The New Deal and American Society, 1933–1941 (Seminar Studies) [1 ed.] 0367489058, 9780367489052

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The New Deal and American Society, 1933–1941

The New Deal and American Society, 1933–1941 explores what some have labeled the third American revolution, in one concise and accessible volume. This book examines the emergence of modern America, beginning with the 100 Days legislation in 1933 through to the second New Deal era that began in 1935. This revolutionary period introduced sweeping social and economic legislation designed to provide the American people with a sense of hope while at the same time creating regulations designed to safeguard against future depressions. It was not without critics or failures, but even these proved significant in the ongoing discussions concerning the idea of federal power, social inclusion, and civil rights. Uncertainties concerning aggressive, nationalistic states like Italy, Germany, and Japan shifted the focus of FDR’s administration, but the events of World War II solidified the ideas and policies begun during the 1930s, especially as they related to the welfare state. The legacy of the New Deal would resonate well into the current century through programs like Social Security, unemployment compensation, workers’ rights, and the belief that the federal government is responsible for the economic well-being of its citizenry. The volume includes many primary documents to help situate students and bring this era to life. The text will be of interest to students of American history, economic and social history, and, more broadly, courses that engage social change and economic upheaval. Kenneth J. Bindas is Professor of History at Kent State University, USA. His books include Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society, 1930–1941 (2017) and The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Construction of the Virginia Kendall Reserve, 1933–1939 (2013).

Seminar Studies

Introduction to the series History is the narrative constructed by historians from traces left by the past. Historical enquiry is often driven by contemporary issues and, in consequence, historical narratives are constantly reconsidered, reconstructed and reshaped. The fact that different historians have different perspectives on issues means that there is often controversy and no universally agreed version of past events. Seminar Studies was designed to bridge the gap between current research and debate, and the broad, popular general surveys that often date rapidly. The volumes in the series are written by historians who are not only familiar with the latest research and current debates concerning their topic, but who have themselves contributed to our understanding of the subject. The books are intended to provide the reader with a clear introduction to a major topic in history. They provide both a narrative of events and a critical analysis of contemporary interpretations. They include the kinds of tools generally omitted from specialist monographs: a chronology of events, a glossary of terms and brief biographies of ‘who’s who’. They also include bibliographical essays in order to guide students to the literature on various aspects of the subject. Students and teachers alike will find that the selection of documents will stimulate the discussion and offer insight into the raw materials used by historians in their attempt to understand the past. Clive Emsley and Gordon Martel Series Editors

The New Deal and American Society, 1933–1941

Kenneth J. Bindas

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Kenneth J. Bindas The right of Kenneth J. Bindas to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bindas, Kenneth J., author. Title: The New Deal and American society, 1933-1941 / Kenneth J. Bindas. Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022. | Series: Seminar studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021021903 (print) | LCCN 2021021904 (ebook) | ISBN 9781003043430 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367489052 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003043430 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: New Deal, 1933-1939. | United States--Economic policy--1933-1945. | United States--Politics and government--1933-1945. | United States--Social conditions--1933-1945. | United States--History--1933-1945. Classification: LCC E806 .B4965 2022 (print) | LCC E806 (ebook) | DDC 973.917--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021903 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021904 ISBN: 978-0-367-48906-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-48905-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-04343-0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430 Typeset in Sabon by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

Chronology Who’s who

vii xiii

PART I

The New Deal

1

1

3

The New Era and the fate of the nation, 1929–33 Boom years 3 The New Era 5 The Crash 7 Stay the course 9 Action 10 Bonus March 12 Assessment 14 1932 election 16

2

FDR’s 100 Days and the transformation of America, 1933–5

19

New liberalism 19 100 Days 22 Civilian Conservation Corps 24 Three Acts—AAA, FERA, and NIRA 27 Power and control 35 Assessment 36 3

The second New Deal and the rise of the welfare state, 1935–9 Challenges 40 Welfare state 42 Works Progress Administration and work relief 44 National Youth Administration 47

40

vi

Contents Social security 50 Labor 52 Rural America 56 Assessment 58

4

Challenges to the New Deal and World War II

61

The future is bright 62 Roosevelt recession 64 Court packing and the House Un-American Activities Committee 65 Response 68 World crises and the New Deal 69 Election of 1940 71 Assessment 76 5

Memory, popular culture, and the New Deal

79

Memory 79 American culture 81 Songs of America 82 Radio 86 Hollywood 88 Historians 93 Assessment 95 PART II

Documents

99

Glossary

133

Guide to further reading

135

Index

140

Chronology

1928 November

Herbert Hoover elected president.

1929 March June

October 24 and 29

Hoover inaugurated. Agricultural Marketing Act, 1929—created Federal Farm Board designed to aid farmers hurt by declining sales in the 1920s. Black Thursday/Black Tuesday—stock market begins its rapid decline, losing over thirty billion dollars. The decline would last through November, hitting bottom by the end of November.

1930 October

June

December

Emergency Committee for Employment—Hoover’s first attempt to mollify the effects of the Crash. Later renamed the President’s Organization on Unemployment and Relief. Smoot-Hawley Tariff—raised import taxes by nearly forty percent to protect American manufacturers and help the recovery. Bank of the United States, the fourth largest in New York City, closes; 400,000 depositors lose everything, signaling trouble with America’s banking industry.

1931 —

Bank failures continue as 2,293 banks close their doors losing over three hundred and ninety million dollars.

viii

Chronology

1932 January

June–July

November

Reconstruction Finance Act—creates the Reconstruction Finance Corporation designed to distribute loans to business and industry to stimulate the economy. Bonus March—nearly twenty thousand World War I veterans and their families lobby Congress to pass the Bonus Bill. Its failure ultimately led to a confrontation with federal troops and the destruction of their Hooverville at Anacostia Flats, Maryland. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) elected president in a landslide.

1933 March March–June

March September

November– March

November

December

FDR inaugurated. 100 Days legislation which included Emergency Banking Act, Glass-Steagall Act, Emergency Conservation Work Act (created the CCC), Agricultural Adjustment Act, Federal Emergency Relief Act, National Industrial Recovery Act (creates the NRA & PWA), and the Tennessee Valley Act begin the New Deal. Frances Perkins appointed as Secretary of Labor making her the first woman to hold a cabinet position. Dr. Francis Townsend introduces his Old Age Pension Plan. In November he will form the National Union for Social Justice to advocate for his program. Civil Works Administration removed over four million people from FERA rolls and employed them in more than 180,000 work projects throughout the nation at a cost of $2 million. A massive dust storm crosses the country from the plains to the Atlantic seaboard. The environmental crisis would continue into the following year as another massive storm blew nearly 300 million tons of topsoil away. 21st Amendment—repeal of the 18th Amendment and ended federal enforcement of Prohibition.

1934 April June

June

The Nye Committee in the House begins investigating munition and other industry’s profiteering in World War I. Securities and Exchange Act -regulated and placed safeguards concerning public financial reports. Created the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Indian Reorganization Act passes Congress.

Chronology August November

ix

Liberty League founded dedicated to opposing FDR and the New Deal. Upton Sinclair loses his run for governor of California under the End Poverty in California platform.

1935 April May May May

June July

August

August

August September October

—

Emergency Relief Act passed, creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Supreme Court rules that the NRA was unconstitutional in the Schechter v. US, or the “Sick Chicken Case.” Resettlement Administration (RA) created to help relocate Americans onto better land and communities. Rural Electrification Administration (REA)—became Rural Electrification Act in 1936 which directed the agency to make long-term loans to help electrify rural areas. National Youth Administration created within the WPA to aid high school and college-level students. Wagner Act passed. Establishes the National Labor Relations Board to ensure workers have the right to organize as a union if they choose. Economic Security Act, also called the Social Security Act, along with the Revenue Act, which placed a tax on wealth was passed by Congress. Banking Act—increased the power of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve at the expense of the regional banks. First Neutrality Act which imposed an immediate arms embargo and travel ban against countries engaged in war. Senator Huey Long, perhaps a challenger to FDR in 1936, is assassinated in his home state of Louisiana. John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers begins the break from the American Federation of Labor to organize industrial unions under the banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. John Dewey’s Liberalism and Social Action published.

1936 January February

The United States v. Butler—Supreme Court ruling declaring the AAA unconstitutional. Nye Committee hearings released—detailed how the munitions industry had broken or evaded laws, used bribery to gain contracts, fixed prices, reaped tremendous profit.

x

Chronology

February November December

Second Neutrality Act forbids loans to any nation involved in aggressive or war-like actions. FDR re-elected president. Flint sit-down strike—General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan engage in a sit-down strike for the right to collective bargain under the Wagner Act. It led to the Battle of the Running Bulls, where twenty-eight were injured, and widespread sympathy strikes throughout the country. It ended on February 11, 1937, when GM recognized the United Auto Workers as the bargaining agent for its workers. Other industries followed.

1937 January February April

May June July September —

Third Neutrality Act forbid the sale of arms to countries engaged in civil war. FDR announces his desire to expand the Supreme Court creating an uproar. NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp—The court narrowly ruled in favor of the NLRB saying the Federal government has the right to regulate intrastate trade when said industry is organized on a national level. Further, the Court ruled that under the law workers had the right to organize and bargain and the NLRB’s role was to make certain that those advocating for these rights not face unwarranted harassment or loss of position. Guffey-Vinson Act increased regulatory powers over the coal industry. FDR’s recession begins. Farm Tenant Act passed to provide low-interest loans to farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers. Housing Act created the Housing Authority to study and build low-income urban housing. Empowered by the Wagner Act and the NLRB, 4,740 work stoppages occur during the year.

1938 May

June

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) under the leadership of Texas Congressman Martin Dies is formed to investigate charges of leftist influence within the New Deal. Fair Labor Standards Act passed which forbade child labor, set a minimum wage, and restricted the maximum hours one could work without earning overtime pay.

Chronology September October

xi

Farm Security Administration created to help farmers and rural poverty. FDR delivers a speech in Chicago calling for nations to quarantine belligerent nations, indirectly aimed at Germany and Italy, and Japan.

1939 February

September

November

NLRB v. Fansteel—The Supreme Court rules that the NLRB did not have the authority to force the company to rehire the workers. Germany invades Poland officially beginning World War II. The Soviet Union also invades Poland as part of a secret treaty between the two countries. Fourth Neutrality Act—also known as the Cash and Carry—lifted the arms embargo for nations at war, allowing them to purchase goods on a cash and carry basis.

1940 September

November

Congress passes the first peacetime military draft with the Selective Training and Service Act for men between the ages 21 and 45. FDR reelected for an unprecedented third term.

1941 January March May June

June

August August

Four Freedoms speech where FDR outlined basic American ideals of the freedom of speech, religion, and from want and fear. Lend-Lease Act passed giving Britain the ability to acquire up to fifty billion dollars supply of goods on credit. Office of Civilian Defense created to organize state and federal emergency protocols in case of war. Fair Employment Practices Commission created to avert a march on the capital by A. Philip Randolph and other Civil Rights leaders. Office of Scientific Research Development created to improve on military technologies and spearheaded what was called the Manhattan Project. Atlantic Charter announced as a joint declaration with Great Britain. Office of Price Administration created and expanded in January to set price controls on consumer goods and authorized the rationing of necessary war materials.

xii

Chronology

December

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and FDR asks for a Declaration of War.

1942 January February June

June

War Production Board created to oversee the transition to a war economy. FDR issues an order to relocate Japanese Americans from the west coast to internment camps. Office of War Information created to control the dissemination of information about the war and its effects on the home front. The Office of Strategic Services created as the intelligencegathering agency for international affairs. Later becomes the Central Intelligence Agency.

1943 May

June July

Office of War Mobilization created to coordinate the activities of defense offices and agencies which included reconversion efforts once the war ended. WPA officially ends, joining the CCC (ended in 1942), and soon afterward in early 1944, NYA. Detroit race riots occur followed soon after by racial disturbances in Harlem outlining the continued racial division within the country.

1944 June

November

Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, commonly known as the GI Bill, passed designed to offer a variety of benefits to those who served in the war. FDR elected to a fourth term as president.

1945 February April June August

FDR, Churchill, and Stalin meet in Yalta to work out postwar plans. FDR dies, and Harry S Truman becomes president of the United States. Germany surrenders ending the war in Europe. The US drops atomic bombs on first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki leading to Japan’s surrender.

Who’s who

Coughlin, Father Charles (1891–1979) A popular radio priest broadcasting out of Detroit, Michigan, he was an early supporter of FDR who founded the National Union for Social Justice when he broke with the president in 1934. Dewey, John (1859–1952) American philosopher and educator whose ideas concerning new liberalism helped underscore the New Deal. Dies, Martin (1900–1972) Democrat from Texas who led the House Unamerican Activities Committee formed in 1938 which identified certain New Deal programs as harboring pro-communist ideals. Hoover, Herbert (1874–1964) Thirty-first president of the United States. A member of the Republican party who also served as Secretary of Commerce under both presidents Harding and Coolidge (1921–8). Hopkins, Harry L. (1890–1946) One of FDR’s principal advisors, he administered many New Deal programs, including the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civil Works Administration, the Works Progress Administration, and finally, served as Secretary of Commerce. Ickes, Harold L. (1874–1952) Served as Secretary of the Interior, 1933–45. He was also the chief administrator of the Public Work Administration. Johnson, General Hugh (1882–1942) Served as chief administrator of the National Recovery Administration, 1932–4. Keynes, John Maynard (1883–1946) British economist whose theory called for increased government participation in the economy detailed in his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money had a significant influence on aspects of the New Deal. Landon, Alfred (1887–1987) Republican governor from Kansas who unsuccessfully ran against FDR in the 1936 presidential election. Lange, Dorothea (1895–1965) Documentary photographer for the RA and FSA whose pictures helped define the Depression-era.

xiv

Who’s who

Lewis, John L. (1880–1969) President of the United Mine Workers, spearheaded the break with the AF of L to form the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Long, Senator Huey (1893–1935) Former Democratic governor and Senator from Louisiana, built a considerable political machine using ideas encapsulated in his 1933 book Every Man a King. His Share the Wealth platform served as his official break with FDR in 1934. MacArthur, General Douglas (1880–1964) Chief of staff of the Army, 1930– 35. Best known in this period for his role in the Bonus March fiasco. McLeod Bethune, Mary (1873–1955) Was a founding member of FDR’s socalled “Black cabinet” and served as director of the NYA’s Office of Negro Affairs from 1936 to 1940, becoming the highest-ranking African American woman in the government. Perkins, Frances (1880–1965) One of FDR’s principal advisors, she became the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet position when appointed Secretary of Labor in 1933, a position she held until 1945. Randolph, A. Philip (1889–1979) Founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, his threatened 1941 march on the nation’s capital in protest of unfair hiring of African American workers spurred FDR to issue an Executive order banning hiring and pay discrimination in defense industries. Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884–1962) Influential First Lady to FDR during his four terms, her impact on the issues of Civil Rights and the nation’s youth were instrumental in specific aspects of the New Deal. Later she would have an instrumental role in the founding and operation of the United Nations. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1882–1944) Thirty-second President of the United States. A member of the Democratic party, he guided the country through the Great Depression with his New Deal initiatives and through the second World War until his death in 1944. Sinclair, Upton (1878–1968) A writer and activist, his failed run for governor of California in 1934 introduced End Poverty in California (EPIC), a more radical plan for the recovery than FDR. Stryker, Roy (1893–1975) An economist whose leadership in both the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration’s photography unit created some of the most iconic photographs of the era. Townsend, Dr. Francis (1867–1960) His Old Age Revolving Pension Plan and his Townsend Clubs formulated in the early part of the Depression pressured FDR to address the issue of the elderly in what became Social Security. Tugwell, Rexford (1891–1979) An economist and early supporter of FDR he designed and oversaw the Resettlement Administration.

Who’s who

xv

Wallace, Henry A. (1888–1965) Served as Secretary of Agriculture in the Roosevelt administration from 1933 to 1940 and served as vice president from 1941 to 1945. Williams, Aubrey (1890–1965) Executive director of the NYA. Willkie, Wendell (1892–1944) Republican corporate lawyer who unsuccessfully ran against FDR in the 1940 presidential election. Woodward, Ellen (1887–1971) One of the highest-ranking women in FDR’s administration, she served as Director of the Women’s Division of both the FERA and later the WPA.

Part I

The New Deal

DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-1

1

The New Era and the fate of the nation, 1929–33

When Herbert Hoover accepted the nomination of the Republican party to be its candidate for president in 1928, he told those at the convention that the country was, based upon economic and legislative principles of his party, on the precipice of eliminating the “poorhouse” from the United States. During the campaign against the Democrat nominee, New York Governor Al Smith, Hoover, and the GOP (“Grand Old Party,” i.e. Republican party) reminded the American people that they, and perhaps Hoover himself, were the architects of the booming economy that came with first Warren G. Harding, and then continued with Calvin Coolidge. These were halcyon days and Hoover and the GOP hoped to continue to reap the benefits.

Boom years It is certainly true that in the years leading up to Hoover’s election the American people witnessed a variety of social and economic changes, especially in the emerging consumer marketplace. For example, the number of automobiles on the road jumped from 7.5 million in 1920 to over 24 million by 1930, meaning nearly sixty percent of Americans owned automobiles. General Motors and Ford dominated the industry, representing nearly seventy percent of the automobiles sold. In 1926, Ford’s Model T represented nearly forty percent of all cars produced and sold that year. This helped stimulate the petroleum industry in the production of gasoline, helping spur the change from mere filling stations, where one acquired fuel, to oil and gas company franchise-controlled service stations with mechanics and sometimes small diners. The increase in car ownership encouraged a variety of other businesses, like Goodyear, BF Goodrich, and Firestone tires (who controlled more than fifty percent of the market), motel chains like Howard Johnson’s, or fast food restaurants like White Castle. Automobile culture challenged courtship and sexual patterns, leading one judge in Indiana to label them rolling houses of prostitution. Central to this process of meeting consumer demand while also stimulating consumer spending fell onto the shoulders of advertisers. These copywriters and illustrators had the task of informing the public of new items to purchase lest the consumer fall behind the march of progress. The advent of DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-2

4

The New Deal

the radio, which began inauspiciously as a small station in Pittsburgh in 1920 and reached only a handful of listeners on homemade sets, grew to nearly six hundred stations by 1925 spread across the country with an audience of 2.75 million listeners. By the end of the decade, more Americans had radios than telephones, making it the central source of connecting with the outside world. Driving this expansion was the development of network broadcasting, first with the National Broadcast Company in 1925 and soon after with the creation of the Columbia Broadcast Company, they linked together stations to streamline content and broaden the appeal of advertising, meaning a boon of over sixty million dollars in ad sales a year. Together they accounted for a little over three hundred stations spread across the country with and an average daily audience of more than fifty million. By the end of the decade over one hundred million radio sets had been sold and forty-five percent of American homes had at least one radio. The radio’s popularity as a household item was inexorably tied to the expansion of electricity. At the start of the decade, thirty-five percent of American homes were hooked up to the electric grid; by the time Hoover took office that number had risen to sixty-eight percent, leaving farmers and other more rural citizens outside the circuit. The electric connection introduced consumers to a wide variety of consumer items that promised to make their life easier, like the Maytag washing machine, the Hoover vacuum cleaner, or the Frigidaire refrigerator, not to mention the basic General Electric and Westinghouse light bulb. Electrification also transformed the workplace leading to changes in factory design, lighting, machinery, and the nature of work. Nearly seventy percent of the nation’s factories were connected to the grid which helped factories run their machines more efficiently and increased the tendency toward the adoption of more modern factory management techniques tied to the assembly line. This reduced the skill necessary for the production of goods and made factory work more dependent on machines rather than on the people who ran them. In the coal industry, for example, new technologies utilizing electricity reduced the need for manpower by nearly fifty percent, even as the total number of mines declined as industries switched over from coal, leading to even less demand for workers. However, after a brief recession at the start of the decade and stimulated by the expansion of the consumer marketplace, most workers found regular employment during the era, with the unemployment rate often below five percent. This boom was in part aided by legislation restricting immigration, thus reducing surplus labor which affected employment and wages. In 1921 Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, setting the limit of immigrants to three percent based upon the 1910 census; in 1924 Congress passed more restrictive immigration law, the Johnson–Reed, or National Origins Act, which pushed the census back to 1890 and allowed only two percent, which effectively limited the number of southern and eastern Europeans as the peak of their immigration came after that date. The new law further restricted Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans from emigrating to the US.

