Eleanor Roosevelt And The Great Depression

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What other events combined with the economic crash to make the Depression so harsh?
Urban centers had turned into uninhabited areas. Grim shantytowns, bitterly dubbed "Hoovervilles," were made from crates and cartons. Meanwhile, a drought withered crops and made the Great Plains into badlands. "Dust Bowl" conditions obliterated three hundred million tons of topsoil, equal to 3,000 hundred-acre farms. Farm families moved west to find jobs in California. The Depression created hard times for all Americans. Failure and helplessness dropped like a shroud over the spirit of a starving nation; the suicide rates increased as people lost hope of employment in hopes of feeding their families. Farmers began to destroy their crops or let them rot in the …show more content…

Congress devoted five billion dollars for work relief in 1935, mainly for public projects like the construction of new airports, hospitals and schools under the Works Progress Administration. WPA 's purposes were to put unemployed white-collar workers to work and to promote the arts by hiring its starving artists. The government developed Federal Art, Music, and Writers ' Projects along with a Federal Theatre through WPA. This put Americans to work, painting public murals, composing and performing new music, while developing plays and the WPA travel guides for each state.

What role did Eleanor Roosevelt play in her husband’s program?
Eleanor Roosevelt was noted to have changed government policy by saying, "Franklin, surely you will not." President Roosevelt focused on what could be done; Eleanor Roosevelt focused on what should be done. People thought of Eleanor Roosevelt as a well-intentioned society idealist doomed to frustration by reality.She was a pragmatist, who understood and refused to shy from stark truths. The most important realization was blacks had been affected the greatest by the Great Depression.

How did the Depression effect …show more content…

How did it win acceptance?
Beginning in 1939, workers could retired at age 65 and get a payment every month ranging from $10-$85 based on their contributions to the fund. They started paying an unemployment tax to provide benefits to workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. “Social Security squared with America 's historical individualism because it was neither structured as a welfare program nor sold to the public as such. Instead, it was presented as a form of insurance plan that would pay benefits not according to need but based on the contributions a worker had paid into it.” The system would cover everyone no matter how old or young. Social Security would prove the most significant social welfare program in American history. It was called the New Deal 's supreme achievement.

How does Brinkley rate the New Deal?
It was created to regain American capitalism and to reinvigorate the nation 's faith in democracy. The New Deal gave social and economic guarantees to citizens which helped to redefine the relationship between them and the federal government. While it didn’t revive America from the Depression, it did help. It created a feeling of social justice and economic security among the

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