisation that the depression would not sort itself out as he had hoped and so he began to invest money in a 'too-little, too-late' attempt at rebuilding the broken economy.

After Roosevelt's inauguration and final instatement in 1934, the outlay rose dramatically - from $4.6 billion to $6.7 billion. This corresponds with the start of the New Deal that Roosevelt began on the same year. The spending reached a peak in 1936 when a total of $8.2 billion was spent on regenerating the economy and the number of unemployed had fallen by 2.3 million people in just two years.

It fell again the following year, bringing the number of unemployed down to 7.7 million in 1937; thus the spending is cut the subsequent year as Roosevelt was advised not to take government funds

'into the red' for a further year considering the reduced number of unemployed. This proved to be a significant mistake as the figures for the year after the spending cut jumped by 2.7 million up to 10.4 million people unemployed. Roosevelt realised that continued spending was necessary and supplied even more money than 1936 to help bring the figures back down.

Source A is an extract from a book that was available publicly. The author (David Coyle) was a friend of Roosevelt's, therefore the picture that is portrayed is more likely to be positive rather than biased, which suggests a more intentional or extreme partiality. In this way, the author merely shows Roosevelt's action with 'rose-tinted glasses' owing to the large number of years having passed before the book being written.
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As David Coyle's job was as an advisor to Roosevelt, he is justifying his actions to a certain degree, but admits that Roosevelt did not succeed 100% of the time and the advice given by the team he was part of was not always perfect.

Source B is a set of statistics collected and recorded by the government in order to gauge the severity of unemployment and the amount of government money spent annually. They are accurate in the sense that they show (to the nearest tenth of a million) the number of registered unemployed in the ...

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