The New Era and the fate of the nation

5

Despite these changes, those working in the factories or mills faced constant job insecurity. Robert and Helen Lynd’s sociological/ethnographic examination of Muncie, Indiana as a typical American city during the area, which they called Middletown, revealed that many worried from one week to the next if they would have work, or that there were very few opportunities for advancement. This meant that while wages and opportunity seemed abundant during the 1920s—there were fewer labor strikes and violence than in earlier years driven primarily through the adoption of the American Plan and welfare capitalism within factories—generally, there was little actual growth in wages compared to inflation or the cost of necessities. Seventy-eight percent of working people made less than three thousand dollars a year, and more than forty percent made under fifteen hundred. This averaged out to about fifteen hundred dollars a year, with less going to those employed as unskilled laborers and more for those in the skilled trades. Women, who represented more than twenty percent of the workforce, earned about thirty-five percent less than comparable male workers and overall only saw an increase of nearly two percent in their real wages compared to nearly nine percent for male workers during the 1920s. Black workers’ wages were even more sluggish, earning less than fifty percent of their white counterparts.

The New Era Many other factors led Hoover and others within American society to believe that the New Era, where government creates an atmosphere conducive for business growth, would ensure domestic economic and social stability for the foreseeable future. However, there were many flaws within the system especially regarding workers, wages, and consumption. The agricultural sector, for example, experienced tremendous contraction during this boom period. Farm income fell over seventy-two percent by 1921 after the boom years caused by World War I bottomed out. Farmers never recovered during the remainder of the decade and mortgages and foreclosures hit record highs. Hoover’s predecessor, President Coolidge was unmoved by their plight, saying at one point that historically farmers never made money and the government could little to help them. For his part, Hoover worked to get Congress to pass the Agricultural Marketing Act in 1929, which created the Federal Farm Board designed to stabilize farm prices through the creation of cooperatives to better control supply and price, but it had little effect as farm prices continued to tumble and would only get worse as the decade ended. Another area of concern was the stock market, whose expansion served, like the skyscrapers that were being built in most major cities across the country, as signifiers of prosperity. Playing the market became a national phenomenon as more and more Americans invested hoping to reap the economic rewards of prosperity. But there were unseen dangers in their quest for a reward. Stock Pools, where a few speculators joined together to manipulate the price of particular stocks by buying large amounts to

6

The New Deal

artificially drive up the price, enticed unsuspecting investors. When the price reached an agreed-upon number, the pool would start selling off, garnering a profit for them but leaving many individual investors out in the cold. This practice would later be made illegal under the New Deal’s 1934 Securities and Exchange Act. The proliferation of margin buying, which allowed the investor to buy stock with only ten or fifteen percent of the total cost upfront and the rest to be paid as the stock value increased, was a minor concern as long as the market boomed. When the market began its decline in the fall of 1929 and the banks or investment houses began calling in these, in essence, loans, many were unable to make up the difference causing bankruptcies, foreclosures, and a tremendous financial loss that would only get worse. Financially, the situation with foreign debt and the instability of the gold standard suggested weaknesses within the New Era’s prosperity. World War I had transformed the United States from a debtor to a creditor nation, loaning hundreds of millions to our Allies during the war with the expectation of repayment. However, these monies, in the form of trade balances and deficits based upon gold, were shifted by the Allies to Germany whose economy was in shambles. The new democracy found itself unable to meet the payment demands leading France to occupy the Ruhr valley in 1923. The US responded by proposing the Dawes Plan in 1924 which restructured the German war debt in the payment of gold Marks over the remainder of the decade. Along with several changes in how the gold standard operated among the western nations, especially as gold transfers were used to offset trade imbalances, the hope was that as the deficit country’s gold flowed out, prices for goods would decline to attract more trade which would see the gold return. However, the New Era’s prosperity, to a large degree, was built upon making certain US industries were protected from cheap foreign goods and competition with the passage of the Fordney–McCumber Tariff in 1922. While good for American business and industry, and one of the key factors driving the bull stock market, it also meant that more gold flowed into the country. By the late 1920s, the US would control the majority of the world’s gold supply, leading other countries to adopt deflationary strategies to stem the loss of capital. However, these tactics failed to slow the slide and many countries found themselves in the early stages of economic depression by 1928. By the time Hoover was inaugurated in 1929, these and other signs pointed to cracks in the prosperity of the New Era. Building contracts declined by over a billion dollars, purchases by consumers declined by nearly six percent, and, perhaps most significant, weaknesses within the banking system led to more than three hundred and forty-six banks shuttering their doors at a loss of over $115 million. The banking crisis to a large degree was a barometer of things to come, as it was tied to market speculation and consumer demand. During the halcyon days of the New Era, businesses and industries that were the traditional primary customer of banks found it

The New Era and the fate of the nation

7

easier to use the market to finance their expansion or increase the flow of money to its investors. Subsequently, banks altered their business practices by offering credit payment plans to consumers for the purchase of cars, homes, appliances, and other items that helped stimulate the economy. Banks also became heavily invested in the booming market both by floating margin loans and by direct investment using the equity of these outstanding loans to buy on margin. The system worked fine as long as the economy expanded, but as it began to contract somewhat by the end of the decade— business inventories had risen to over $1.8 billion by 1929 helping lead to a decline in industrial production—banks faced increased defaults and foreclosures which weakened their economic position. When Hoover addressed his inaugural audience in March 1929 all of these issues seemed far off. On that day he announced with enthusiasm that Americans had arrived at a place the rest of the world envied, where material comforts and security were near guarantees. It’s almost too easy to mine his early speeches for ironic statements, for he enunciated what many people, both in the US and abroad, believed. The US in the 1920s dominated economically, leading the world in electrification and the myriad of consumer items like radios, washing machines, light bulbs, and so many more. These came to the consumer through an efficient system of networks, both in delivering the electricity and the consumer items driven by it. The country also led the world in the production of automobiles and made significant inroads in the global marketplace. Fordism, or the process by which Ford produced his cars, was the envy of the world and his company consulted and helped to organize and reorganize not only the auto industry but virtually all production of commodities. Many American workers now had paid vacations and traveled the country, creating real estate booms in Florida and the southwest. For the first time, the US had a trade surplus with Europe, amounting to nearly $1.8 billion throughout the 1920s. The country also loaned out more than $7 million to world trade partners after 1924. In other words, Hoover’s optimism in March 1929 was not misplaced. Every indicator seemed to verify his comments; which will make it very difficult for him to recognize the reality of the economic Depression that would inevitably define his administration.

The Crash The Crash and subsequent ups and downs in the American economy for the next year or so were as real as they were symbolic. How could such a thing happen? How would democracy respond? Was the fact that democracy and government were married to capital signal that both were also on the verge of collapse? How and by what policies could the federal government change both the reality and mindset of the Depression? These were questions that Hoover faced, and how he handled them defined his term as president. But in the spring of 1929 it was impossible to predict the economic, and then social and political, catastrophe that would begin just seven months

8

The New Deal

later. The stock market slide began in earnest on October 21, 1929, and continued to tumble that week, with almost thirteen million shares being traded on Thursday, October 24. While this represented the most stocks traded and resulted in a decline of the overall value of the market, investors were not alarmed as many saw this as a corrective to an overly bull market. There had been ups and downs in the stock market all through the late spring and summer, but the market had bounced back. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached an all-time high in early September. There was some instability in the market, however, as the London Stock Exchange collapsed in late September as a result of investor fraud which had many American financiers concerned. But the market adjusted. But on Black Monday, October 28 the Dow began to slide and nothing anyone could do could stop the rapid decline. By the end of the day, the Dow index fell by thirty-eight points with over nine million shares being traded, many at a great loss. The slide continued into Tuesday and investment firms, manufacturers, and banks began calling in margins, and what became Black Tuesday had the Dow falling another thirty points with over sixteen and a half million shares being traded. The week had just begun but the effect was catastrophic—entire fortunes had been wiped out in less than five days. The next few weeks brought some respite, primarily as leading financiers bought up stocks to show faith in the market, but stock prices continued to decline, forcing more margin calls on investments, straining personal incomes, and bank lending policies. It seemed to some people that some stability had been achieved, although, by the end of November 1929, the market lost over thirty billion dollars in stocks. The next several months saw the market fluctuate, but by the spring of 1930, it began a free fall that could not be contained. By the time Hoover began his reelection campaign in the summer of 1932, the market stood at its nadir of 41.22. The remainder of the 1930s would not see the return of the halcyon days of the 1920s, as the market slowly recovered, in fits and starts and never rising above 195 until after World War II. The effects were worldwide, pushing already weak economies in Europe to the breaking point. When the market began to tumble in the Fall, some banks found it difficult to meet their margin call responsibility causing them to close. This would only spiral downward within the industry, leading to more than fifteen hundred banks shuttering their doors in 1930, losing over $1 billion in deposits. When Great Britain abandoned the gold standard in 1931, foreign investors, believing the US would soon follow suit, began to buy large amounts of gold reducing the US supply. This caused another run on American banks as depositors worried about the soundness of the financial system which only served to exacerbate an already weakened economy. Another thirty-seven hundred banks closed in the next two years, losing almost $3 billion. Many businesses were also shuttered, as some lost everything in the crash and others simply because the demand for products dried up or banks were unwilling to float operating loans to get through the

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difficult time. Some estimates suggest that nearly thirty-thousand businesses closed in 1931 alone, with even more to come as the depth of economic collapse came in the following year. The gross national product fell to 1907– 11 levels while farm prices, already low, fell by sixty-one percent by the end of 1932. For some farmers, it was cheaper to burn their corn as fuel than to sell it on the market. Unemployment rose steadily, from 3.1 percent or 1.4 million when the market began its slide in 1929, to more than 12 million, or over 25 percent by the start of 1933. Some areas were hit harder than others of course, with the industrial and manufacturing regions of the Northeast, Great Lakes, and Midwest taking the hardest hit. Toledo, Ohio for example, had an unemployment rate of nearly 70 percent by the end of 1932; Detroit and Chicago’s rate hovered near 50 percent; Pittsburgh’s steel mills were running at fifty percent capacity with nearly 40 percent total unemployment; Boston saw 30 percent of its tradesmen out of work, and 25 percent of workers in New York City and Philadelphia were without work. The situation was the same throughout the rest of these regions and the numbers were even higher for African American workers. Out west, most urban areas matched Seattle and San Francisco’s rate near 24 percent. These percentages reflect not just numbers, but people—millions of urban residents’ dependent upon their work for their necessities. Of those laborers fortunate enough to have employment, their wages fell by nearly forty-three percent, while white-collar or salaried employees saw their wages reduced by forty percent.

Stay the course It had to be difficult for most Americans, and certainly, Hoover, to come to some understanding as to how quickly and devastatingly the economy had collapsed. The boom years leading up to this point had seemed so real that to suddenly see it all come crashing down was almost too much. But by the summer of 1931, it was clear to most observers that something needed to be done to offset the apparent collapse. Yet, Hoover never wavered from his commitment to American individualism, an idea he outlined in his 1922 book of the same name. He believed the country’s greatness lay in its citizen’s ability to adapt to changes and work themselves out of problems. Any attempt to mitigate this would destroy the basic foundation of the country. He echoed this claim later, in August 1932, attacking those who felt that the federal government should do more to assist individuals and communities affected by the Depression, suggesting it would lead to tyranny or dictatorship and rob Americans of their liberty and opportunity. So, he advocated for staying the course, asking the people to trust that the economic downturn was temporary and soon things would return to normal. Because he believed the collapse was temporary, Hoover was slow to respond, expressing his confidence in March 1930 that the worst effects of the crash will pass within the next sixty days. But he was wrong. The

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situation grew worse. One solution Hoover saw as hopeful involved the selling of apples on street corners in many cities. Driven by a bumper crop in the late summer, 1930, the International Apple Shippers offered to sell a crate of apples for $1.75 which people could then sell on street corners and pocket the profits. Over six thousand unemployed New Yorkers were selling five-cent apples by the late fall of that year, much to the chagrin of local greengrocers. Similar occurrences happened across the country—in New Orleans for example they sold surplus oranges. Hoover trumpeted this as a sure sign that Americans were finding their way out of the economic crisis and their ingenuity would only help make for a better citizenry. But as these bumper crops waned so too did the sellers, and the street corner salespeople became just another iconic image of despair that dominated the early part of the Depression era. There were many others, lumped together and called Hooverisms, a sure signal that many Americans connected their decline to what they saw as the callousness of Hoover’s administration. These ranged from desperate and homeless communities made up of tin and wooden shacks usually located near railroad depots called Hoovervilles, where people covered themselves with newspapers called Hooverblankets, ate Hooverchickens (being anything from raccoon to squirrel to pigeon to whatever was in the cooking pot) and Hooverstew (flour, ketchup, and water). They got around either in their Hooverwagons (cars being pulled by horses) or hitchhiking with their Hooverflags (turned out pockets flapping in the wind). Nearly anything that had to do with the seeming hopelessness of the individual or their circumstances became associated with Hoover. By the end of 1931 a sense of despair had descended upon the American people and their leaders, personified in Hoover, seemed unable or unwilling to understand that what had begun as an economic collapse was now an issue of social collapse. Many Americans wondered if this was the end of democracy as they knew it. In their minds, and what they witnessed daily with breadlines and soup kitchen lines growing longer and longer with each passing day, the crisis had affected them but had little effect on the policies of their government. The situation made them ask, had they been forgotten?

Action Hoover’s administration did attempt to stem the tide of decline and demoralization, but the wave was simply too powerful. Hoover believed that despite the travails up to this point, the basic foundation of the country’s economy remained sound and that subtle changes, like increased tax breaks, maintaining a balanced budget, and volunteerism would be enough. In 1930 he spoke before the US Chamber of Commerce and asked that they, as the nation’s leaders, accept the responsibility to not cut wages or reduce working hours, but stay the course and be the font of stability the country needed. As the situation grew more desperate, he asked those that could

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help with the situation to volunteer by donating their time and money to local charities to aid the increasing number of destitute citizens. He created the Emergency Committee for Employment (ECE) in October 1930 under the leadership of Arthur Woods, to streamline the distribution of relief at the state and local levels, as well as meeting with business leaders to discuss ways to increase employment. But the situation grew worse. The following summer Hoover renamed ECE the President’s Organization on Unemployment Relief (POUR) with similar goals but driven by public appeals for donations. Hoover believed the drive could work not only to raise money but reaffirm American’s faith in each other. Moreover, he cited a report for that year that indicated that local communities were in fine shape to deal with the crisis and did not want federal interference. It became clear however that this type of volunteerism did not meet the extent needs. The Depression worsened in 1931 and some people turned to more radical economic planning ideas like those implemented by the Soviet Union. Hoover was adamant that the solution lay in his American plan, which relied on encouraging private business and industry to invest in the future of the country. He believed that population growth of nearly twenty million over the next two decades would be enough to stimulate the economy and provide the impetus for massive building projects—from schools to highways to factories to skyscrapers. In essence, in the midst of the worst economic and now social collapse in the nation’s history, Hoover retained his optimism that recovery was just around the corner. But it wasn’t to be. By the summer of 1931 the economy slumped again, as construction starts dropped by thirty percent, unemployment rose to nearly sixteen percent, cities like Detroit and Chicago declared bankruptcy, and a general sense of malaise permeated society. September brought more bad news. First, several major corporations, led by US Steel, announced pay cuts for its already decimated workforce, reneging an earlier commitment to maintaining wage levels. Shortly afterward, England abandoned the gold standard, which led to a run on US gold stocks, eventually draining over $750 million in gold reserves, ushering in a new economic emergency. People withdrew their money from banks in record amounts, fearing that either their branch would close or the whole system would collapse. Early images of the environmental catastrophe called the Dust Bowl began appearing in the nation’s newspapers, magazines, and movie palaces. The stock market remained moribund, more banks closed their doors, and more Americans were reeling in what now was being called the Great Depression. Hoover pushed Congress to act on several legislative fronts with the hope of stabilizing the economy and easing the unemployment crisis. The 1930 Smoot–Hawley tariff, for example, raised import duties on many products by an average of forty percent. Designed to help farmers, who saw their prices fall by at least that amount since the crash, as well as manufacturers, it had the opposite effect as trade partners retaliated by raising their tariff rates which exacerbated the now worldwide Depression. Hoover lobbied

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throughout much of 1931 for Congress to pass his Reconstruction Finance Act, which created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), finally getting through in January 1932. The RFC initially made loans to banks, railroads, and selected manufacturers. By the summer, 1932, with unemployment rising to nearly twenty-five percent and the desperation level of the American people increasing, compounded by the criticism Hoover was taking from his opponents for authorizing federal monies for banks and other industries without providing for the people, he augmented the role of the RFC under the Emergency Relief Construction Act to provide thirty million dollars for relief efforts and to create a public works program with an additional two billion dollars. To assist farmers, Hoover lobbied Congress to establish Federal Home Loan Banks to help them from defaulting on their mortgages. Perhaps as a counter to the public perception that he favored the wealthy over the masses of Americans suffering, he approved the Revenue Act in June, which raised the estate tax by fifty percent, and also hiked corporate and top personal tax rates up to nearly sixty-three percent. Earlier, in January, he worked with two Democrats in the House and Senate to craft the Glass-Steagall Act, designed to stabilize the banking industry by separating commercial from investment banking and increasing federal regulations on transactions, but the bill stalled in the House. By this point the Great Depression had taken on a life-force of its own and Hoover’s administration could do little to alter the downward spiral the country, and indeed the world now found itself.

Bonus March These actions proved too little too late and came literally on the heels of one of the more embarrassing and tragic episodes in American history—the Bonus March. In May 1924 Congress passed the Bonus Act over President Calvin Coolidge’s veto, which allocated up to one thousand dollars to World War I veterans dependent upon their days of service during the war, upon its maturity in 1945. An earlier bill had been vetoed by President Harding in 1922 and was the source of some concern among some fiscal conservatives. In 1932, Walter Waters, a veteran from Portland, Oregon began a long march to the nation’s capital to lobby Congress to pass a new Bonus bill that would allow veterans to cash in their bonuses early given the extreme economic condition of many of those who served. By early June, what was now called the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived in Washington DC and had grown to over fifteen thousand, many bringing their wives and children along. These were desperate citizens with little to lose by marching to the capital to lobby Congress for their bonus. Early response by the city and the federal government was positive, providing tents, field kitchens, and opening up some empty federal buildings and parks to the BEF. Hoover had no intention of signing an early release of the monies outlined in the 1924 Act, believing a balanced budget was far more

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important in the long run. But he did not want to prevent the BEF from exercising its Constitutional right to assemble and protest. The new Bonus bill passed the House but was overwhelmingly rejected by the Senate on June 17, sparing Hoover the embarrassment of vetoing a bill that would help veterans. By this point members of the BEF had constructed a Hooverville across the Potomac from the capital at Anacostia Flats, Maryland, while thousands of others were still in buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue and surrounding parks. With the bill now dead, it was time for them to leave. But where? Most had little to return to and were frustrated by what they saw as a government isolated and insulated from the American people. In early July Hoover asked Congress to allocate money for the veterans to board trains to return home, and some left the area. Most did not and remained camped out either in the Hooverville at the Flats, now called Bonus City, or around the Federal Triangle in Washington itself. Donations for support of the BEF dwindled and veterans did what they could to support themselves and their families. It was clear to Hoover that the time had come for the BEF to leave, as several of his advisors were convinced that the remaining veterans were either being led by communists, or that there were very few veterans at all but mostly communists. Events culminated on July 28, when several Washington DC police officers, in charge of evicting those within the District, battled several BEF members leading to the police firing their pistols killing two veterans. Worried about an escalation of violence and lawlessness, Hoover took the advice of his aides and ordered federal troops to assist with the removal. Under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, who believed that radicals were leading the BEF and revolution was in the air, ordered his infantry and cavalry, with sabers drawn, and augmented by six tanks, to drive the BEF down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the bridge that led to the Flats. Spectators jeered the military as it passed until volleys of tear gas cleared the area. MacArthur was given clear orders by Hoover not to cross the bridge into Maryland and the Hooverville in the Flats, but the General wanted to make certain that the BEF would leave and not return. With the US Army waiting on one side of the bridge, the BEF asked for time to clear the Flats of women and children. At ten o’clock that evening the infantry made its way across the bridge. Small fires lit the camp and soon the entire Flats was ablaze. BEF members were rounded up by the Army and driven out of the area and into Pennsylvania. Hoover did not admonish MacArthur for his actions, instead, he took full responsibility for the debacle, saying the Army was defending the country against radicals and communists who were using the veterans to foment discontent. However, over ninety percent of the BEF was made up of veterans, some of whom were disabled. Newsreel footage, press coverage, and continued discussion of the events that transpired muddied Hoover’s already weak reputation among the American people. These were veterans, men

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who had sacrificed their bodies for the cause of democracy, yet they were met with suspicion, fear, and violence. How was it that Hoover, many wondered, was able to allocate billions for banks but felt that the $2.4 billion the Bonus bill would potentially cost was simply too much? Were the people’s problems not as great as those in the financial sector? Was the government on the side of the people; and if so, how could they justify turning the Army against its veterans?

