Nation of Nations Concise 2/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff
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Federal investigator Lorena Hickok, traveling across America in search of the New Deal's impact on the lives of ordinary people, found hope, but not enough help. She found that Franklin Roosevelt was restoring confidence, and because of it, Americans were looking to Washington and talking about federal programs as never before. Her reports illustrate that Roosevelt's New Deal may not have brought recovery, but it provided relief to thousands, initiated lasting reforms, and made the federal government the active manager of economic and social well being.

The Early New Deal (1933-1935)

Central to this shift to the liberal state was the warmth, dynamism, and willingness to experiment of the new president, Franklin Roosevelt, augmented by his wife Eleanor's advocacy for the underdog. A spirit of activism emanated from Washington. Roosevelt's first "hundred days" in office were marked by an unprecedented flood of legislation: banking and securities acts to restore the credit structure and safeguard investment markets, relief measures to aid the dispossessed, the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide flood control and to siphon federal building funds into one of the poorest regions of the country.

Despite these measures of reform and relief, recovery was actually a more important theme in the early New Deal. Here Roosevelt combined new federal planning with associational techniques pioneered during the 1920s to try to revive the economy. The National Recovery Administration promoted industrial cooperation and self-regulation through codes of fair practices, while the Agricultural Adjustment Administration similarly relied on private cooperation to raise farm prices by reducing acreage under cultivation. But both were struck down by the Supreme Court.

A Second New Deal (1935-1936)

The limited economic recovery during the first New Deal bred political success in the 1934 off-year elections, when Democrats actually increased their majorities in Congress. New Deal critics, too, experienced success, as progress failed to keep pace with rising public expectations. Among the most potent voices of protest were Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long, Detroit radio priest Charles Coughlin, and Dr. Francis Townsend, an advocate of aid to the elderly. They helped, along with Congress and the public at large, to push Roosevelt and the New Deal farther to the left in 1935.

A second "hundred days" of legislation signaled a break from the earlier partnership with business. This "Second New Deal" stressed greater regulation of business, longer term relief and more sweeping reform. The Works Progress Administration substituted federal work relief for earlier give-away programs. The Social Security Act institutionalized a welfare state with a social insurance program for the aged, infirm, and dependent children. The National Labor Relations Act created a federal board to protect union rights to bargain with management, thereby giving a powerful boost to organized labor. Legislation regulating banking, holding companies, and new taxes strengthened federal control over the private sector.

In 1936 Roosevelt won reelection by one of the largest majorities in American history. Victory was built on a powerful coalition of the traditionally Democratic South, big city ethnics, and labor. It reflected the wide impact of the New Deal on the American people, particularly those at the middle and bottom of the economic ladder.

The New Deal and the American People

New Deal programs changed the lives of ordinary folk, none more dramatically than rural electrification. Minority groups found friendlier federal officals. One result was that African Americans turned their allegiances from the Republican party to the Democrats. Though local administration often meant that racial discrimination persisted in New Deal programs, black citizens still received significant benefits. On the other hand, Latino folk culture sometimes undercut federal efforts to help. Indian tribes enjoyed a much more sympathetic federal government. New Deal welfare agencies offered unprecedented opportunities for women in the helping professions.

Organized labor probably benefited most of all, despite a split between the American Federation of Labor and the Committee for Industrial Organization. A wave of sit-down and other strikes alienated Democrats and Republicans alike, but by the end of the decade independent unions were firmly a part of American industry.

Of all the New Deal programs, none touched more Americans than WPA arts programs, such as the Federal Writers Project, which produced popular state guides, and the Federal Arts Project, which brought scenes of ordinary American life to the people, in the form of murals in public buildings.

The End of the New Deal (1937-1940)

Soon after the Democratic triumph in 1936, the New Deal effectively ended. Some of the troubles of Roosevelt's second term were brought on by the president himself. In 1935 and 1936 a conservative Supreme Court had invalidated several New Deal measures. Roosevelt fought back by trying to "pack" the courts with new judges, but his court-packing plan, badly formulated and ineptly handled, succeeded only in angering the public and bolstering a conservative coalition of Republicans and rural Democrats. FDR's effort to balance the budget in 1937 led to a deep recession in 1938, and his vindictive attempt to unseat anti-New Deal Democrats ended in failure.

By 1938, the New Deal was largely over. Though Roosevelt and the New Deal never succeeded in achieving recovery, their legacy was a lasting one: the creation of mechanisms for economic stability to compensate for future swings in the economy, the modernization of the presidency, the establishment of a limited welfare state, the addition of new groups into the fold of democracy through "broker" politics, and the transformation of the Democratic party into a dominant force in American politics.

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