New Deal Dbq

As President Hoover was in office, as well as when he left office, banks were failing across the United States. President Roosevelt and Congress immediately passed legislation to solve the banking crisis. Roosevelt closed all the nation's banks so that the Federal Reserves could help strengthen them and restore confidence in the banking system. This resulted in the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, also known as the FDIC. This was used as a way for the government to guarantee savings deposits for all Americans.

Prior to his help, many were unemployed; unemployed wanderers, later labeled hobos, were shooed out of towns (Document 2). FDR put many acts into effect in order to provide jobs, including rural jobs, wildlife restoration jobs, and even jobs for teenagers. The CCC,or the Civilian Conservation Corps, proved to be a favorite of these labor acts. As recounted by Keith Hufford, former CCC member, “the CC has equipped me with the weapons necessary to cope with the innumerable problems that are bound to obstruct my path through life and that must be surmounted before success can be obtained” (Document6). Men and women of all demographics were given the opportunity to work through FDR’s labor acts.

The CCC was established in 1933 as the U.S. sank deeper and deeper into debt. The Civilian Conservation Corp contributed to the end of the Great Depression by creating jobs for the unemployed, educating those employed, and by supplying the workers families with money. The goal of FDR’s New Deal, which created the CCC, was to create jobs in the US and the CCC had a major role in that. Over its nine years of operation,

Roosevelt put this program together for unemployed men. These men were put to work in the woods in camps. This work for the Civilian Conservation Corps got the men out of trouble and out of the city slums. A good portion of the men came from the city and had never seen the the mountains or slept in the woods (Greenblatt 60). This kind of work exposed the men to new and different people from other parts of the country (The Civilian Conservation Corps: The History of the New Deal’s Famous Jobs Program).

Neil M. Maher wrote Nature’s New Deal to argue the idea that the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of the most important New Deal programs of the Progressive Era. The author explains how the programs popularity not only changed the physical landscape of the United States, but also the political landscape. The Civilian Conservation Corps began on the Massanuteen Mountains in the George Washington National Forest in 1933. The climbing of a pine tree, by John Ripley was the beginning of changing the natural landscape across America (Pg. 3).

Roosevelt’s New Deal reform brought about many possibilities but also minor limits. Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to combat The Great Depression began day after the inaugural address, Roosevelt declared a four day bank holiday that stopped citizens from withdrawing money from risky banks. Moreover, he later passed the Emergency Banking Act which reorganized banks and closed the ones that were disposable. The Great Depression was also the initiation of the National Industry Recovery Act. Although it was aimed to quickly reestablish “industrial freedom,” the Act became mired in controversy as large companies dominated the code-writing process (Give Me Liberty!

In the summer of 1935, as a member of the Supreme Court, the question of the constitutionality of the New Deal programs passed by the Roosevelt administration was brought into great concern. Starting with the Emergency Banking Relief Act on March 9, 1933, the New Deal programs were introduced to combat the effects of the hard-hitting Great Depression. The New Deal programs aimed at stabilizing the economy, providing employment opportunities, and bringing relief to the people. Immediately after the inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt the Emergency Banking Relief Act was passed as the first major legislation passed by the Roosevelt administration. During this time the economy took serious blows from the Great Depression causing people

The National Recovery Administration was a big part of the National Industrial Recovery Act. This allowed the President to put into effect industry-wide codes that should eliminate unfair trade practices, reduce unemployment, establish minimum wages and maximum hours, and guarantee the right of labour to bargain collectively in all fields of industry. The agency had 557 basic codes along with 208 supplementary codes that affect 22 million workers. The industries that subscribed to the NRA could display a blue eagle symbol showing their cooperativeness as you see in the picture to the left.

The U.S. had been in the Great Depression for roughly four years and the economy showed no signs of being revived. Once in office, Roosevelt started his New Deal Program designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform so the country could get back on its feet and not experience another depression. Relief legislation included the Emergency Banking Relief Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the Federal Emergency Relief Act. The National Industrial Recovery Act, the Glass-Steagall Banking Legislation, and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) comprised the recovery aspect. Finally, there was the reforms, which included the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the Wagener Act (also known as the National Labor Relations Act), and the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Aside from having to fix the banking system, Roosevelt also had to help the unemployed since so many Americans had been left without jobs. “To provide immediate economic relief to the unemployed, Roosevelt created programs such as the Public Works Administration (1933) and the Works Progress Administration (1935), which put jobless Americans to work constructing public works such as roads, schools, post offices, and hospitals”. “Roosevelt supplemented such relief programs with initiatives to help the economy recover, including the national Recovery Administration (1933), which set prices on a variety of consumer goods as well as workers wages make and the Federal Housing Administration (1934), which regulated interest rates and mortgage terms

Unemployment rates were high and poverty was starting to become widespread. FDR spoke about putting people to work, by hiring them directly by the government itself, treating the task of work as our culture would treat War, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects that stimulated the economy and encouraged the use of natural resources. (Doc 2) FDR passed 2 New Deal Legislations: Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); which employed youth in reforestation, road construction, and flood control projects; The Works Progress Administration(WPA) employed 8 million people on public works projects. (Doc 3) The WPA was very effective because it not only dealt with the issues of unemployment, but improved the deteriorating parts of the country. The CCC also functioned in the same way, providing millions of jobs for unemployed workers, while maintaining and exploring the

Despite a few critics, his efforts listed in the New Deal were appreciated, supported, and praised. The New Deal programs improved the lives of workers, children, minority groups, and other Americans during the Great Depression. The New Deal provided immediate help to those who needed it. For instance, much of the population was in poverty and unemployed; an unimaginable “millions of people were employed

Another agency that provided tremendous relief was the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC supplied over 2 million young, unmarried men with environmental jobs such as replanting forests, building trails, digging irrigation ditches, and fighting forest fires (Pearson 304). Similar to how the Tennessee Valley Authority supplied jobs to build the power plants and dams shown in Document 4. The men were given shelter, clothing, and food with a wage of about $30 per month. As Stanley Watson describes in Document 3, the CCC offered him wonderful opportunity and allowed him to continue his education and attend college despite his state of financial struggle.

Beginning with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, the New Deal was passed in the context of reformism and rationalism as the United States proceeded through the Great Depression. The American people looked to the President to instill reform policies to help direct the country out of an economic depression, and thus often sought to abandon the society that existed before the Great Depression. Roosevelt instituted New Deal policies to attempt to combat this period of economic decline, many of which were successful and appealed to the American people’s desires. President Roosevelt’s New Deal is often criticized for being excessively socialistic in nature, thus causing dramatic changes in the fundamental structure of the United

When the Great Depression first started under President Herbert Hoover, it severely damaged the economy. To respond to this major issue, he created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, though this change did not do enough to aid struggle Americans, many of whom lived in so-called Hoovervilles, or villages made of cardboard. Following the Election of 1932, New York Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, and almost immediately enacted what he called a “New Deal.” As a part of this, new government agencies like the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority were born and began to employ millions of Americans in various government jobs around the nation. FDR also introduced the Emergency Banking Act, which stopped runs on the bank, among other things.