Assessment Herbert Hoover did not cause the Great Depression. The policies implemented by his administration did not make things worse. The stock market crash came with an almost perfect storm of economic chaos that exacerbated social, economic, and cultural divisions within the country. The effect of the crash initially had little effect on main streets across the country, even as banks closed their doors and mythic stories of suicides by broken financiers were told throughout the country. Hoover’s idea of staying the course was not a wrong policy, for the economic cycle would, if left to its own devices, correct itself. The problem was, and Hoover and his team realized this too late to affect any real change, that by the summer of 1931, with unemployment hovering near 10 percent, the ongoing European economic crisis, the continued slide of American banking, and an economy that for all practical purposes was flat, the economic collapse had become something much larger, a Great Depression. Labeling it thus underscores the reality that the great masses of people now viewed their society much the same way someone might view a natural disaster. Their feelings of hopelessness, despair, and even anger at what was happening all around them indicated that the Great Depression had now become a discussion regarding the validity of democracy. How would the government, from local to federal, deal with the situation? Hoover’s callousness—or at least how people perceived him— regarding the detrimental effects the Depression was having on the people, suggested to many that the government was deaf to the problems of the people. Hoover sought to right the economic ship with policies like the RFC, but what about the ordinary citizen who had lost their job, been evicted from their home, and like so many others found themselves living in a Hooverville, or riding the railroads in search of better opportunities. In 1932 the Southern Pacific railroad estimated that over two hundred and fifty thousand young people were riding the rails, with some estimating that over two million men of various ages were also “hoboing” throughout the country in search of work. By the end of 1932, it was estimated that over 34 million Americans had no income at all. The great industrial monolith US Steel was only producing at nineteen percent capacity and workers were on one day a week schedules. And certainly, the mayhem that was the Bonus March only encouraged people to view Hoover as someone unable or unwilling to see the reality of the Great Depression.

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And to make matters worse for Hoover, during the summer of 1932 as many Americans were feeling despondent over the state of the Great Depression, a natural disaster of biblical proportions was unfolding in America’s breadbasket states. After nearly a decade of good rain and wheat harvests, dust storms began to roll across the plains, covering crops, houses, and darkening daytime skies beginning what would be several years of environmental and human devastation in the Dust Bowl. While Hoover or his farm policies had little to do with the phenomenon, the timing of the emerging catastrophe only cemented many people’s view of the larger crisis they were caught up in and, because he was president, Hoover suffered the blame. More than ten million people were out of work by the summer of 1932 and the situation was becoming increasingly dire. General Motors laid off almost half its employees in Detroit—one hundred thousand of them—contributing to nearly a quarter-million unemployed autoworkers in the city. In places like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and other industrial cities those still employed faced reduced hours or shift-sharing, cutting their take-home pay significantly. Desperation was settling in for many as the fear of hunger and cold made the daily pursuit for wages competitive and sometimes violent. Many mayors were concerned that unless something was done to ameliorate the situation, the tens of millions of displaced workers might turn violent and even revolutionary. They looked to Washington for guidance yet were dismayed by the seeming lack of immediacy the president displayed. Hoover remained convinced, even at this late date, that the economy would begin to turn around and the problems associated with it would evaporate as well. If Hoover or his policies didn’t cause the Great Depression, what then? This is a dilemma for the historian, for attaching cause and effect is fraught with complications. The most apparent is the subjectivity that might come from assigning blame. Certainly, one can pick through policies and actions and come to a reasonable conclusion that Hoover’s insensitivity to the plight of the people and his reliance on traditional economic solutions were of little help to the typhoon of problems that plagued his administration in the early 1930s. In his Memoirs (Hoover, 1952), Hoover outlines the myriad of warnings he issued and the numerous attempts he made to stem the tides of collapse and deprivation, ignoring the detrimental effects of some of these policies, like the 1930 tariff, instead insisting that had he been reelected in 1932 a true recovery would have happened within eighteen months. He felt his failure was more a case of bad timing than bad policy. But did these policies cause the extremes to which the country had fallen by 1932? One can line up the failures of the securities and banking industries and say they caused it, but again, how does that explain the impact in areas far removed from business or banking centers? There came a point in the collapse where the consciousness of the people shifted. They saw in their leaders, government and business, a real sense of fear and uncertainty, and to a degree

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selfishness, and began to question the legitimacy of their society. Had it all been an illusion? Was the boom of the 1920s for workers simply an act to line the pockets of the extremely wealthy at the expense of the working people? Was government for and by the people, or was it under the thumb of those same wealthy citizens? By the summer of 1932 many Americans had simply lost hope in the federal government. They lost hope in their business leaders and other voices who had promised a new era just a few years ago and now that the situation had become dire, were silent. The loss of hope did not cause the Great Depression either, but it certainly indicated where the country sat by 1932. By the time the November 1932 presidential election rolled around, the battle was no longer about the Republican plan versus the Democratic plan, but how to save the Republic. Not since the Civil War had the country been so close to collapse. There was so much to lose in 1932 and while there were radical calls for change on the right and the left, the vast majority of Americans wanted a government that provided some assurances, some hope. Hoover’s American seemed mired in defeatism, and while he would often blame the people’s psychology for stalling the recovery, the people lost confidence in the once golden boy of the GOP. Everything that happened during the boom times of the 1920s, at least on the surface level, seemed to indicate that the country had entered into a New Era of continuous prosperity distributed among its citizenry and was the envy of the rest of the world. Perhaps this is what made the crash so troublesome, so difficult for the public to simply write it off, as Hoover and other business leaders suggested, as a mere blip in the larger business and economic cycle. Had the tremendous growth and prosperity of the 1920s not been so dramatic, had the country’s emergence as an economic and military leader not been so quick and dominant, maybe the psychological effect of the sudden collapse and ineffective recovery in the early 1930s not left lingering doubts as to the infallibility of the American system which Hoover and his party represented. It was their policies and under their leadership, after all, that this had all taken place. Who else were the people to hold responsible, since these same political leaders had taken the credit when things were booming? Hoover and his administration found themselves hamstrung between its claim as the architects of the New Era and the forces of its collapse.

1932 election The economy, the despair, the Hooverisms, and what can only be described as a lackluster program to combat the cumulative effects of what was now the Great Depression, spelled disaster for President Hoover’s reelection in November 1932. Unemployment had hit a high mark of eleven million workers with millions of others working for a quarter to half of their previous wages. Runs on banks continued throughout the summer and into the fall, crop prices were at an all-time low, and most Americans were despondent

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concerning the future of the country. For his part, Hoover ran his campaign on the belief that the economy was on the upturn with only the election interfering with the recovery. Anyone favoring his Democratic opponent, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, was in danger of sending the country down the road to either socialism or fascism. On election day the people spoke and did so loudly sending FDR to the White House in a landslide. Hoover garnered a mere 59 of 531 electoral votes and less than 40 percent of the popular vote. Hoover was never able to get over his resounding defeat. He firmly believed his successor would fail miserably and that he would be vindicated in 1936 when the American people would return him to the White House. This of course did not occur, and for the remainder of his life (he died in 1964) he remained bitter over his loss and continued to attack FDR and the New Deal policies enacted during the Depression era and its effect afterward. What Hoover was never able to quite comprehend was that FDR’s election was less about Hoover and more about a change in consciousness among the American people. The election of 1932 signified a clear break from the past, and for at least the next forty years, Americans had a different mindset than those who elected him president in 1928. He was the last of the cohort that began with William McKinley and ran straight through both parties until 1932. The total and systemic failure of the American system of capital challenged the idea of America in the people’s minds, forcing them to ask serious questions about the relationship between capital and labor, the role of the federal government within both, and to a greater extent, what it meant to be an American. The crash and subsequent Great Depression pushed the people to break from the past and redefine themselves, their families, their communities, their government, their relationship with the businesses and industries around them. All aspects of the American way had to be reexamined for the failure, the break, was comprehensive and demanded not just a simple repair to the system, as had been the way up to this point, but a complete rebuilding. This was the challenge for Roosevelt as he came into the office of the presidency in 1933. The emergency was real, not just getting people back to work or stimulating business and industry, but redefining America in light of the profound changes that had taken place over the last half-century. In many ways, the government still operated as it had since the end of the Civil War and this mindset had prevented Hoover from understanding the complexity of the crash which in many ways exacerbated the situation leading to the Great Depression. He was very much a victim of his time. Roosevelt too was of this generational cohort and held many of the same limitations as Hoover. The difference was that the crisis was so comprehensive that it forced him to listen and enact ideas that were perhaps revolutionary for its time but reflected the consciousness break that allowed for the New Deal to occur.

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References Bryson, Bill. One Summer: 1927. New York: Doubleday, 2013. Dumenil, Lynn. Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill & Wang, 1995. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash, 1929. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1954. Goldberg, David J. Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Hoover, Herbert. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover. New York: Macmillan Company, 1951. Payne, Phillip G. Crash: How the Economic Boom and Bust of the 1920s Worked. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Rappleye, Charles. Herbert Hoover in the White House. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2016. Wilson, Joan Hoff. Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company, 1975.

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FDR’s 100 Days and the transformation of America, 1933–5

Franklin Roosevelt came into the fray promising a “New Deal” for the American people, a term he coined while accepting the Democratic nomination in the summer of 1932. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,” a popular song from that year, perhaps best captured the theme of this New Deal, suggesting as it did that the great promises of the past, whether it be in the industrialization of America or in fighting its wars, had fallen short, and citizens loyal to the dream of America were now standing in breadlines wondering what their government can do for them. “Don’t you remember,” the song repeats throughout, all the things that were asked of the citizenry who abided willingly? Throughout the campaign, there was very little that FDR opined that suggested he had a clear plan. Some historians, especially those writing after World War II, suggested that he had few actual plans but only seemed open to some sort of change, that FDR was a pragmatist willing to take ideas from a variety of sources, which fit nicely into the consensus model prevalent during the Cold War era. Others suggest he did indeed have plans for a variety of projects, was being advised by leading social scientists and economists who advocated a much stronger role for the federal government, and that often his policies came as a result of blending different and often contradictory ideas simply to satisfy the varieties and or silence critics both inside and out of the White House. But one thing remains clear: in contrast to Hoover, he ran his campaign advocating a more activist role for the federal government and the American people responded by electing him in a landslide.

New liberalism Central to FDR’s plans was a shift from classic liberal ideology to newer, modernist liberalism. Hoover and other advocates of the New Era believed the role of government was to create a positive atmosphere for business growth in the expectation that it would have a positive effect on other aspects of the economy. Theirs was a form of classic liberalism that placed humans within the context of natural laws that governed the affairs of nature. Any artificial intrusion into or affecting these natural laws would DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-3

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violate the natural order. Within this conception, individuals tended to be passive and irrational, functioning with a more Hobbesian view of society where choices are dictated by fear rather than hope. The modernist liberalism that came to define the New Deal held that individuals were rational and if given the choice, would choose the most efficient and reasonable path. These modernist liberals suggested that through planning, order, and reason, social problems could not only be ameliorated but eliminated, ushering in a future where experts worked to plan and direct all aspects of American society. They sought a break from the limitations of the past to meet the challenges of the day. But many also felt they were on the cusp of a new way of being, a consciousness shift away from the exclusionary practices foundational to classic liberalism so evident in Hoover’s understanding of the Depression, to a more inclusionary one at the heart of FDR’s New Deal. The question was, how to get to this new America? Given the depth of the crisis, there was no shortage of ideas to better assist in dealing with the challenges that the Depression wrought. Adolph Berle and Gardiner Means, both of whom would later advise FDR, wrote in Modern Corporations and Private Property (1932) that the federal government should limit the power of the free market and adopt a more centralized, planned economic model. Reinhold Niebuhr had little faith in the ability of traditional political reform to temper the ills created by capitalism. The old system, he reasoned in Reflections on the End of an Era (1934), no longer could meet the needs of the modern world, and a new way of being—planned and organized— needed to be adopted. Stuart Chase and George Soule published books advocating a type of progressive socialism that called for a revision of the idea of the social contract based upon the classic liberalist laissez-faire economic model, where individuals battled among themselves for supremacy. Experts, trained in a variety of disciplines should be employed to organize, plan, and run the modern economy of the United States. To rely on eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury ideas to operate the complex international economy of the 1930s seemed absurd, and their belief held that new conceptions of the state and its powers needed to be introduced. One of the strongest advocates of this modernist liberal idea was philosopher John Dewey. Through a variety of works published during this era, Dewey laid out a simple philosophy, tied closely to his theory of intelligent action, which called for the use of rational and reasonable solutions to the social and economic problems of the day. The keystone was centralized planning, but not just on the national level, but at the local and state level as well. Society needed to be reorganized to fit the demands and needs of modern America, and that meant creating more practical and utilitarian solutions. The first step was recognizing where the cause of the Depression was rooted—namely classic liberal reliance on social and economic laissezfaire ideas. These ideas developed out of the Enlightenment and while they may have spoken for generations that came before, modern society demanded that the power of intellect be used for social advancement rather than

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individual gain. Dewey argued, as he had since the latter part of the previous century, that the problems that plagued society were caused by human action and could only be addressed with equal or greater action. Using reason and an open mind, all aspects of society can and should contribute to the social well-being of its people. Dewey’s 1935 Liberalism and Social Action provided a brief yet concise history of the idea of liberalism and how its traditional application no longer met the needs of modern society. Classic liberalism’s faith in the free enterprise system liberated people of the constraints from the past and held firmly to the tenet of equality of opportunity of capital. But this ignored the realities of the social world, where issues of race, gender, and class affected and limited success. The modern liberal recognized the inequality inherent in the free market and through the use of intelligent action, would use experts to plan and organize society to generate the greatest good for the greatest number. Of course, central to this transformation lay in creating an educational system that provided equal access and opportunity regardless of class, race, or gender. Through the centralized planning from a federal Department of Education, the nation’s educational practices would mirror a changing society. Throughout America, largely due to the Depression and the New Deal, rational planning and organization were being implemented and education should follow suit. Dewey chastised those traditionalists who attacked his and other new liberal ideas as un-American, hiding their racism, sexism, and classism under the cloak of the flag. To not act was an admission of failure in the American dream, he believed, for it would usher in an age of continued turmoil, violence, and even warfare. This should not imply that the new liberals broke completely from the past. But the Depression encouraged people to begin looking for answers to what was seen as not simply the failure of capitalism, but a test for the ability of a democratic government to find solutions without resorting to dictatorship-like tactics. By 1933 much of the world was in the midst of a depression and their responses varied from military coups in many Latin American countries, authoritarianism in Japan, movement away from democratic processes throughout much of Europe, and the continued rise of fascism exemplified by Hitler’s assumption of power in the weeks previous to FDR’s inauguration. Even within the United States there were calls for more radical action. For example, John Chamberlain’s 1932 Farewell to Reform argued that the existing system could not be repaired, and the only solution was to adopt tactics similar to those being employed in the Soviet Union, especially as it came to economic planning. Both William Z. Foster of the Communist Party and Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas ran in the 1932 presidential election with varied plans to move the country in a more radical manner. While they did not carry any states, their voices, along with several others, echoed the demand for change. Yet, for all of FDR’s momentum leading up to the inauguration, it almost wasn’t to be. On February 15, after a short boat cruise down the coast of

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Florida from Jacksonville to Miami, the newly elected president was met by a large crowd. Riding in the backseat of his car, waving to the supportive Bayfront Park crowd, shots rang out. One hit Chicago’s Mayor Anton Cermak who was approaching the auto to talk with FDR, another hit a Secret Service agent, and three others in the crowd were also struck. The president’s car, with Cermak aboard, sped away to the hospital where the mayor later died. The shooter, an avowed anarchist, was subdued quickly and in less than a month was tried, convicted, and executed.

100 Days After his March inauguration, where he asked the American people not to let fear challenge their belief that the country and its government would do all they could to navigate this tremendous crisis, the first thing FDR did was to reform a broken banking system. Banking and American finance were in freefall after 1929. By 1933 almost forty percent of the nation’s banks had failed. The crisis was immediate which demanded action but also needed to move cautiously to not alienate the business community. To allow the system to operate as it had was out of the question. This tightrope was at the center of the New Deal and FDR had to find a way to bring about economic stability while at the same time addressing the social changes the Depression exposed as necessary. Just two days after his March 4 inauguration, in a manner that suggests the literal emergency under which he took office, FDR announced a Bank Holiday. The public had little trust in this key institution and several states had already taken similar action to slow runs on their state’s banks and the economic collapse. The Bank Holiday was in large measure a hold-over from the Hoover administration with former Secretary of Commerce Ogden Mills laying out the general blueprints for the incoming administration. FDR adopted Mills’s plan, with some slight modifications made by members of his transition team, much to the chagrin of many progressives who felt that given the depth of the crisis, the time was more than ripe to nationalize the banks. The banks would close for the five days of March 6–10, during which the Treasury Department would inspect their books to ensure their solvency. FDR asked a joint session of Congress on March 9, 1933, to approve the Emergency Banking Act (EBA), based upon the precedent of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, which gave him unprecedented power over the country’s banking system, including the issuance of credit, gold purchases, foreign exchange, and authorized the Federal Reserve to issue more money into the economy. The House and Senate approved the bill within hours of his address. The president went on the radio on Sunday, March 12 to speak to the American people telling them about the bill and when banks in their communities would reopen. Some would open the next day and others, if their books were solid, would open by March 15. He talked plainly to the

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American people in what would become known as Fireside Chats and told them that he had ordered a Bank Holiday across the nation to ensure that their community’s institutions were solvent and that they could trust their local branch. Federal inspectors were dispatched to go over each banks’ books to make certain they were accurate and those that were not would be closed and absorbed by larger, more fluid financial institutions. And lastly, he asked for their help. The solvency of the economy depended upon the faith people entrusted in their local banks and so, using a trope he repeated through his four terms as president, the people needed to trust that his administration had their best interests at heart and that only with their intervention could the economy recover. When the banks reopened, he hoped they would take what money they had hidden away and deposit it. He gave them his guarantee that their money would be safe and to follow up, he supported the passage in midJune of the Glass–Steagall Act which separated investment banks from consumer banks, helping to eliminate the risk of ordinary American’s savings, and the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which guaranteed their deposits up to $100,000. The president knew that saving the banking and securities industries had to come along with a wide range of programs to assist the working people of the nation, and this recognition became the heart of the 100 Days New Deal legislation that would transform the country for the remainder of the century. Interestingly, on the heels of EBA FDR asked for a dramatic cut in federal expenditures, almost thirty-one percent, in the Economy Act. This signal of fiscal austerity was a bit of a ruse, however, as the Act dealt with normal budgetary spending, not the emergency spending where most of the New Deal’s monies would come from. To chart this new course Roosevelt assembled a variety of advisors and cabinet members that represented a blending of new liberal ideas with those from the first part of the twentieth century. Cabinet members Homer Cummings, James Farley, and Daniel Roper were long-time Democratic party operatives who brought with them ideas honed during the Progressive era. As Attorney General, Cummings modernized the Justice Department by streamlining the rules and practices of the federal courts and was a key advisor for the incoming president regarding the legality of using the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. Farley was named the Postmaster General after being the chairman of the Democratic National Committee and helped FDR win both the nomination and the election. Roper had served in a variety of functions in the Wilson administration and came to the Commerce Department well versed in Progressive-era economic reform. Henry A. Wallace, Frances Perkins, and Harold Ickes represented the newer liberal mentality, representing the Agriculture, Labor, and Interior departments, whose agencies would alter long-held policies for better organization, planning, and centralized control. World War I and War Industries Board veteran General Hugh Johnson was in charge of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) while modern liberal Harry L. Hopkins worked to distribute relief with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and, as an emergency matter in the winter/spring 1933–

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4, the Civil Works Administration (CWA). This blending of new liberalism with traditional Progressive Democratic operatives was not necessarily because FDR was pragmatic, but more reflects the complex divisions within his party. FDR had to balance newer ideas of planning and centralized organization with, for example, the racist policies of Jim Crow throughout much of the country. Compromises as political necessity meant that certain areas of policy would need to be massaged through Congress to be passed. As a testament to the overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty that dominated the country, from March through June 1933 more legislation was passed, some of it with very little debate or Congressional oversight, than at virtually any time in the country’s history. Of course, FDR and his New Deal benefitted from the Democratic party controlling both the House and Senate, but many GOP members reluctantly agreed with much of the legislation. The 100 Days legislation covered nearly every aspect of society, including the environment, agriculture, banking, relief, electricity, business, and industry. This was the beginning of the New Deal which sought to make every American citizen the subject of concern and interest by the federal government. A power shift was under way with towns, cities, and states willing to sacrifice some of their autonomy to the federal government in exchange for the action that the New Deal promised. Much of the credit for this shift has to be attributed to the cult of personality that FDR was able to generate since the summer of 1932, as living rooms around the country adorned their walls with the portrait of the new president, often hanging alongside a picture of Jesus. The 100 Days New Deal legislation balanced the social needs of the population with the need to establish some sort of economic recovery. For all of the optimism that the new administration promised, the situation on the ground throughout the country was still very tense. Twelve million people were unemployed officially, with perhaps another two to three million who were not counted. New building and construction starts were down by ninety percent from 1929, which meant that those involved in the building trades had little hope for employment. Wall Street and the nation’s banking industry were moribund, and factories and businesses were shuttered throughout the land. Foreclosures were up birthrates down, retail trade in a free fall. Prices were extremely low but few people had the hard currency to consume. In places like Ohio, over forty percent of factory workers were unemployed and the rate for the entire state hovered near thirty-seven percent. By 1933, fifty percent of the African American population in Philadelphia was out of work, while in Seattle, with nearly onethird of the workers on the streets, they formed Workers’ Councils advocating rent strikes, unemployment insurance, and a host of other more radical actions.

Civilian Conservation Corps Among those hardest hits were the nation’s young people. Estimates suggest that over thirty percent were unemployed by 1933, but this statistic does not take into consideration the nearly two and a quarter million high school

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dropouts, those habitually out of work, or that year’s high school graduates. Some have suggested the percentage is nearer to fifty or fifty-five percent. Many left their homes in search of opportunity. In the summer of 1932 over two hundred and fifty thousand young people illegally jumped aboard freight trains. Many went west—the county of Los Angeles reported that in 1932 over two hundred thousand young people were housed in what were called flophouses. This posed a real issue for the incoming administration and several of FDR’s advisors and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt were very concerned that the endemic unemployment could lead to the radicalization— left and right—of the nation’s youth. In similar situations in European and South American countries, emerging dictatorships and authoritarian regimes used the lack of opportunity for young people as fodder for their empowerment, and many in the US echoed the First Lady when she feared that the Depression’s effect might mean failing an entire generation. This might mean their loyalty and commitment to democracy might be weakened and perhaps encourage demagogues to court them as had occurred in other countries. To address the problem, on March 31 Roosevelt asked for and Congress immediately passed the Emergency Conservation Work Act. Building off a similar program he implemented while governor of New York, the Act sought to create a conservation-based project aimed at assisting unemployed young men and World War I veterans (FDR was opposed to the Bonus Bill, although Congress would pass a similar bill in early 1936 over the president’s veto). The idea was to put these people to work in national and state parks to help build their self-confidence, strength, and preserve their faith in democracy. The work would include building trials, latticing hillsides to prevent erosion, helping with flood control, helping to open up natural areas for tourist activity, and in general, do within reason whatever they were called upon to better manage the nation’s natural resources. When the president issued the Executive Order to create the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) on April 5, he and his advisors hoped to have twelve to fifteen thousand enrollees by mid-summer. However, by July 1933, CCC director and former vice-president of the American Federation of Labor Robert Fechner reported that states had nearly overwhelmed the system with their requests and nearly three hundred thousand had signed onto the project. Creating the CCC was easy, operating it revealed the tightrope FDR faced with many of the New Deal projects. Fechner, for example, was chosen to appease labor who felt that creating the CCC would lower wages for those not on the rolls. To further appease organize labor, the CCC agreed to use the recruits in unskilled and manual labor and to hire “local experienced men” (LEMs) to direct the more skilled aspects of some of their work. The Department of Labor vetted and hired the recruits, the Veteran’s Administration did the same for veterans. The War Department handled the physical exams (most recruits would not have passed the exam to get into the armed forces, but were deemed healthy enough for the CCC), transportation, and oversight of the camps. The enrollees dressed initially in leftover Army-

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issued clothing, followed a military-like regiment of revelry, flag-raising, mess halls, lights out, and dormitories very similar to boot camp. The Department of Interior and the Forest Service handled the issues within national parks and, with state approval, assisted in developing state parks. Even the Agriculture Department was part of the CCC oversight groups Fechner had to work with, making certain that the work done by the Corp did not violate aspects of the policy adopted by that agency. Despite these hurdles and charges by some that the CCC was a plot by FDR to militarize these young men, by the end of that first summer there was overwhelming public and political support for the Corp. Much of the support came as a result of massive publicity spearheaded by the administration’s press secretary Stephen Early, who saw in the CCC the perfect project to convince the American people of the positive virtues of the New Deal. After building almost twenty-five thousand miles to get into wilderness areas and stringing another fifteen thousand miles of phone lines, the CCC went to work building camps that held two hundred or so members, working in fire prevention, planting millions of trees, carving out trails, building footbridges, and so many more activities all regularly reported in local papers with pictures of the young men, often shirtless, working for the public good. For their efforts, the CCC boys earned $30 a month, of which $25 was sent automatically to their families. Over the nine years that the CCC received funding, this pumped three billion dollars directly into the economy and allowed many families to keep their homes, feed their children, and stay in school. The number of people affected by these checks is estimated between twelve and fifteen million during this time. The CCC also had a positive economic effect on local communities, as their camps required food, water, clothing, and a host of other items. In 1937, for example, over $90 million was spent buying foodstuffs, $43 million on clothing, $11 million on medical supplies for the more than 270,000 young men serving in the Corp. For most, the food, clothing, and living spaces were a significant step up from where they came from. The average recruit gained twelve to fifteen pounds while doing the arduous outdoor labor that the CCC demanded. Most came from working-class backgrounds with limited educational experience. One Ohio study found that the average intelligence level of the recruit was about eighth grade, with some scoring much lower. The CCC helped many learn to read and earn their GED’s, as well as teaching them basic hygiene and work skills. But for FDR and the New Deal, the most important factor was the human and social reaction to the project. The American public saw in the CCC what a positive force the New Deal could be as many recruits went back to their neighborhoods or towns as positive examples of the federal initiative. Over its nine-year history, it employed over three and a half million young men, planted three billion trees, built almost one hundred thousand miles of roads in rural areas without modern transportation, helped when the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers flooded, and in general projected a positive image of the New Deal.

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Not all was positive with the Corps, however. Issues of racism abounded, although after 1935 it was mandated that at least eleven percent of the enrollees be African American. Yet, most Black people were placed into segregated units, sent to areas far removed from local populations, and were rarely commanded by officers of color. Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida did not allow Black people to enroll until 1935, while in places like Mississippi and South Carolina, both with significant African American populations, they comprised less than three percent of those enrolled. The continued segregation, and the fact that by 1935 only 6 percent of the enrollees were African American, forced Roosevelt to issue a new order requiring that African Americans be given positions of leadership and that target quotas be met. By the end of 1936, more than 145,000 African American young men had served in the CCC, sending $28 million back home to their families. Even after 1935 Black CCC members were rarely incorporated into units, bathed and lived in separate facilities, and were not given the same educational and job-skill opportunities as white enrollees. Also, by 1937, the 31,000 African American young men listed on the CCC rolls filled the eleven percent quota for the first time. The central office attempted to place more African Americans in leadership positions, although these were as education advisors in all-Black camps. Fechner did little to redress the rampant segregation and left the day-to-day operations to local officers and advisors. Not until 1940 were Black officers put into leadership positions, and then only for all-Black units. In total, over 300,000 African Americans served in the CCC by 1940, yet few served alongside white enrollees, and those that did often faced resentment from local communities. By the end of the program in 1942, over 350,000 African Americans served in the CCC. Native Americans were also placed in their own units with no attempt at integration or even working with white units. Women were barred from the CCC entirely, although later some would enter the camps as part of the educational programs. They were often brought in on weekends for dances and other social occasions and recruits would also go into town on weekends for visits, but it was clear that the CCC was designed to not only preserve and promote the natural environment of the United States but also to build stronger and more loyal men to lead the country into the future.

Three Acts—AAA, FERA, and NIRA The accolades and support the CCC received were not replicated by other key New Deal legislation passed in the 100 days. While it became the program supporters pointed to regarding the positive impact federal intervention could bring to a problem exposed by the Depression, other, more key pieces of the New Deal had more checkered experiences. The centerpieces of the 100 Days New Deal legislation were the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act,

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each of which dealt with controversy and wavering public support. These three Acts were meant to deal with the major issues FDR and his advisors felt most significant for the country—farmers, relief, and industry. The plan for each relied on the advice and input from a variety of sources and the hope was that they would set the examples necessary to begin an active recovery. The New Deal needed to deal with the farm crisis that began in the 1920s and was exacerbated by the Depression. During the previous decade and tied to the government encouraged expansion of farm production during World War I, the agricultural sector of the US came under serious pressure as global competition began to erode the preeminence of America’s number one trade item, food. During the war and in the early 1920s, farmers were encouraged to expand their production to meet world needs, and in doing so incurred loans to buy new equipment, land, fertilizer, and seed. The result was that farm debt increased by nearly $6 billion from 1910 to 1925, leading to the start of massive foreclosures amid the seeming booming economy. Increased world production only served to undercut American farmer’s stability as they countered by putting more land under the plow and, through more modern fertilizer and pesticides, becoming more efficient. More commodity plus increased competition drove the prices of farm goods to all-time lows by the end of the decade, almost as a precursor for the coming Depression. As the country’s economic woes deepened in the early 1930s, bankers called in farm loans, leading to massive numbers of foreclosures and evictions. Between 1930 and 1935 nearly three-quarters of a million farms were lost to foreclosure and the overall value per acre of farmland dropped from a 1920 high of $205 to $88 by 1933. Some farmers wanted more radical action to avert foreclosures, evictions, and their debt payments. In the summer and fall of 1932, a number in the Midwest joined the Farmers’ Holiday Association to participate in a general strike to withhold their goods from the marketplace until action was taken to address their demands. Others used more direct action to prevent their comrades from losing their farms. To deal with the cycle of overproduction and underconsumption leading to falling prices and an increase in foreclosures and out-migration to urban areas in search of opportunities that did not exist, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a hodge-podge of policies that sought to adjust the price farmers received for their crops while at the same time leveling the price consumers paid at their local stores. Many farmers believed that the middleman in the farm to table process was responsible for their low prices and general economic failures; and while this may have been true in an earlier era, the cold reality was that most Americans simply lacked the money to purchase the massive productive abilities of the nation’s farms. The AAA adopted the allotment plan, a voluntary program where farmers agreed to reduce their crop acreage by less than twenty percent in exchange for a subsidy from the federal government equal to the market value of the commodity. The money

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paid would come from taxes placed upon processors and distributors. To better assist farmers in organizing and planning their crops, the AAA sent thousands of new extension experts into the field to encourage participation. Over the course of the next year, the AAA developed an impressive bureaucracy directed from Washington and stretching throughout America’s farm country. The program relied on these experts to plan and organize the agricultural industry to benefit the farmer, the consumer, and the country. While the idea behind AAA seemed simple and foolproof, the reaction and implementation proved more problematic. Not all farmers were excited by the intrusion of the federal government in their livelihood or the AAA’s insistence that modern methods were best for every farmer. When the AAA was passed and signed in early May, most crops had already been planted and so its desired policy to plan and control the number of goods in the marketplace came a bit late. To achieve its goals, the AAA paid farmers to plow up over 10.4 million acres of cotton, as well as slaughter more than 6.4 million pigs, and dump tens of thousands of gallons of milk into ditches. The program was voluntary, but the public outcry over so much food being destroyed while so many were hungry throughout the country proved a public relations disaster. Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace tried to defend the AAA’s actions by pointing out that the market price for pork, cotton, wheat, and other farm goods was at historic lows and no profit could be had by farmers at that rate. The AAA policies also benefitted landowners at the expense of sharecroppers, many of whom were African American, who were often forced off the land they tilled so that the owner could claim their AAA benefit. The public outcry, less for the cotton but more for the destruction of milk and pork, led to changes within the AAA with the creation, under the leadership of Harry Hopkins, of the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation in October 1933. This agency purchased surplus agriculture, processed it into consumables, and distributed them to those in need. Over the next two years, until the WPA took over the process after 1935, the agency would distribute millions of pounds of pork, beef, as well as butter, cheese, and a host of other necessities. There were other problems as well, brought to a head in 1935 when the case of the United States v. Butler came before the Supreme Court. In early 1936 the Court ruled against AAA because it sought to regulate and control agricultural production which was under the purview of the states as defined by the Tenth Amendment. The Court also challenged the AAA’s policy of taxing processors to pay for the allotment plan program, again as an infringement of the Tenth Amendment. A scaled-down version of the AAA was amended after the ruling, and in 1938 a more comprehensive and constitutionally sound AAA was created. The AAA did help raise and stabilize farm prices as the decade wore on and although formally abolished in 1945, it laid the foundation for American farm policy for the remainder of the century.

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The Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) was conceived with much the same impetus as the AAA, namely, to bring some stability to the marketplace through organized planning and the allocation of resources to states to deal with the ongoing problem of relief. This meant identifying those in need, providing some form of employment where available, and making certain that the funds would be distributed to the greatest number for the greatest good. Adopted in May, FERA had an initial budget of $500 million which had been under the administration of the RFC and offered grants to states. Harry Hopkins, who had served as the director of New York’s Temporary Emergency Relief Agency under then-governor Roosevelt, was put in charge of the program and in the first several hours after the legislation was signed, allocated over $5 million to seven states to meet their immediate relief needs. Hopkins’s hope for FERA rested largely on the ability of states to recognize where the funding should go and who was most in need of relief and how the monies should be spent. Hopkins made FERA work on several levels: it provided assistance to transients, distributed surplus AAA commodities to those in need, provided employment and paychecks to millions of Americans in need, and provided the much-needed infusion of relief funds to localities under pressure to provide for their communities. Depending on the state or locality, FERA monies helped teachers, musicians, college students, laborers building roads and public buildings, and a host of other activities. Significantly, FERA established the precedent that citizens had the right to believe that their government could and would provide support to them in times of crisis. The program operated until December 1935 and assisted an estimated twenty million Americans at a cost of just over $3 billion. Yet FERA was limited in several ways. First, the relief amount provided by FERA was on average only about $6.50 a week which Hopkins and others considered too little to affect positive change. While the program did prevent and reduce actual suffering for many Americans, FERA was unsuccessful at achieving a minimum standard of living for most people in need. Limited funding kept those in need on the very edge of survival. Further, to qualify for said relief, families and individuals had to undergo an evaluation, or means test, by FERA team members to determine whether they were needy enough for aid. The effect was generally humiliating for the applicant as it reinforced the general hopelessness of the Depression. As Hopkins later testified before Congress, the means test put social workers in charge of the family’s survival, creating a sense of helplessness for the recipient. State and local agencies distributed FERA funds to those in need, although there were problems with who received aid and how much they were granted. In many southern states, African Americans were not assisted at all as the aid was distributed only to white families. Families where women were the head of household also found it difficult to get FERA relief. Furthermore, the program moved more slowly than the administration hoped. To better meet the needs of the people, in November of 1933, Roosevelt, with the advice of Hopkins and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins,

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established an emergency project under the umbrella of FERA called the Civil Works Administration (CWA). The winter of 1933–4 was set to be one of the worst for the American people and so the hope was that this program, which would remove over four million people from FERA rolls and employ them in more than 180,000 work projects throughout the nation at a cost of $2 million, would help the country start to turn the corner and provide much-needed work relief to millions. Hopkins considered CWA an astounding success as it not only provided wages that were pumped back into local economies, it also provided a sense of hope and drive to those on its rolls. When it was dissolved and absorbed back into FERA in spring 1934 some of the projects continued. More than anything else, the success of the CWA planted a seed in the mind of Hopkins which would reveal itself in the spring of 1935 as the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act and the creation of the Works Projects Administration (WPA). The keystone of FDR’s 100 Days agenda for bringing about some semblance of recovery lay with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which was divided into two parts: Title I, which created the National Recovery Administration (NRA); and Title II, which created the Public Works Administration (PWA). Like AAA and even FERA, the NIRA and subsequent creation of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) combined a variety of ideas from various advisors, all of which meant that it lacked a clear focus other than to try and stabilize the economy and show the American people that their government was trying something. The NRA sought to free business and industry from the restrictions imposed by earlier anti-trust legislation and allow them to form organized cartels to reduce competition, ensure stable profits, stimulate the economy, and provide jobs. The impetus for NRA came from a variety of sources, including the Progressive era belief in the power of government to regulate industry, World War I’s War Industries Board, trade associations, and other tactics industry employed to get around anti-trust laws like the Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914). The premise seemed to be an understanding that the economic collapse had finally convinced industrial leaders that the traditional ways of doing business failed and given the depth of this failure, new tactics needed to be employed for the betterment of all. FDR addressed this idea when he signed the legislation into law in June, indicating that business leaders had long insisted that if they were allowed to govern themselves, free from anti-trust oversight, the result would be a more stable and profitable society. This New Deal program held out the belief, sampled from an earlier era and another Roosevelt, that monopolies or oligopolies could be positive for society if they operated for the common good. Cartels and trusts are only bad and in need of being broken up when their policies and actions work against the commonweal. NRA suspended the Sherman and Clayton Anti-Trust Acts to allow businesses and industry to form cartels or trade associations, that would limit the risks and ensure profit to encourage employment. Over six hundred

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different cartels were formed over the next several months covering about twenty-two million workers, each representing a specific aspect of American commerce, from food production to clothing, to steel, to automobiles. These associations would meet under federal guidance and determine basic economic floors—prices for raw materials, distribution costs, prices for finished products, and a division of the marketplace based upon the size of the company and their potential market share and ability to expand employment. These were part of a whole series of NRA Codes they had to agree to, all of which meant that those who signed on were getting a guarantee from the government that they would not lose money, as the competition of the marketplace, and the risk associated with it, were suspended. In exchange for these benefits, the associations or cartels had to agree to other Codes that addressed long-standing abuses within the marketplace. The first dealt with child labor. Some industries, like glass, textiles, coal, and even amusements, used child labor to lower the wage value of its workforce, as they would work for wages far below those of adults. They also took jobs away from adults who, in theory, needed the work to support their families. These child laborers were different from those working previous to World War I, as unrestricted immigration forced many youths into the workplace for their family’s and or their survival. But with immigration dropping significantly first with the war and then with the National Origins Act (1924), the desire to maintain low wages encouraged industry to use child labor when possible, even as many states passed laws restricting or even outlawing its practice. Industries signing onto the NRA had to agree to the Code that prohibited child labor, although there were a few exceptions, namely in farming and other family-oriented businesses. The second mandated a forty-hour workweek, with a proviso that suggested that any additional work be done by adding employees to the workforce. This would both ensure that workers would not be overworked as they had in the past, sometimes working sixty to eighty hours with no overtime pay. It would also guarantee the long-held mission of unions, namely the eight-hour day. Further, the hope was that by mandating a forty-hour work shift, perhaps a second or even third shift could be added helping to reduce the unemployment rate in the nation’s industrial areas. Another Code established a minimum wage for workers. This was a long-desired demand for workers and the NRA established that each industry create a base wage determined by regional living standards. This meant that in some industries, like steel, workers in Pittsburgh or Cleveland were paid a slightly higher wage than steelworkers in Birmingham or Youngstown, based upon the cost-of-living differentials. This wage differential was applied throughout the NRA so that different minimum wages were applied to different industries, but also that workers were guaranteed a living wage. The final Code that industry had to agree to was known as 7(a) and allowed for workers the right to collective bargaining. The Code said that owners and operators could not restrict the right of workers to seek collective bargaining rights, namely in the form of

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unions. This was a clear break from the American Way concept that seemed to gather support in the 1920s, where companies themselves formed worker councils to address issues within the workplace. The economic collapse and the lack of support industries provided for their unemployed workers revealed the flaw in that system and 7(a) sought to allow workers to choose an outside entity to bargain for them. 7(a) did not mean workers had to form a union, only that companies could no longer employ yellow dog contracts, use blackball tactics, or fire workers for pro-union activities. This encouraged nearly nineteen hundred strikes and walkouts by workers in 1934 and brought fear to companies and businesses. The NRA worked hard to promote its agenda, going so far as to create a massive national propaganda campaign to get producers and consumers to support the agency’s efforts. Launched on July 24, the day after FDR detailed the effort via his Fireside Chat, Johnson asked local chambers of commerce to get businesses to sign the “President’s Re-Employment Agreement,” for which they would get a Blue Eagle poster with the slogan “We Do Our Part” to display in their storefront. Consumers were asked to favor those stores with had the NRA Blue Eagle sign. Johnson also asked volunteers to go out into their communities to garner support for the pledge. Tens of thousands agreed and gave short speeches wherever they could to extoll the virtues of the NRA and reminding people that all citizens needed to work together to overcome the economic debacle. The idea behind the pledge was to use public pressure to encourage acceptance and, in a way, punish those who did not sign the agreement. By the fall of 1933, over two million people and businesses had signed onto the pledge. The agency never specifically targeted or boycotted a business but used community peer pressure to assure conformity. There was some opposition to this strong-arming, as opponents likened the campaign to the propaganda efforts in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or Mussolini’s Italy. The culmination of the campaign came with a day-long parade down New York City’s 5th Avenue. The Blue Eagle campaign set the tone for New Deal throughout the remainder of the decade, where a mix of policy and propaganda was designed to ensure compliance and support. In some instances, this ploy succeeded, and in others, it did not. Even with the promotions and the number of companies signed on to the NRA grew and more workers were added to the employment rolls—over 2.5 million new jobs were created by 1935—it was apparent to many within the administration that the enthusiasm of its creation was not being met by the reality of its operation. Initially under the leadership of General Hugh Johnson (forced to resign in September 1934), whose experience with the WIB in World War I qualified him to lead the NRA, and then Donald Richberg, the NRA was often forced to make concessions to certain industries regarding specific aspects of the Codes to win their approval. One of the more glaring examples was the willingness to allow Ford Motor company to ignore 7(a). Other industrial leaders sought similar concessions and

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when they were not offered or agreed to, simply ignored the Codes they found cumbersome. The seeming favoritism Johnson/Richberg employed revealed the weakness of the NRA to impose order. Both administrators lacked the desire or power to force adherence to the Codes, which became the focus of the Supreme Court case that spelled its demise in late spring 1935. In Schechter v. US, or the Sick Chicken Case, the Court found that the NRA could not regulate intrastate companies, and further, Congress had no power to suspend existing legislation. Other companies, realizing that the federal government no longer held the power to regulate them, challenged NRA’s rulings, and violations were subsequently dropped. There were numerous other problems with the NRA’s operation, as companies regularly flaunted the child labor, forty-hour workweek, minimum wage Codes, and used the near-monopolistic cartels to reap profits with little repercussion. Also, African American leaders pointed to the various flaws in the Codes which allowed for a form of legal exploitation of Black people and generally ignored those occupations where many African American workers were employed. NRA codes also established lower wage standards for women and African Americans and in some cases, as with domestic and agricultural workers, excluded them entirely. Although FDR had asked for a two-year extension in February of that year, shortly after the Court’s ruling Congress voted to end the NRA. It was abandoned officially by April 1936. Title II of the NIRA allocated funds for the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, known popularly as the Public Works Administration (PWA). Under the leadership of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, the PWA’s $3.3 billion-dollar budget sought to develop a massive public works program designed to take unemployed people and put them to work building public structures through loans and grants to both private and public sector projects. Over the next six years, the federal government was responsible for designing projects, approving loans, and spending over $6 billion on more than thirty-four thousand projects. Many cities used PWA funding to build sidewalks, school buildings, swimming pools, hospital wings, and housing for the homeless. The agency also provided funds to build aircraft carriers, the port for Brownsville, Texas and was the principal force behind building the Grand Coulee Dam. New Dealers like Hopkins initially had high hopes for PWA as the true engine of recovery, both in terms of getting money into the hands of the people, which would stimulate consumption of commodities necessitating the employment of others in the private sector, and in combatting the sense of hopelessness that came with chronic unemployment and was enhanced, to a degree, by the relief provided by FERA. However, the initial optimism faded as director Ickes was conservative with allocating the funds, fearing corruption or make-work-type projects, and the PWA became somewhat a secondary program within the New Deal. It continued to operate until finally abolished in 1943.

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Power and control Another key 100 Days legislation came with the passage of the Tennessee Valley Act in early May 1933. The TVA called for the federal government to build a series of dams along the Tennessee River to increase navigability and flood control, to engage in reforestation along the Tennessee Valley, create and distribute new fertilizers to local farmers, and of course, use the power of those dams to generate electricity to be distributed throughout the south for the dual purpose of stimulating industrial and commercial development, as well as expanding the consumer buying potential for those same citizens. The TVA had the power to buy, through the right of way provisions, land and homes from nearly 125,000 persons and relocate them to other areas in the region. This did not always sit well with the residents, some even actively threatening to use violence to protect their land. Once the dams and reservoirs were built power lines carrying the electricity into homes and businesses would allow these Americans to buy electricity-driven items like radios, light bulbs, toasters, electric irons, and so much more. From the onset, FDR had identified the south as a region that was under consuming and the TVA was one way in which the New Deal sought to alter that situation, along with the wages workers received while laboring on the project. TVA not only sought to provide electrical power to a forty thousand square mile region throughout the American south that private companies were reluctant to engage in but also provide those in that region and beyond with wages to stimulate the larger economy and open the region for modernization. The TVA built sixteen hydroelectric dams along the Tennessee river by 1944, employed over nine thousand workers, and provided low-cost electricity to millions throughout the region. The dams also introduced modern soil erosion and flood control tactics to the area to fulfill the New Deal’s larger mission of conserving and developing the regional natural resources, which applied not only in the south but throughout the country. Coming under the direct control of the president, the TVA could transform the region, but in large measure it worked to reinforce traditional racist views by making it difficult for Black workers to be hired, allowing for segregated work crews and pay, and restricting African Americans from TVA built model cities like Norris, Tennessee for fear of upsetting the racial hierarchy in the area. The 100 Days legislation also expanded control into other areas of the economy. The country left the gold standard to allow the Federal Reserve to release more money into the economy. The creation of the Emergency Farm Loan and Farm Credit Act allowed farmers to get low-interest loans and helped to ensure their longevity. To regulate those who, in many Americans’ minds, brought on the economic collapse, the Securities Exchange Act placed safeguards concerning public financial reports and created the Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee the stock market. To stem the

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tide of foreclosures and provide immediate relief to homeowners, Congress passed the Home Owners Loan Act. In 1933 as part of his 100 Days legislation, FDR also sought to re-imagine Native American policy. With the guidance of Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, the New Deal included in early 1934 the Indian Reorganization Act, which ended nearly a half-century of assimilationist policy and allowed the 1887 Dawes Act, which reduced Native land holdings due to the allotment plan policy, to formally end. Tribes were now allowed to elect their own governments, to distribute land collectively if they choose, and to educate their children on the reservation instead of sending them off to boarding schools where they would be “Americanized.” And finally, the Railroad Coordination Act encouraged the consolidation in that industry to enact rate reforms. If all this were not enough, on March 12, 1933, FDR addressed the American people in a Fireside Chat where he committed his administration to the repeal of Prohibition, which Congress had voted in favor of in February. He announced he would ask Congress to amend the Volstead Act to allow for the immediate legalization of beer (with a limit of 3.2 percent alcohol) as the states worked to ratify its repeal. Congress met the following day and passed the amendment leading to beer parties throughout the country. By the end of the year, enough states had ratified the Twenty-first Amendment and the Prohibition experiment came to an inglorious end.

Assessment These were not the only major legislative activities undertaken by FDR during what is called the first New Deal, but represent the range of directions and the almost hodgepodge approach taken during the crisis. Some scholars have tied these early efforts to the ones taken later, during the second New Deal and those that were taken as the country was preparing for war, as part of Roosevelt’s pragmatic approach to the severity of the times. While the president did indicate on more than one occasion as he was running for the office and once elected that he would try different things to see what might best address the problems, the idea that he and his advisers simply acted as action/reaction to their policies ignores the political, economic, and social realities of the time. The combined activity of the 100 Days legislation highlights the many compromises FDR needed to make to satisfy the multi-dimensional aspect of not only the Democratic party but the country as a whole. The party included white southerners who did not want any challenge to Jim Crow segregation, northeast banking and business people fearful of federal takeover and control, midwestern farmers concerned about the demise of their way of life, Great Lakes industrialists concerned about labor unrest, westerners worried about being left behind and ignored by an eastern establishment, as well as a myriad of other groups and areas worried that the crisis of the day was simply too much for the country to recover from. This first New Deal seemed to have something for everyone.

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Almost everyone. The New Deal and FDR’s activity regarding African Americans during this early phase was poor at best, given that in industrial areas like Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia the unemployment rate ran as high as sixty percent. FDR was unwilling to come out in favor of advancing Civil Rights and equality and often substituted his wife Eleanor or other key advisors to stand in for him at events or for comments. FDR felt he had to walk a tightrope regarding the New Deal and its push for racial equality. The Democratic party was a monolithic block throughout the white South and its leaders were ardent segregationists and the idea of using federal power to challenge their racist system would have weakened FDR’s position and ability to get legislation through the Senate. Also, African American voters, until the election of 1932, had been historically Republican. This election was the first time Black voters switched from the party of Lincoln to FDR and so they lacked a clear and focused voice within the party. Perhaps another explanation for the lack of concern for this group of Americans stems from the fact that the New Deal, in large measure, with its advocacy on consumption and the marketplace, was designed to enhance or build up the middle class, not to reform the economic inequality evident in the urban or rural poor, or even to rescue those marginalized by the ravages of capital. FDR did recognize the increasing power of African Americans within the party and formed what was called the Black Brains Trust in 1933 through the Federal Council of Negro Affairs and with the influence of NAACP chair Joel Spingarn and the interest of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Serving as informal advisors, and with the support of the First Lady, Hopkins, and former Chicago NAACP president Ickes, the group encouraged the president to recognize the unique issues facing the nation’s African American population which would lead, in the second incarnation of the New Deal in 1935, numerous key appointments including Lawrence Oxley, Mary McLeod Bethune, Robert Weaver, Edgar Brown, and several others. Many of the 100 Days New Deal programs were discriminatory, and in some cases, overtly racist. The NRA was seen as predatory by many within the African American community as it excluded domestic and agricultural workers where three-quarters of all Black workers were employed. The agency also allowed Black workers to be paid less and encouraged segregation in the workplace. The AAA was no better, as its plan allowed for payments to go to landowners and not those sharecroppers who worked the land. This forced nearly three million African American sharecroppers off the land and into urban areas where they faced more difficulties finding work and taking care of their families. The TVA, which was to bring modernization to the south, segregated work crews, paid lower wages for similar work and allowed no Black skilled tradesmen. Even the model town of Norris, Tennessee, meant to depict what a well-planned town should look like, allowed no African Americans to live there. Even the CCC failed to address the issue of racial inequality, as African American young men

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made up fewer than six percent of its rolls until 1935, even in areas of the south where their numbers were double that of the white population. Women were also underrepresented with this first New Deal. In 1930 over twenty-four percent of all those employed were women, most of these in the domestic or personal service industries, the rest primarily in education or nursing. The National Economy Act, which in a way identified the larger fight for equality women faced during this difficult era, forced over sixteen hundred women to quit their federal jobs since their husbands also worked for the federal government. This was part of a larger purge of women from the workforce, as many state and local governments followed suit. Women were as hard hit by the economic collapse as any other worker, with an estimated two million out of work by the time FDR was elected. Their plight elicited little sympathy, as eighty-two percent of men and seventy-five percent of women believed that women should leave their jobs and focus on the home during the crisis. Yet, when the 100 Days legislation was implemented, few initiatives addressed their specific needs. Many within the government agreed with the general population in its belief that women should leave the workplace so that men, the perceived real breadwinners, could take their jobs. Even though once elected the president asked Hopkins to hold a special conference in Washington to better understand the issues facing women in the crisis, early New Deal programs failed to help women with the same veracity reserved for white men. The NRA codes allowed for lower wages for women, the PWA employed very few women, FERA did create some projects focused on employing women, but overall represented less than ten percent of the total workforce—142,000 out of the total 1.6 million employed. The CWA created a special division for Women’s Work under the direction of Ellen Woodward, yet their numbers accounted for 7.5 percent of the total four million CWA enrollees. CCC, TVA, and other programs likewise either ignored or restricted women from their rolls. In his primary campaign to be the nominee for president in the 1932 election, FDR delivered a radio address in April that came to define his candidacy and the New Deal. Labeled the “Forgotten Man” speech and written mainly by advisor Raymond Moley, it sampled the idea first espoused in the late nineteenth century by William Graham Sumner, who, while advocating a laissez-faire classic liberal approach to government interference, identified the middle-class manager and worker as those most negatively affected by such action. While Moley and FDR challenged the classic liberal action of Hoover in the address, they did, in a way, resurrect the idea that the middle class—forgotten man—was being hurt by GOP policies, comparing the coming struggles to a military conflict and demanding that the federal government advocate as much for this group as they were for banking and industry. Once elected, FDR’s first New Deal did much for banking, industry, and commerce. He was convinced that the root of the economic problem was not the inadequate distribution of wealth in the country, but rather under-consumption by its citizenry. The policies

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enacted to assist the forgotten man were thus designed to encourage more consumers to better assist business, industry, and banking in their endeavors. Yet the first New Deal’s definition of the forgotten man left many people out—women, African Americans, the hidden urban and rural poor, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans—and focused on helping white working-class Americans move up the social and economic ladder to become stakeholders in the American dream.

References Chamberlain, John. Farewell to Reform: Being the History of the Rise, Life and Decay of the Progressive Mind in America. New York: Liveright, 1932. Cole, Olen. The African American Experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Tallahassee, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999. Katznelson, Ira. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time. New York: Norton, 2013. Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Maher, Neil M. Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. McEvaine, Robert S. (editor). Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Patel, Klaus Kiran. The New Deal: A Global History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. Rauchway, Eric. Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash over the New Deal. New York: Basic Books, 2018. Roosevelt, Eleanor. This I Remember. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949. Rosenman, Samuel. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volumes 2 & 3. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

3

The second New Deal and the rise of the welfare state, 1935–9

As 1934 came to a close, FDR and his New Deal faced some tough choices. The director of the NRA, Hugh Johnson, resigned, largely due to pressure from the White House concerning his bombastic behavior and inability to enforce many of the Codes. The AAA was under attack by many for being insensitive to the needs of the urban and hungry poor. Both were facing Supreme Court decisions in the coming year that the administration understood would not go their way. The TVA had begun to displace many rural peoples along the Tennessee River and there was much opposition growing in these areas concerning federal power and intrusion. Even the success of the CCC, Roosevelt’s “tree army,” was facing criticism for its paramilitary arrangements, encouraging some to compare it to Hitler’s youth program. African American and women’s advocates were sharply critical of how the New Deal had seemingly ignored their plight. Dangerous dust storms raged in the nation’s agricultural center and displaced tens of thousands and left a scar in the center of the country, clouding the sky and blowing away the topsoil from the five states most hard-hit, but ultimately spreading to twenty-seven states from Texas to the Dakotas. In May 1934 a storm of over 350 million tons of dust was carried up into the jet stream, darkening the skies all along the northeast seaboard and into the Atlantic. And, while people seemed more hopeful about the future, the unemployment rate had only dropped a few percentage points since FDR took office. In short, the administration had few successes to pin its hope for reelection and FDR needed to regroup and redesign his New Deal to better meet the needs of the American people if he hoped to win in November.

Challenges While historical studies of FDR outline the positive attributes of his New Deal and the 100 Days legislation, it’s important to remember that not everyone was excited by what was taking place. Hoover did garner almost sixteen million votes to Roosevelt’s twenty-two million. Republicans in Congress opposed some of the 100 Days legislation, except for the Banking Act, and it has been estimated that almost forty percent of the American DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-4

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people did not support the actions taken by early New Deal activity. Business leaders and Wall Street investors were also uncertain as to the direction the 100 Days legislation was taking the country and began organizing to protect themselves from any drift too far to the left. And, of course, there were those from his party who for their own reasons were undermining or not supportive of this New Deal. Furthermore, it troubled many within and outside the administration that in 1934, nearly twenty-two percent of Americans were on some form of government relief, translating into twentyeight million citizens. The president also faced challenges from some who had initially been supporters. In the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Father Charles Coughlin began to warn his radio listeners against FDR and his policies. This false prophet of change was, according to the radio priest, secretly working with and for financial and banking interests, whom Coughlin would later identify primarily as Jews in anti-Semitic rants later in the decade. FDR tried to placate Coughlin, because his influence with his listeners in and around Michigan and among Catholics was strong. But to little avail. Coughlin formed the National Union for Social Justice in late 1934 with the hope that it could challenge or even replace the existing Democratic party. With estimates suggesting eight million members, Coughlin’s organization blended nativist and anti-Semitic sentiments concerning monetary policy with socialist desires to nationalize certain industries. By 1935 FDR came out publicly against Coughlin and the National Union as it had become home to various conspiracy theories and untenable solutions. Coughlin’s anti-Semitism was not out of step with many Americans both in government and the general population. Within the government, and despite pleas from leading American Jewish leaders as early as 1933 to allow greater numbers of German Jews into the country, the State Department and FDR refused to change policies. Even after 1938 when the situation for Germany’s Jews, and now Austria’s Jews, became more dire, the Roosevelt administration moved at a very slow pace to change policies. The public itself viewed Jews in the country as less honest than other businesspeople and in general were unsupportive of increasing the number of migrants allowed. Another supporter-turned-critic was Louisiana Senator Huey Long. A populist who built a well-oil political machine in his home state while Governor and translated that into a Senate seat in 1930. He appealed to the working-class members of his state with his call for dramatic income redistribution through tax increases on the wealthy. Long supported and campaigned for FDR in the 1932 election only to turn on him less than a year later saying that New Deal did not go far enough and that FDR had turned his back on the poor and working class in favor of wealthy northeastern capitalists. The “Kingfish,” as he was known, broke with FDR over the NRA and Economy Act, although he harbored suspicions concerning the president’s commitment to the common man even before the election. Long began to attack FDR and the New Deal and gained increasing support with

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the publication of his populist 1933 autobiography Every Man a King which laid bare his contempt for the halfway measures of the New Deal and outlined what would become the basis in 1934 of his Share the Wealth clubs scattered throughout the country. Long would claim over five million members at its peak in 1935. Uncomplicated by facts, Long promised every household an immediate payout of five thousand dollars with future guarantees of twenty-five hundred a year. This would be paid through taxing the wealthy at a higher percentage. He also promised more money for the elderly and schools. Roosevelt and his advisors worried about Long as many of the New Deal’s initial programs were not having the desired effect and by 1935 Long began even more aggressive attacks on the president while touting his program. Long’s popularity made him a potential competitor to FDR for the 1936 nomination or even as a third-party candidate, with his strong political machine in Louisiana, connections to other southern Democrats, and his various conspiracies and cabals that fostered fears amongst his supporters. The threat ended however when the Kingfish was assassinated in September of that year in his home state. Meanwhile, in California Upton Sinclair’s run for the governorship also raised the question as to whether or not the first New Deal had gone far enough. Sinclair’s platform revolved around his End Poverty in California (EPIC) program. A long-time member of the Socialist Party, he switched to the Democrats in 1933 to run for governor. Soon after, he released his platform that included creating a series of cooperative farms and factories, which lay idle because of the crisis, and have them produce according to need rather than profit. The platform also called for developing an old-age pension and increasing financial support for unemployed persons. EPIC veered far to the left of the New Deal and his overwhelming victory in the primary later that summer seemed to suggest a victory in November and perhaps a challenge to what some of his supporters were saying was Roosevelt’s halfway relief measures. Sinclair hoped to create a state-controlled and managed economy in California that would, in many ways, operate as evolutionary socialism. The state, through taxation and planning, would create public works projects and promote a general turn toward an economy designed to meet the public’s needs rather than for profit. The Republicans, perhaps aided by moderate Democrats, feared Sinclair and EPIC and with the help of leading industrialists and Hollywood executives, flooded the state with literature painting Sinclair as a radical hell-bent on destroying American individualism and freedom. He lost the election, but EPIC remained powerful within the state’s Democratic machine for the next several years.

Welfare state On the positive side, however, in the midterm elections FDR and the Democrats expanded their control over Congress by gaining seats in both

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Houses. In the Senate, the new seats ensured a super-majority while the GOP losses in the House meant they had less than one-quarter of that chamber’s total. Even as some of his policies were under attack or were seen as less than successful, the elections proved to Roosevelt that the people approved the ideas behind the New Deal and gave him the mandate to keep experimenting with new and modern ways to approach government, the economy, and its citizens. Key advisors like Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins were strongly advocating for a more direct approach to assisting the unemployed and building an economic infrastructure that was fairer and more balanced. The first New Deal succeeded in stabilizing the economic collapse, provided some hope to many Americans, and showed the agility of democracy to confront these threats. The second New Deal would have to be bolder, be more committed to the needs of the people, and give the executive office more power. Its effect would change the role of government in the affairs of industry, business, foreign policy, and the people and become the engine of political debate and division up to the present moment. In early 1935 FDR laid out his plans for what would become the welfare state. It would build upon the successes and failures of the first New Deal. The CCC, CWA, and TVA were seen as examples of modern approaches and the positive impact of direct federal aid in employment and building economic security, while the NRA served as a reminder that using Progressive era regulatory powers and allowing business and industry to move the economy forward proved unwise. He made clear this new direction for his administration when, during his annual message to Congress in January 1935, he laid out the plan to address not just the issue of unemployment, but of building self-reliance, self-respect, and above all else, hope. He returned to these same themes with his now-famous inaugural address a year later when he compared the problems of the economy to a disease and how with the utilization of scientific methods, such ills could be adequately dealt with. For FDR and the New Deal, this meant building a more solid foundation where the federal government would play a more active role in the organization, planning, and direction of the economy to address the reality that more than one-third of the people in the US were living below acceptable standards. The commitment to the welfare state was full-on by this point but the 1936 speech signified and made official the shift in government policy that was the creation of the welfare state. In essence, the second New Deal as the welfare state meant that the federal government accepted economic responsibility for its citizens by working closely with agencies, industries, and workers to organize, plan, direct, and fund the economy. Much has been made of this second New Deal’s adoption of Keynesian economic theory, whereby greater government spending combined with lower taxation would result in greater spending, controlled inflation, and a modern solution to the economic calamities of the era. John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, criticized FDR’s early efforts for not adequately dealing with the realities of modern finance and thus undermining the

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effectiveness of his programs. Keynes outlined his approach in General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936) arguing for more direct involvement by the federal government in the management, direction, and subsidizing of the economy. But FDR was unimpressed by Keynes, although he took his and other suggestions to heart and created bold programs that put experts in charge of planning and organizing the economy and delivered resources directly to the people through various work and aid programs designed to increase their purchasing power so necessary for the revival of business and industry. Of course, all of these reforms were set against the backdrop of his reelection campaign.

Works Progress Administration and work relief At the very heart of this new agenda was the Emergency Relief Act of 1935. In his 1935 State of the Union address, FDR told Congress that providing relief was not enough, as it did not meet the emotional and spiritual needs of the people. What was needed was to provide work which would build self-respect in the individual and pride in the nation. He told Congress that the work would contribute to the general improvement of the American way of life, provide needed buildings, roads, bridges, electricity, and other infrastructure features. It would have the potential to employ millions and reconstruct the American landscape. The central feature of the proposed Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of April 8, 1935, was work relief, where people would be paid according to the work they performed. Building on the success of the CCC and the CWA, Executive Order #7034 created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) on May 6, under the direction of Hopkins with a $4.8 million budget. He had little difficulty finding adequate projects to spend this largesse, working day and night to get as many people onto the WPA rolls as possible—over 1 million persons in 1935 to a high of 3.3 million in 1938. By 1943, 8.5 million Americans had been employed by the WPA. Within months and after infighting over budget and control, administrator Hopkins dedicated himself and his staff to allocate the monies into as many different projects as were possible in the shortest amount of time. WPA sought to employ those put out of work due to no fault of their own in occupations that, as best as possible, mirrored their skills in the private economy. Their wages would be below private-sector wages, so as not to compete, and time limits were imposed as to how long one could stay on the program to encourage movement into regular, non-government employment. Hopkins had high hopes that through this intense initiative a transformation of American life could be accomplished. What he meant by this of course is subject to interpretation, but largely what he hoped was that the American people would see that by working together and recognizing the unique contributions each person makes to the whole of American society, the underlying social problems revealed by the Depression—uneven distribution of wealth,

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lack of organized economic and social planning, the accompanying issues of racism, sexism, and the lack of unity among the states to a common cause— would be ameliorated. This is one of the chief reasons the WPA wanted to be the distributor of monies and not hand it off to the states to distribute—better control. States had to contribute anywhere from ten to thirty percent depending on the project and had to submit to the WPA office a detailed request for the use of money which needed to meet the strict guidelines regarding work, wages, hiring, and community relevance. Several governors balked at the WPA’s control, for example, Ohio’s Democratic Governor Martin Davey who in 1936–7 cut the WPA presence by nearly 100,000 by refusing to work with the Administration. He was defeated for reelection in 1938 by the Republican John Bricker who ran on the issue of more WPA involvement in the state. The WPA wanted to prove to the American people that the federal government cared about them and so mandated that every county in the country get at least three projects. This could come in the form of building a new post office, or creating sewer lines, building roads or bridges, creating outdoor recreational facilities, preserving food, serving lunches, repairing books in libraries, installing traffic signs—the list is nearly endless as to the various types of WPA project included. Working with the AAA, for example, WPA canning projects accepted surplus farm goods and preserved them—some eighty-four million pieces—and distributed them to WPA cooking projects in public schools where they were used to serve about 1.2 billion school lunches. In New Orleans, the WPA mattress project took surplus cotton, purchased by the AAA, and used it to make and distribute mattresses through the region. Out west, the WPA worked with the CCC to help develop state and national parks for recreational purposes like skiing, as well as helping to build the Golden Gate Bridge and the Grand Coulee dam. Hopkins sought to limit the exclusion of Blacks and women that had plagued earlier New Deal activities. The initial WPA hiring employed more than three hundred and fifty thousand Black enrollees and mandated that wages and opportunities were equal. The WPA also sought to raise the literacy among the nation’s Black population through its Education project, which taught a quarter of a million people how to read and write. This success was part of a larger literacy project within the New Deal itself, which brought literacy to several million Americans during the decade. The Division of Women’s and Professional Projects, led by Ellen Woodward, who held a similar position in FERA, helped unemployed women find work on the WPA. Women faced the double issue that many men avoided, whereby society, in general, felt that women should stay at home to raise the family and remove themselves from the workplace to open positions for male breadwinners. The 100 Days legislation did little to improve their situation. The CWA, for example, only three hundred thousand women found employment, about seven percent of the total. The PWA created no projects for women and FERA was not much better, as women represented just under nine percent of the total cared for by the agency. Hopkins and

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Woodward hoped to address this disparity with the WPA. By March 1936 over four hundred and fifty-nine thousand women appeared on WPA rolls, many of whom were assigned to Woodward’s Division where they served in a variety of projects, including school lunch programs, nursery schools, libraries, social services, sewing rooms, historic preservation, and education. Women comprised forty-one percent of those enrolled in the various arts projects, seventy-two percent in the canning projects, and ninety-six percent of those on the sewing project. Woodward’s Division made little inroads into the all-male fields—construction and other labor-intensive projects— and focused on placing women in roles they occupied in the private sector, which of course, reinforced traditional sexual division of labor. The WPA had a project for virtually every occupation, even artists. Federal Project One, made up of the theater, art, music, and writing projects, employed out of work artists, musicians, actors, directors, writers, as well as those who worked behind the scenes in skilled positions to illustrate, design, illuminate, and entertain the American people. Until 1939 the Federal Art Project created over one hundred and eight thousand artworks throughout the country, usually in buildings like schools, post offices, and other construction aided by the WPA. The Federal Music Project gave 224,698 low or no-cost performances to nearly 148,159,699 million people and were able to help revive or create symphony orchestras in Cleveland, Buffalo, St. Petersburg, Oklahoma City, and at least eighteen other American cities. Women made up a significant portion of those employed on Federal Art One, representing twenty-seven percent of those on the art and theater projects and over forty percent on the writing project. The music project, meanwhile, while not employing these high numbers, did employ a significant number of women musicians, who, for the first time performed with men. The sexual integration of orchestras was one of the successes of the music project, but it also gave women composers like Ruth Seeger and Mary Carr Moore the opportunity to hear their works performed and gave others like Antonio Brico their first chance to conduct. The WPA also offered disaster aid, which again pointed to the positive impact the project played in many communities. When flooding inundated the areas between New England and Ohio in the spring, 1936, leaving over four hundred thousand homeless and one hundred seventy-one people dead, Hopkins dispatched one hundred thousand WPA workers to assist. The WPA also helped tornado-ravaged deep south states rebuild and helped put out upper Midwest forest fires later that summer. When in the late winter of 1937 floods ravaged the Ohio River valley killing nearly five hundred and wiping out millions of homes, leaving large swathes of the region without electricity and clean water, and waterways choked with dead livestock, oil, and other debris, Hopkin immediately dispatched two hundred thousand WPA workers into the area to help clean up, rebuild, and even entertain those affected by this catastrophe. Later, in September 1938, the WPA sent another one hundred thousand workers to the eastern seaboard to help recover from a massive and destructive hurricane that struck the region.

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This diversity of activity was central to Hopkins’s idea for the WPA. Designed to ease the hardships caused by the collapsed economy while providing valuable work experience to the unemployed, those employed on the WPA could continue to hone their skills while technically out of work. This would result in a better trained and qualified workforce in the future and just as important, build a sense of hope and trust among the American people that the New Deal was something new and a good deal for most Americans. Work on the Project had a time limit and enrollees had to try and find work in the private sector, and while there was opposition to what some called unfair competition or even boondoggling, most Americans supported the WPA both as a work program and a positive force in their local communities. Hopkins wanted to make certain the projects operated as much as possible with little overt racism and generally, the WPA enrollment of African Americans ranged between fifteen and twenty percent, and most were placed in projects they were trained for and received equal pay for equal work. There were issues however in some southern states where Black workers were paid less and were not included in more skilled positions. To correct this, the 1939 Congressional funding for the WPA included a statement-making it illegal to discriminate based upon race, color, or creed. By the time of this legislation over one million Black families were supported by WPA wages. And like the CCC before it, the monies that WPA paychecks pumped into local economies helped private sector businesses and industries, from building materials to groceries and rent. When the WPA ended in 1942, it had provided temporary employment to over 8.5 million Americans in 1.4 million different projects, including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, The River Walk in San Antonio, La Guardia Airport in New York, Timberline Lodge in Oregon, and over 2,566 murals in the nation’s post offices, schools, and other public places. All the while pumping over $10 billion into the economy.

National Youth Administration With Executive order #7086 issued in late June 1935, FDR sought to broaden the New Deal’s influence on young people throughout the country by mandating within the WPA the establishment of the National Youth Administration (NYA). Under the leadership of Aubrey Williams, the NYA sought to model the success of the CCC by providing stipends and employment training opportunities to young people—male and female Black and white—to encourage them to stay in school. Williams outlined four basic goals: 1 2

help high school, college, and graduate students stay in school by providing funds to create part-time jobs; provide work relief and job training to school-age young people not enrolled in college and over the age of 18;

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3

lobby educators to modify their curriculum to better prepare the nation’s young people for the real world through job-specific training; and encourage positive citizenship and leisure-time activities.

4

High school students were provided opportunities to gain important private sector skills while still in school, and for those who already graduated but not in college, the NYA provided job training opportunities. While the CCC attracted those who had left school or had little incentive to go to college if they graduated high school, the NYA sought out those young people who wanted to stay in school but whose families were on relief and thus needed the extra money that a sixteen or older child might provide. It was reported that two and a quarter million young people dropped out of school during the early years of the Depression in search of work to help themselves and their families. Unemployment for young people (aged 16–24) was still very high by the time of the second New Deal, with some estimates at over thirtyseven percent in 1936. One estimate found three million young people between the ages of 16 and 25 on relief rolls and eligible for NYA funds, a great many of whom lacked the basic educational background to successfully operate in the country’s workforce. The private sector simply could not absorb the nearly 1.7 million new workers entering the workforce each year and Mrs. Roosevelt’s fears that a generation lost to hopelessness and despair seemed certain unless positive steps were taken to educate, train, and teach these young people how to be contributing members of their society. Charles Taussig, chairman of the Advisory Committee for the NYA, believed America’s youth would be lost because they were born into a world dominated by chaos and uncertainty. Traditional policies and ideas were not enough, he believed, as the problem went beyond employment and struck at building up their integrity, hope, and the ability to discern right from wrong. He had faith, however, that this generation had a strong social consciousness and a drive that could transform the country. The NYA wanted to train young people to be leaders by empowering them through employment and training so that they could become the vanguard for modern society. New teaching and educational techniques would enrich them with positive life skills for the benefit of all. The NYA leadership understood that the affairs of the nation’s youth, other than with the CCC, were generally ignored. The initial impetus came from FERA activity begun in 1934 when monies were first allocated to students at the University of Minnesota and then extended throughout the country. In the late spring of 1934, resident camps and schools for unemployed youth were established. These ended with the establishment of the WPA in May 1935 and were resurrected in June with the creation of the NYA. The number of young people who enrolled quickly ballooned, increasing from the initial 34,924 in September 1935, to a high of 628,713 in April 1937, before settling at 405,671 in November of that year.

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Central to the NYA was the Student Aid program. Begun under FERA, it helped young people stay enrolled in high school, college, or graduate school by providing paid positions averaging $20 per month for undergraduates and $40 per month to graduate students for up to thirty hours of work. In its eight years of existence (1935–43), 2,134,000 young people benefited from this program, costing $166,838,741. During its peak year of 1937, over twenty-four thousand educational institutions participated. High-school students received the majority of NYA aid, with graduate students in the minority. One report indicated that those receiving college aid were at least equal if not indeed superior to other students in scholastic achievement, a tendency replicated at the high school and graduate level. The NYA achieved some gender balance, especially in high schools, where females outnumbered males (fifty-two to forty-seven percent), but fell behind in the collegiate ranks by nearly twenty percent (sixty to forty percent). In keeping with many of the WPA-based programs, the quota for African Americans made up eleven percent in high school but only five and a half percent in college. African American students numbered under one hundred forty thousand over the eight years of the agency, but for most, without the NYA, their ability to remain in school—high school or college—was problematic. Over ninety percent of all participants came from relief rolls with seventy percent of these from homes that earned less than $900 a year. They did clerical, research, and survey work; or, community-service work, ground and building maintenance, or in a variety of staff positions within their schools. Community-service NYA youth helped with theater programs, playgrounds, tutoring, social-service agencies, nursery schools, museums, and health facilities. They became positive examples of the potential of youth to those in their communities, and within the larger governmental circles, examples of how organized relief could help create a more modern America. The other side of the NYA involved the work projects program, which assisted young people over eighteen (initially sixteen, but changed in 1936) who were not going to college or trade school but needed assistance to acquire the job experience necessary to gain private employment. Like its parent organization, the WPA, this wing of the NYA built and repaired roads, trails, streets, constructed or repaired public buildings and recreational centers, did conservation work, worked in nursery schools, served school lunches, and provided a variety of other services. This part of the NYA served fewer youth, peaking in 1937 with 184,727 young people, paid less (an average of $15 per month), was skewed significantly towards males (sixty-nine percent to thirty-one percent), but retained the WPA-mandated eleven percent of African Americans, even as their unemployment numbers, regardless of age category, was nearly double that of the national rate. The impact of these projects, where many of those enrolled also took advantage of educational opportunities to achieve literacy, came with its impact on the communities they served.

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The NYA believed its program could help save the nation’s young people. The agency also challenged traditional educational policy, which did little to prepare the nation’s young people for employment in the private sector. The NYA felt that their work programs, one of which housed them in residence halls and trained them in occupations for jobs in the private sector, would benefit their communities and point to the future of American education with a more rational, organized, and well-planned curriculum to better prepare young people for the increasingly modern workplace. The NYA also helped those enrolled in college by giving them stipends to perform a variety of tasks useful for their communities. NYA students could find themselves working in schools helping children with reading and arithmetic, but the place where they were most visible was working in public parks, swimming areas, or other recreational outdoor activities. A strong advocate for racial equality, Williams made certain the NYA paid Black youth the same wages and provided similar educational and occupational opportunities as white youth. Over three hundred thousand young African Americans worked in the NYA and made up at least ten percent of the annual employment rolls. The one hundred and twenty historically Black colleges also received NYA aid. Mary McLeod Bethune played a central role in the NYA by advising the president through her leadership in the Office of Minority Affairs. As the highest-ranking Black member of FDR’s New Deal, she was also instrumental in assisting the First Lady with advising the president on issues of race in America. FDR’s record on race relations was suspect as he worried that being too active would alienate southern and northern Democrats and weaken his coalition. It was McLeod Bethune who helped create the vaunted Black cabinet in late 1934 and it was under her guidance that the National Conference on Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth was held in Washington in early 1937. The conference is significant in that it brought together representatives from various federal agencies and departments to discuss how to better incorporate African Americans into federal programs to advance civil rights and racial equality. It also represented a recognition by the federal government of the extent of racism that existed throughout society and among New Deal programs, and a commitment to better address these fundamental issues.

Social security Many progressives challenged FDR to expand the New Deal’s reach to protect the most vulnerable within American society. This included the unemployable and the elderly. Many Americans found Dr. Francis Townsend’s Old Age Revolving Pension Plan appealing. He advocated for a national sales tax which would generate enough money to provide a $200 a month stipend for those over the age of 60 on the condition they retire— opening more jobs for younger people—and spend that money before their

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next check arrived to stimulate the economy. Townsend clubs sprung up all across the country and combined with the ideas espoused in the failed Gubernatorial bid by Upton Sinclair in California in 1934, moved FDR and New Deal to pressure Congress to pass the Social Security Act in August of 1935. While not as generous or controlling as the Townsend plan, it did provide an old-age pension for American workers and their families, as well as provisions for those unable to work, those children left behind when a bread-winning parent died, and laid the groundwork for a state-directed unemployment compensation program. Earlier, in June 1934, FDR had created the Committee on Economic Security to study how best the government could address the issue of economic insecurity among the elderly and unemployed. Later that year the Committee submitted its report, which Roosevelt sent to Congress in early 1935 as part of what was called the Economic Security Act. It included a partnership between the federal and state governments on a system of unemployment insurance, old-age insurance for workers over the age of 65 paid for by contributions from both industry and workers, and finally, grants to states for dependent children and those physically or mentally unable to secure employment. In discussions in the House, it was regularly called the Social Security Act, and FDR signed it into law on August 14, 1935. Social security lacked a provision for health care, excluded nearly twothirds of employed African Americans who worked in jobs not covered by the legislation and neglected women by not covering those who did not work outside the home and did not extend widow’s benefits if the husband died. Some of these issues were addressed in revisions to the law in 1939, but it still left nearly 9.4 million workers ineligible, primarily in agriculture and domestic service. The Social Security Act worked in conjunction with the Revenue Act passed at the end of August. This raised the rate of taxation for those earning at the highest levels up to seventy-five percent, which made immediate enemies among financial and business leaders but displayed the second New Deal’s commitment to the national interests over those of the individual. Because social security was designed as a permanent policy, it needed to be self-sufficient based upon contributions from workers and their employers. And while it underwent a variety of changes and alterations which had detrimental effects on the nation’s domestic and farm laborers and was a far cry from the initial desires of Frances Perkins and others to create a more secure safety net for Americans, it was quite a revolutionary step, one taken by only a very few other countries and covering far more citizens than those nations that had similar programs. Like other second New Deal legislation, social security signified a shift in policy and direction toward Keynesian economics and a commitment to the emerging welfare state. These Acts also went a long way to diffuse opposition from those calling for more radical reform, like the followers of Senator Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Townsend.

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Labor While pleased with the speed at which the 100 Days New Deal legislation became operational, by 1934 it was clear that it had not gone far enough to address the needs of working people. The NRA’s 7(a) provision opened the door to the idea of union organizing but because of its limited ability for enforcement, 1934 saw over eighteen hundred work stoppages. In the spring workers at the Auto-Lite electrical plants in Toledo, Ohio walked out and effectively shut the city down in a near-total general strike. Soon after in May, dockworkers launched a strike that led to the closure of west coast ports for over eighty-three days, including a four-day general strike in San Francisco that shut that city down. Textile workers from New England through the South, numbering more than 376,000 went on strike in the late summer of 1934 for continued health and safety violations and in retaliation for often violent resistance to organizing efforts by the United Textile Workers of America. The union called for a livable minimum wage, the end to the stretch out, which effectively forced workers to work for little or no pay to meet the requirements of an order by speeding up the line or increasing the number of looms per worker, and recognition of the UTWA as the collective bargaining agent for the textile workers. They set a general strike deadline for mid-September, and by September 15 organizers had encouraged workers throughout the Georgia, Alabama, and North and South Carolina mill towns to strike. Southern governors responded by calling out the National Guard. Violence ensued killing several strikers and wounding dozens more. Textile workers in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut joined the strike and when the Governors there responded by calling out the Guard, more workers were killed and wounded. When light rioting occurred in Macon and Columbus, Georgia, and with the encouragement of several mill owners, the Governor, Democrat Eugene Tallmadge declared martial law and used the National Guard to establish order using whatever means necessary, including holding 126 men and women in a former World War I internment camp at Fort McPherson in Atlanta. The UTWA was a relatively new union, crafted after the failure of the 1929 Gastonia Mill strike and had little in the way of a strike fund to assist such a large number of workers with food and rent, and some of the more desperate began to cross the picket line. FDR asked the union to end the strike and appointed a board to investigate the over four thousand 7(a) violations submitted by the union. With little recourse, the UTWA called off the strike in the hope that organizers and sympathizers would not face recriminations and get their jobs back. But to no avail. They were blacklisted, the complaints went nowhere, and the southern mills remained unorganized. The wave of strikes in that year and the continued labor unrest in early 1935 encouraged Roosevelt’s administration to act more decisively regarding the rights of organized labor in the Wagner Act. It built upon the ideas

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introduced by Section 7(a) but added provisions protecting the right of workers to seek out their collective bargaining agent. The idea behind the Wagner Act was to allow workers engaged in interstate commerce the right to join unions to represent them in collective bargaining negotiations with their employers. To ensure that companies would not force their employees to join company unions, which had been part of the American plan during the 1920s, the Act specified that workers did not have to join the union the company endorsed but were free to seek outside counsel. The National Labor Relations Board, created as an integral part of the Act, was designed to ensure that workers had the right to hold fair elections and pick their collective bargaining agent. Earlier, with the inclusion of 7(a) into the NRA legislation, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers began lobbying his parent union, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), to alter its long-standing policy of organizing skilled workers along guild lines and shift to trying to organize unskilled workers along industrial lines. The AFL was reluctant to move in this direction fearing that it would jeopardize the relationships they had built up within the specific craft industries and would open the doors to what they perceived to be more radical (read ethnic) influences and hurt their reputation. The union had developed out to the ashes of the Knights of Labor in the latter part of the nineteenth century because the former had opened itself up to all workers and thus invited radicals, particularly amongst the unskilled workers. Even with the tremendous numbers that organizing along industries afforded, the AFL had little desire to open itself up to workers it considered unreliable or un-American. Lewis did wrangle a commitment from the AFL at the 1934 conference to organize along industrial lines, but little had been accomplished. With the passage of the Wagner Act in July 1935, Lewis decided to push the issue more strongly at that year’s October convention and challenged the organization’s lackluster activity. Getting little support, several weeks later he joined with eight other AFL union leaders, including David Dubinsky of the International Ladies Garment Workers and Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and Thomas McMahon of the Textile Workers’ Union to form the Committee for Industrial Organization to begin the task of organizing workers along industrial lines. The AFL responded quickly by suspending the unions, which only served to divide the two, leading to the CIO’s eventual split from the AFL in 1938 to form the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In the interim, various Committee-backed workers began organizing the leading industries in the country. They hoped to organize the steel industry first, believing it to be the most open to the process given past organizing efforts, the centrality of the industry in the region from Pittsburgh to Chicago, and the vast numbers of workers, almost four hundred thousand. In the summer of 1936, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee began its work, which the AFL saw as an internal threat to its power structure and

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kicked those associated with the CIO out. This did not dissuade the CIO but made their efforts the more determined. However ambitious SWOC’s efforts were throughout the steel-making region of the country, it was the automobile workers who led the charge for industrial unionism. On December 30, 1936, workers at the Flint, Michigan Fisher Body plant, part of General Motors’s complex in that city, decided the time had come for direct action and shut down the plant by simply turning off the machines, sitting down where they worked, and refusing to leave. GM was the largest automobile manufacturer in the world with 250,000 employees across the country and the producer of almost half the cars sold. The strike was a direct and dramatic action designed to both demand the right of the United Auto Workers (UAW) to be their collective bargaining agent and draw attention to the power of the Wagner Act and the willingness of the federal government to uphold its commitment to labor expressed in that law. GM, along with rivals Ford and Chrysler, saw the action as an assault on private property and demanded action. In early 1937, GM got a legal injunction against the workers to vacate the premises, but they refused. The company responded on January 11, 1937, by shutting off the heat, electricity, and water to the plant, as well as removing the ladder used to shuttle food to the workers. The strikers responded by forcing the gate open and violence ensued as company and local police fired into the crowd and used tear gas. Called the Battle of the Running Bulls, twenty-eight were injured and the violence led Democratic Governor Frank Murphy to send the National Guard to Flint to maintain order but stopped short of using them to break the strike. The sit-down strike expanded to other GM facilities throughout the country and FDR, through informal conversations, urged the automaker to settle and recognize the UAW. On February 11, 1937, GM did just that and other manufactures soon followed suit—Chrysler, Studebaker, Packard, and Hudson in early April. Membership in the UAW increased from under thirty thousand to two hundred thousand by the end of the year. Ford was the lone significant holdout, but eventually, it recognized the UAW in 1941. United States Steel (USS), the largest producer of steel in the world decided on March 2, 1937, not to wait for similar action at their plants by SWOC and so recognized the United Steel Workers (USW). Other steel firms flowed suit and soon the USW’s membership swelled to over three hundred thousand. These successes buoyed the CIO whose membership surpassed three and a half million by the middle of 1937, surpassing the AFL and leading to the formal creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1938, completely outside the umbrella of its former parent. However, not all the steel industry fell under the USW in 1937. Little Steel, as it was known, made up of Republic Steel, Bethlehem, Youngstown Sheet & Tube, and Inland Steel, held firm against SWOC and succeeded in preventing the union’s actions. Led by Republic’s president Thomas Girdler, they adopted a more radical version of the Mohawk Valley formula adopted by the Remington Rand company in 1936, which included forming

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committees of loyal employees, labeling the union organizers as Communists, using local newspapers to purport impending violence, and allying their company security with local police. Girdler added to this by arming his police, including setting up machine gun nests at company gates at plants in Warren and Youngstown, Ohio. Nearly sixty-seven thousand SWOC-led workers went on strike on May 26, 1937, and almost immediately were met with violence. On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, the organizers at Republic’s south Chicago works planned a picnic for its workers and their families to show solidarity. Several hundred marched to the plant’s gates to protest and were met by company and local police who fired into the crowd, killing ten people, disabling nine others, and wounding another twenty-eight, some of whom were women and children. Most were shot in the back as they ran away. The outcry was immediate, leading to violence throughout the region. In June, in both Youngstown and Massillon, Ohio, police fired on strikers, killing five more, necessitating the governor to call out the National Guard. A mediation board was sent to negotiate but little was accomplished and without direct involvement by FDR, who did not come to the aid of the strikers, the strike faded by August. Workers returned to work and Little Steel would hold off legitimizing the USW until 1942 when the demands of war production and federal incentives forced them to accept the union. The Little Steel strike outlined the limitations of the Wagner Act and the NLRB. It also revealed the level of resistance from many business and industrial leaders who believed the law weakened their ability to control their workers. They held, and some within Roosevelt’s party and many within the GOP agreed, that the Act empowered outsiders who did not understand the working culture of individual factories and would use their power to convert the employees to socialism. In 1937 the Supreme Court heard the case of the NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp, where the steel company claimed that the NRLB and the federal government could not force them to rehire workers fired for union activities for theirs was an intrastate industry. The court narrowly ruled in favor of the NLRB saying the federal government has the right to regulate intrastate trade when said industry is organized on a national level. Further, the Court ruled that under the law workers had the right to organize and bargain and the NLRB’s role was to make certain that those advocating for these rights not face unwarranted harassment or loss of position. The case solidified the NLRB and the right of workers to organize and as a result and driven by aggressive CIO organizing activities, union membership would expand to more than thirty percent of the working population, thus making it a significant player in the Democratic party for years to come. By the end of World War II thirty-five percent of workers in non-agricultural production, about fourteen and a half million workers, carried their union cards with pride that with their union, they had achieved some level of economic security. And with this labor became part of the triumvirate of government, business, and labor. Working to buttress the Wagner Act’s commitment to labor, and in the waning light of the New Deal coalition, in late June 1938, Congress passed

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the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). A similar proposal was sent to Congress in 1933 under the guidance of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins but faced almost universal opposition from labor and business. The 1938 law was more focused and labor, now led by the CIO was in support. FLSA forbade child labor, set a minimum wage, and restricted the maximum hours one could work without earning overtime pay. The bill faced opposition from conservatives and also revealed the growing fissure within the Democratic party as southern Democrats opposed the bill for limiting their competitive wage advantage and encouraged equal wages for Black and white workers. Their opposition made it difficult for the FLSA to pass the House, but after numerous concessions in the form of amendments allowing for lower minimum wage standards in the south, Congress approved it and the president signed it into law. The enforcement of FLSA would be a constant problem left mainly to unions and organizers to report violations to the Wage and Hours division within the Department of Labor. But it did set standards and regulated labor practices, hours, and a minimum wage. Coming on the heels of the Wagner Act and the NLRB, the rise of the UAW and USW in 1937, and with the successful union organizing activities of the emerging CIO, the FLSA committed the New Deal to building a stable and organized economic model that balanced power between government, business, and workers.

Rural America There were other programs in the second New Deal. The Farm Security Administration (FSA), one of the last New Deal programs Roosevelt was able to get through Congress before the 1938 midterm elections, replacing the failed Resettlement Administration (RA). Created in 1935 as part of Roosevelt advisor Rexford Tugwell’s goal of moving over a half million farmers from their worn-out land to fresh acreage, RA rubbed Congress the wrong way and so only a few thousand were moved to better land. However, the RA did establish ninety-five temporary relief camps for dust-bowl refugee migrant workers in California, as well as helped two hundred communities throughout the country to either establish themselves as greenbelt or model communities or to modernize their facilities to ensure clean water and sanitation. Tugwell wanted to redefine how Americans viewed rural living by making these communities well-organized with modern technology and serve as a model for future development. The RA had a romantic notion of back to the land that both Tugwell and FDR shared, believing it would help invigorate the American ideal. The agency bought up over nine million acres of worn over or abandoned land and repurposed it into parks, pastures, or in some cases, newer farmsteads. They hoped to create nearly sixty farm-based communities throughout the country modeled in a way on the ideas of Sinclair’s EPIC program in 1934, where the farmers worked cooperatively and ownership, planning, and direction were held by all and private property not

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the key focus. These experiments were not very successful as they seemed to go against the individualism many rural citizens valued, and critics of the New Deal pointed to the RA as an example of the country’s drift toward socialism. The RA is perhaps best known for its use of photographs and films as a means to reveal to the rest of American society the depths of poverty in America’s rural regions. The photography project was guided by Roy Stryker and included some of the best photographers of the era, including Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, and others. Pare Lorenz was hired and directed two seminal documentary films of the era as part of the RA. The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) challenged the exceptionalist interpretation of American history to that point and placed the blame for the ravages of the dust bowl squarely on the shoulders of unrestricted capitalism and the people’s own desire for wealth. It was followed in early 1938 by The River, which detailed the floods caused by man’s unrelenting destruction of nature. Both films reinforced that only through more careful planning and systematic protection of the country’s natural resources, primarily through New Deal programs like the RA and WPA, would the country’s future be guaranteed. While highly influential, RA was one of the favorite targets of the increasing attacks on New Deal legislation by Congress. In 1936 the Supreme Court struck down several aspects of the RA which, along with constant Congressional attacks, led to Tugwell’s resignation. The RA was officially disbanded in 1937. The FSA continued with similar policies as the RA, but with a muchreduced budget and role. No longer seeking to relocate, FSA instead offered low-interest loans to tenant farmers, over nine hundred and fifty thousand of them, in the hopes of building self-sufficiency and, as always, making their home more modern so that they might consume more to better stimulate the economy. The FSA, like other second New Deal programs sought to modify existing social structures and bring more rural citizens into the modern economy. Many of these tenant farmers were Black and the FSA went to great measures to ensure equal participation and they generally benefitted from the loans on equal terms to their population and needs. The FSA also utilized an influential documentary photography unit, again headed by Stryker, to outline its goals and successes and employed many of the same photographers as the RA, including Lange, Walker Evans, Shahn, John Vachon, Gordon Parks, Wolcott, and Jack Delano. Their images were reproduced in the nation’s newspapers and magazines as a means to detail not just the poverty that existed outside urban areas, but how through careful planning and modern technology these areas were being transformed and made a part of the nation. The FSA continued to operate into the 1940s and was finally disbanded in 1946. Much in line with this iteration of the New Deal’s focus on rural America, the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created through an Executive Order in May 1935. REA provided relief to the nation’s agricultural workers and initially offered grants to private power companies to expand their reach into rural areas. These private companies were slow to

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move in this direction and so the REA changed its focus to provide federal loans to local and state governments to electrify the countryside. Just over ten percent of the nation’s farmers had electric power and FDR and his team recognized this as a problem for two reasons: first, it prevented those without electricity from sharing in the discourse concerning politics because they did not have access to the radio and the most up to date news; and second, it eliminated an estimated fifty-seven million Americans from participating in the modern economy. Roosevelt and his advisors were keen on the belief that under-consumption lay at the foundation of the economic lag and that through direct payments to the people through work programs and relief, America would in essence buy itself out of the Depression. The REA’s role in this came when the structure of the initial Executive order was changed through Congress’s passage of the Rural Electrification Act in 1936 which directed the agency to make long-term loans to build the necessary infrastructure—power plants, wire, and pole manufacturers stringing the actual power lines to homes and businesses—in a manner that would be efficient and quick. By 1943 over three hundred and eighty thousand miles of power lines had been strung and the number of farms with electricity rose to forty percent. By 1960 nearly ninety-eight percent of the nation’s rural citizens were on the grid. Local REA cooperatives, which numbered four hundred seventeen in 1939, offered low-cost electricity generated by plants created by the TVA to two hundred and seventy thousand customers and owners. REA was owned by those who enjoyed its benefits and is one of the long-lasting and most successful New Deal acts as it continued to provide low-cost electricity through owneroperated cooperatives until it was terminated in 1994.

Assessment The second New Deal transformed America. Policies and laws like the Social Security Act, the WPA, and even the Wagner Act, detailed how by the election of 1936 the nation’s goals and objectives had shifted. These acts, as well as many others, helped contribute to the landslide victory for FDR in the 1936 election, where he garnered nearly sixty-one percent of the popular vote and all but eight of the Electoral College votes. FDR’s landslide helped other Democrats, or perhaps it was the other way around. Either way, the Democrats were firmly in control of the federal government gaining twelve seats in the House to expand their majority to 334 out of 435 and adding five to grow their majority to 74 out of the 96 in the Senate. The New Deal, at least as reflected in the election, appeared popular with the people, and with the majorities built in Congress, the future of the program seemed almost limitless. It also shifted the loci of power to the nation’s capital. These actions relied on federal control both in terms of program development and funding. The early New Deal actions revealed the limitations of allowing individual states and businesses to distribute relief, work, or follow agreed-upon

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mandates. The policies introduced after 1935 avoided these issues, and not just for labor, farmers, or the elderly. For example, the 1935 Banking Act increased the power of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve at the expense of the regional banks. This transferred the power of the Federal Reserve to the nation’s capital under the guidance of both the legislative and executive branches. Combined with earlier banking and financial reforms, the Banking Act shifted the balance of the nation’s economic power to Washington making the federal government largely responsible for the planning and direction of the nation’s economic life. This period also reinforced the New Deal’s commitment to inclusion. Those agencies and initiative made after 1935 worked actively to better distribute federal aid to all those that were in need. While the New Deal’s overall record on racial and sexual equality was often limited and certainly could have done more to challenge existing norms, agencies like the WPA, NYA, and others made significant inroads to these groups and outlined a new commitment from the federal government to continue to push against these barriers. The welfare state as established with the second New Deal became the foundation for American political and social society for the remainder of the century, even as it came under nearly constant attack. The belief by the people that the government had a responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens remained constant, even into the twenty-first century. And perhaps the most important, it proved that the federal government could care for all the people. WPA projects ran the gamut of nearly all occupations and allowed artists, architects, teachers, cooks, seamstresses, mechanics, and laborers to work, to contribute to society, to make America great even as all signs, economic and otherwise, continued to suggest otherwise. With trouble brewing throughout the world, the unity of commitment made by the various Acts created after 1935 allowed for the country to move into an uncertain future confident that by working together and trusting in the ability of the government to make the right decisions, they would survive.

References Bindas, Kenneth J. All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935–1939. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1995. Bindas, Kenneth J. Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society, 1930–1941. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2017. Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Carter, Ennis. Posters for the People: The Art of the WPA. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2008. Downey, Kirstin. The Women Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and his Moral Conscience. New York: Doubleday Books, 2009.

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Grieve, Victoria. The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Irons, Janet. Testing the New Deal: The General Textile Strike of 1934 in the American South. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Keynes, John Maynard. General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. London: Palgrave, 1936. McGovern, Charles. Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship, 1880–1945. Chapel Hill, NC: University Of North Carolina Press, 2006. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933–1939. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2007. Sklaroff, Lauren Rebecca. Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Ware, Susan. Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.

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Challenges to the New Deal and World War II

While the second New Deal and the massive welfare state programs after 1935 met with widespread support and has led many scholars to suggest that a sense of hope had replaced the fear that had so permeated American society to that point, the New Deal and FDR faced significant challenges. The optimism created by the overwhelming success of the 1936 election, seen at the time as a mandate for continuing the progressive federal activities of the New Deal, waned as opponents on both sides of the aisle took aim at the New Deal, challenged its harboring of communists and fellow travelers, and pointed to an economic recovery that was anything but recovering. These issues would plague the New Deal in the latter part of the decade and would, to a certain extent, be overshadowed by the emerging crises in Europe and Asia that would increasingly draw the president’s attention. The pressures from Coughlin and Long had been pushed to the sidelines but another group worked to attack the New Deal leading into the 1936 election. Made up of moderate supporters and outright opponents of FDR and the New Deal they formed the American Liberty League. Led by the DuPont brothers, General Motors’s Alfred Sloan, and former New York governor Al Smith and his backer Jacob Raskob, whom Roosevelt defeated to win the nomination in 1932, the League sought to restore the image and influence of business in the American mind. The organization, buoyed by funds provided by the DuPonts, as well as other business leaders, used the variety of media available to paint a picture of the emerging welfare state as a step toward totalitarianism, an issue relevant given the circumstances developing in Europe and Asia. The League pointed to programs like Social Security as one step closer to Americans losing their freedom and individual right to choose, and to other programs that they argued coddled communists and other fellow travelers. They actively supported the GOP nominee Alfred Landon in 1936 using this as their key issue and were joined in their assault by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), whose board was made up of the country’s leading manufactures. NAM, which had been founded in the latter part of the nineteenth century, funded radio programs, movies, billboards, mailings, speakers, and many other activities to sway the public away from what they saw as the move toward the left and away from DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-5

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free enterprise capitalism, especially the New Deal’s support for unionization. While never garnering the type of support they hoped for, their presence rattled FDR and led his advisors to worry about the ability of the president to win reelection. Hoover also worked tirelessly to advocate against FDR in the months leading to the 1936 election, calling on Republicans to join him in a crusade against the New Deal. But GOP nominee Alfred Landon proved unwilling initially, and later unable, to challenge the positive impact many New Deal programs were having on American society. He approved of much of the New Deal. However, nothing these groups did or even Landon’s amiable personality could surmount the tsunami of the 1936 Democratic sweep. FDR had the ear of the people and promised them a brighter future in what he called a “rendezvous with destiny.” This future-oriented trope was central to both FDR and New Deal’s desire to convince people to stay the course even though the economy was not growing at the rate hoped for and the government was pulling out all stops to make certain the country did not fall back into the hard times prevalent earlier in the decade. At the same time he and the New Deal were projecting a better future, several regional and international expositions held throughout the country also suggested that they were, as the 1939 New York World’s Fair billed itself, “Building the World of Tomorrow.” Each was designed to reflect a nostalgic look at the past while promising a future filled with hope and expectation. Over one hundred million people attended these galas, plus the untold millions who read about them, heard live reports from them over the radio, or watched newsreel reports at their local movie theaters. These were testaments to American culture writ large, detailing how science, technology, capital, labor, and government were working together for a better tomorrow.

The future is bright The Century of Progress (COP) World’s Fair opened in Chicago in 1933 with a focus on the advancements made by the sciences and technology over the last one hundred years. There was a popular sentiment among some Americans that the cause for the economic decline was because science and scientists created innovations that forced workers to lose their jobs, or that they failed to accurately predict the economic and social collapse the country found itself mire in. The COP hoped to salvage science’s image by documenting the exceptional nature of the American experiment and foretell a future, that while unwritten, promised much. The exhibits detailed the transformation of society through the myriad of scientific innovations that saved lives, challenged our understanding of nature and the universe, and helped to restructure society amid the profound changes. The COP, which operated in 1934 as well, drew nearly fifty million visitors. The COP’s success spurred several other communities to begin planning expositions to document their region’s potential. Civic leaders in San Diego

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and Cleveland saw how the Exposition both stimulated the local economy and provided both a diversion and an optimistic picture of what the future might look like through a collaboration of business, labor, and government. San Diego’s California Pacific International Exposition opened in 1935 in and around the Balboa Park area. Scores of workers, many of whom from the WPA, created temporary buildings dedicated to the positive advantages that await Americans in housing, transportation, science, and education. Nearly seven million visitors over its two-year run were awed by displays that promised a better tomorrow. When FDR telephoned his opening remarks for the Exposition, he encouraged citizens to accept their responsibility to build for the future through their role as consumers. Cleveland’s civic leaders began planning for their Great Lakes Exposition (GLE) in early 1936. Aided by scores of WPA workers, by late June the gates opened to over seven and a half million visitors over the next two years. GLE detailed the significant contribution the Great Lakes area made and would continue to make to the nation’s economic and social progress. GLE’s theme, The Romance of Iron and Steel, documented how scientific and technological advancements made the Great Lakes region a world leader in the production of iron, steel, cement, rubber, and tool and die, outpacing every European nation. At the exhibit sponsored by the local electric company, for example, visitors were shown how electricity-based consumer goods had transformed their lives for the better and promised only better days ahead. In 1939 two fairs opened their gates, one in San Francisco and the other in New York City. The Golden Gate International Exposition, with the WPA built Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop, WPA workers helped create a fourhundred-acre island in the San Francisco Bay called Treasure Island, as well as an off-ramp from the other Bay bridge. These workers dredged millions of cubic yards of silt and dumped three hundred thousand tons of boulders to expand the island, before adding topsoil and various vegetation. In nearly every direction the visitors saw the power of science, technology, and labor’s ability to bend the will of nature to humankind’s desire. The transformation of the Bay, with the bridges and now the island, pointed toward a future where problems once thought to be insurmountable could be solved. At the same time, the grandest of the decade’s Fairs opened in the summer of 1939 as the New York World’s Fair (NYWF) with the slogan “Dawn of a New Day.” Defined by the futuristic Trylon and Perisphere, visitors could travel between them via the Helicline, a modernist word for a ramp. Within the Perisphere the diorama Democracity presented a planned American community, which connected the desires of a consumer marketplace with the planning and efficiency of modern government. One of the most popular exhibits was Futurama, sponsored by General Motors, where visitors could see what society would look like in the 1960s while seated on a moving belt that gave them a view from every angle. Cars and highways, of course, played a central role. The NYWF promoted the role government and science played in the everyday lives of American citizens by featuring numerous

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consumer advantages. Thousands of workers, again augmented by WPA employees of all stripes, transformed what had been wasteland into the fairgrounds, dumping thousands of tons of fill dirt to create a literal World of Tomorrow. Being in New York City, the Fair used numerous celebrity and political endorsements, as well as those from the likes of Albert Einstein, to showcase what potential lay ahead for American society through the unification of government, science, and business.

Roosevelt recession The optimism expressed in these Expositions signaled an expectation that good things were right around the corner. And certainly the 1936 elections, where FDR and the Democrats won in a landslide, suggested a new day was dawning. But things were not as they seemed. Something had changed. In the summer of 1936, full of optimism that an economic recovery was in full swing, FDR announced a twenty-five percent cut for many programs. The unemployment rate had dropped to fourteen percent and there were signs throughout the economy that indicated increased consumer spending and manufacture. The cuts led to numerous walkouts, protests, and demonstrations, and the situation was made worse when the 1937 operating budget for the WPA was cut by an additional twenty-five percent. FDR had never been a true convert to Keynes’s theories, and he fell back on his and many in his administration’s desire to cut spending to balance the budget, reducing the federal debt by nearly three and a half billion dollars by 1938. While much has been made of FDR’s turn to Keynes in his second term, he had little use for him and found his ideas difficult and impractical. Earlier, in late December 1933, Keynes published an open letter to the president in a New York Times editorial urging him to forgo traditional reliance on the market to help revive the economy and instead infuse the economy with massive federal spending, as it came to known, to prime the pump. Keynes’s ideas were spelled out in greater detail later in his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. When the two met in May 1934, FDR came away not certain as to what the economist was trying to argue, and by the summer of 1936 seemed unwilling to advance Keynes’s ideas and instead sought a return to a more fiscally conservative approach, perhaps to calm fears within his coalition regarding the upcoming election and to appease his enemies. Roosevelt and his team misread what they saw as positive economic signs. They ignored a variety of factors affecting the economy, including increased reserve requirements for banks, new social security payroll deductions, and, finally, the veteran’s bonus which passed over FDR’s veto. Labor activism and subsequent union recognition also led to more expenses for companies often leading to higher prices across the board. But even into the spring of 1937, the administration was convinced that the corner had been turned. They were wrong. Things went south in early summer and by August signs

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pointed to a sharp drop in industrial production. By November the unemployment rate swelled to 1931 levels, stock prices dropped by forty-three percent, numbers akin to 1929–30, and what many people called the Roosevelt recession saw the slowing of manufacture and industrial output back to 1933 levels. FDR continued to maintain his commitment to balancing the budget on the advice of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. Others within the administration began attacking the wealthiest Americans—sixty families— accusing them of withholding their capital in protest to New Deal policies, especially the Wagner Act. This one percent caused the slowdown, advisors including Harold Ickes suggested, believing they were holding their version of a sit-down strike, using the power of their capital to hold the country hostage. Perhaps taking the advice of Keynes, who advised the administration to increase spending on public works projects and build an alliance with business and industry, the president asked Congress for emergency funding for the WPA and other agencies while at the same time, to show his support for business and industry, agreed with the recent court ruling which identified sit-down strikes as a violation of the tenor and tone of the Wagner Act. FDR’s decisions to cut spending and balance the budget seem to suggest that his support for the 1935 second New Deal programs resulted more from a political than ideological decision. With the limited success of the first 100 Days legislation to bring about economic recovery or even to limit the suffering of the people, Roosevelt gave in to the more liberal-minded elements among his advisors and supported legislation that dealt directly with giving the common people aid. Not in the form of the dole, although this continued apace through other agencies, through work relief, union recognition, and a variety of social insurances for the elderly, widowed, orphaned, and unemployed. Once reelected and with the substantial majority in both houses, Roosevelt could have, and certainly was advised to by the likes of Hopkins and Perkins, push further into the welfare state. Yet, when the budget talks for the fiscal year 1938 began in 1937, it became clear that his mindset was on putting the brakes on increasing the allocation for these and other projects which pleased some New Deal Democrats, especially from the south, while alienating others, especially those from urban and industrial areas.

Court packing and the House Un-American Activities Committee At the same time the New Deal was facing this recession, other actions weakened the coalition that had been so favorable to the New Deal. In February 1937, Roosevelt again miscalculated when he asked Congress to pass a statute allowing him to appoint up to six new Supreme Court justices to counter-balance those justices who refused to retire at seventy years of age. Many Democrats saw this action as FDR’s attempt to swing the court

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in a more liberal direction, and with the labor crisis in full swing, worried that court-packing would give the president too much power. Southern Democrats in particular were worried this might instigate even more federal involvement in southern society and challenge their racial caste system. FDR was taken aback by the opposition the plan aroused. It also made plain the widening division with the Democratic party. Coming as it did during a wave of often violent labor strikes, the growing war clouds in Asia and Europe, increased criticism from middle-class supporters in his party, the miscalculation of the Supreme Court-packing plan dulled excitement brought by the 1936 election and opened the door to those thinking about running the president in 1940. After all, FDR’s second term, if tradition held, would be his last. Things did not get better in 1938. The activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), formed in May 1938 to investigate the pervasiveness of subversive activities within American society, quickly turned its attention to the many New Deal programs. Numerous newspaper reports, letters from constituents, and members of the GOP claimed that the New Deal coddled and even encouraged communist activity. Chaired by Texas Democrat Martin Dies, the committee wasn’t the first House committee in the 1930s to investigate supposed red infiltration into American society, as both the Fish (1930) and McCormack-Dickstein (1934–7) committees had also investigated communist and Nazi activity in the country. The latter committee was focused almost exclusively on pro-Fascist organizations which amounted to very little. Dies’s committee was made up of five Democrats and two Republicans and while they began hearings in the early summer focused on Nazi influence, their attention quickly shifted to investigate Communists and fellow travelers within New Deal programs. They were convinced that through what was called the Popular Front, leftist activists were using the New Deal to advance socialist ideas in the country. The New Deal’s policies and programs were at the core of this supposed red infiltration. The CIO, which gained prominence due in large part because of the Wagner Act, was targeted by Dies’s group as a hotbed of Communists, going so far as accusing the Labor Department, under the leadership of Frances Perkins, of suppressing accusations of communist activities. They also accused Michigan’s Governor Frank Murphy of aiding and abetting communists by his failure to use troops to break the Flint-sit down strike. By late August HUAC zeroed in on the WPA which they contended was filled with socialists or communists, especially at the leadership level. They used the example of the Workers’ Alliance, a national Popular Front organization seeking to bring workers of all stripes together, which was organized throughout the WPA. The Washington Workers’ Alliance organized a walkout in early 1937 involving more than five thousand WPA workers throughout the state until finally, the WPA leadership there agreed to a collective bargaining agreement, a clear violation of the WPA code. No one was fired as a result.

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The Alliance also had strong support within the Federal Art projects which HUAC considered central to the spread of red propaganda. The committee targeted the Federal Theater (FTP) and Writers’ Projects (FWP), as numerous disgruntled former enrollees testified to the extent of Communist influence within the projects, going so far as to suggest that the directors, Theater’s Hallie Flanagan and Writers’ Henry Alsberg, were either Communists themselves or simply dupes of a larger red plot to take over the country. FTP performances like The Living Newspaper or The Revolt of the Beavers for children were provided as examples of pro-red rhetoric employed throughout the project. The committee’s report to the full House in early 1939 identified the WPA as an agency both infected with communists and promoting pro-red ideology. FDR defended the New Deal and called Dies’s work un-American and hurtful to the country, especially as the situation outside of the country was demanding the people to rally together. But the damage was done. The House Appropriations Committee voted to cut WPA funding substantially in the coming year, reducing it from a federal project to one that put the onus of financial responsibility on state and local governments. Initially, the WPA asked for only minor contributions for most projects, about ten percent, from these sources for approved projects but beginning in 1937 and reaching its peak in 1939, local and state agencies were asked to contribute for more than twenty-one percent of the cost for WPA projects. When FDR asked for a special appropriation for the WPA in January 1939, Congress responded by cutting the proposed budget by one hundred and fifty million dollars. WPA expenditures had increased overall since 1936 and many in Congress were concerned that the project and the ideas behind it were simply not working. When the new budget for the Emergency Relief Administration came up for a vote in July 1939, the WPA allocation was cut significantly and the primary responsibility for providing relief was returned to state and local authorities. Even the name changed from Works Progress Administration to the Works Projects Administration and its key leadership, so seminal in the cause for work relief, also left. Hopkins, whose health had deteriorated due to the long hours, chain-smoking, and a haphazard diet, left in late December 1938 to become Secretary of Commerce. He was replaced by F. C. Harrington, a former Army Colonel, with a new mandate to return much of the planning and oversight responsibility to the states. Hopkins’s assistant and head of the Women’s Division Ellen Woodward followed soon after to join the Social Security Administration. The WPA would continue, albeit with a much-reduced role, until finally ended at the end of June 1943. By this point, some middle-class Americans, nominally allied to the New Deal, joined with Republicans and Southern Democrats to criticize the labor strikes as examples of creeping Communism. The strikers had taken over private property and while the Wagner Act protected their right to organize, they viewed this action and subsequent strikes as efforts to push the country

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further to the left. It also spurred a wave of other actions. In 1937 alone 477 sit-downs took place and by 1939 that number grew to 583. The strike at the Fansteel manufacturing plant in Chicago where the CIO’s Steel Workers Organizing Committee had been negotiating for recognition since the summer was a prime example. Failing to secure a collective bargaining agreement, workers, seeing the success of the Flint action sought to replicate the sit-down strike by occupying two company buildings on February 17, 1937. A Circuit judge ruled the action illegal and demanded the workers vacate the buildings. They refused and over the next month violence ensued. When the strike was broken, the NLRB ordered Fansteel to rehire ninety of the strikers. The company refused, saying the NLRB did not have the authority to force the company to rehire the workers. The union sued and in 1938 the case was heard by a US Appeal court which upheld the company’s claim. Upon further appeal, in 1939 the Supreme Court in NLRB v. Fansteel upheld the lower court ruling, ending the threat of worker takeovers of factories.

Response Despite these setbacks, it wasn’t as though the New Deal went away. Congress in 1937 passed the Guffey–Vinson Act to increase regulatory powers over the coal industry, the Farm Tenant Act distributed loan interest, longterm locants to tenants, sharecroppers, and farmers to ensure stability, and the Housing Act created the Housing Authority to study and build lowincome urban housing. A new, constitutionally sound AAA was created, and a host of other actions reaffirmed the New Deal policies of direct federal involvement in the direction of the economy. Planning and organization, keystones to the New Deal, had become institutionalized within the federal system. The New Deal included increased regulation on banking, securities, and investment brokers, also operated to developed targeted industries. One such industry was the airlines. The WPA was instrumental in designing and building airports throughout the country, even though the industry was haphazard at best and unprofitable for the numerous operators throughout the country. In 1938, to bring order to the fledgling enterprise, the Federal government created the Civil Aeronautics Authority, which, much like the earlier creation of the Federal Communications Commission in 1934 to regulate the airwaves, oversaw the issuance of licenses for airlines. The Civil Aeronautics Authority gave sixteen airlines authority to operate interstate lines, creating an informal cartel that would last until deregulation legislation in the early 1980s. To accommodate this commitment to planning and organizing the economy through federal initiative, in 1937 FDR sought to reorganize the executive office. The modern presidency could no longer operate with the limited number of advisors or the cumbersome oversight requirements put in place in the last century. FDR proposed to increase the number of advisors

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to six, reduce the three-member Civil Service Commission to one, provide more control over budget and planning through the permanent establishment of the National Planning Board, create two new cabinet-level posts in the Departments of Work and Welfare, change the name of the Interior Department to the Department of Conservation, as well as change the chain of command for regulatory agencies. This was yet another misstep, for what FDR saw as a move toward greater efficiency, many in Congress saw as another attempt to expand his power. Congress, under pressure from their constituents and from their fear that FDR was accruing too much power, voted down the executive reorganization plan in the summer of 1937 and the court plan the following spring. The reorganization of the executive office turned out to be a greater loss, as the Court upheld welfare state legislation and FDR would appoint five new justices by 1940. Later, as the world veered toward war in 1939, FDR proposed a revised version of the executive reorganization plan which Congress approved. FDR made several political missteps in his second term, overestimating his power and the concern many were beginning to have relating to the expansive nature of the New Deal and the welfare state. It cannot be denied that these fears came in conjunction with the worldwide rise in tensions in the latter part of the decade and the fear that autocratic and dictatorial regimes were fast replacing democracies.

World crises and the New Deal The situation around the globe after his reelection in 1936 concerned Roosevelt. Combined with other problems his administration and the New Deal faced, it encouraged him to turn his attention outside the country’s borders. It is not unusual in the modern era for a second-term president to focus more on foreign policy, as the two-term tradition meant that soon some within his party would be positioning themselves for the 1940 election. Of course, his decision to focus on the war clouds developing around the world was also a result of the increasing tension within and outside his advisory team, and, given events in late 1936 through 1938, a significant reduction in support for his agenda. It would be an error, though, to suggest that previous to 1937 Roosevelt’s administration was isolationist or ignored foreign policy issues; rather, the domestic crisis needed more immediate attention and the drive for reelection in 1936 meant meeting American citizenry needs before those outside the borders. The country’s action in Latin America under FDR’s Good Neighbor policy, some of which was developed during Hoover’s administration, outlined the country’s larger goal of remaining free from European and Asian entanglements while maintaining hemispheric hegemony. American policy in this region had, up to this point, followed the imperialistic tendencies of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Monroe Doctrine Corollary of 1904, which

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in effect legitimized America’s intervention in these country’s affairs, politically, economically, and militarily. In the 1928 Havana Conference, Latin American attendees challenged the US right to intervene in their affairs, leading Hoover and then FDR to modify, at least in theory, the country’s policy in the region. This Good Neighbor policy however retained much of the same hegemonic tendencies as the policies before it; however, instead of direct American involvement, the US simply helped those regimes in power, many of which were dictatorships, through military and economic aid. When a country deviated from what American policymakers deemed appropriate, they used these same economic powers to force modifications. When in the spring of 1938 Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas tried to increase the speed of his administration’s land reforms by confiscating more land seemingly owned by Americans and nationalizing the oil industry, the US cut off loans and aid to Mexico until 1942. In Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua the US removed long-standing occupation troops only to transfer power to military dictatorships—Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, and the post-war Duvalier. Similar actions took place in El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and extended into the countries in South America. These activities, as well as similar although less focused actions in western Africa, are often overshadowed by the more common trope of American isolationism after World War I. The idea of the League of Nations, as Wilson envisioned it, was to make war obsolete by bringing nations together to solve their issues through debate and compromise. The US however never joined the League and its power was limited in scale and scope although it did get many countries to sign on to arms and naval limitation agreements. In 1928 the US, along with twelve other nations, agreed not to use war as a means of settling disputes in the Kellogg Briand Pact and a hope among those who had participated in the World War I that such a bloodletting never happens again. This attitude was shared by a majority of Americans who used their voice to push Congress to ensure that the US would maintain its non-interventionist stance, first with the Senate’s Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry, otherwise known as the Nye Committee hearings of 1934–6, followed by four specific Neutrality Acts. Nye’s committee detailed how the munitions industry had broken or evaded laws, used bribery to gain contracts, fixed prices, reaped tremendous profit, loaned over three billion dollars to allies previous to 1917, and, even as late as the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference agreement—designed to limit the world’s naval forces—these same munition industries subverted the agreement and used collusion and other unsavory practices to enrich themselves. Nye’s findings—thirty-nine volumes released in 1936—echoed what many Americans suspected since the end of World War I: that business simply could not be trusted to do the people’s will. The government needed to step in and impose strict limits and oversights to ensure that the same practices that Nye suggested led the US to war in 1917 would not be replicated. With this mindset, Congress in 1935 passed the first Neutrality Act, which

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imposed an immediate arms embargo and travel ban against countries engaged in war. This was followed up in 1936 and 1937 with the second and third Acts, which expanded the embargo to include credit and countries involved in civil wars. These Acts, in conjunction with the opinion of most Americans that the US should stay out of foreign affairs, contributed to FDR’s silence until late 1937. But with the situation in Europe and Asia becoming more bellicose and with many aspects of the New Deal under increasing fire, his gaze shifted to international issues. In an October speech in Chicago Roosevelt suggested that belligerent and aggressive countries needed to be quarantined by peaceful means to inhibit their ability for war. The administration’s turn toward foreign affairs did not come without complaint. Some recognized it as a political move to turn the people’s attention away from the failure of his numerous New Deal policies to bring about economic recovery. Announced right as the Roosevelt recession was at its start, to some Democrats and many Republicans it appeared almost too convenient that suddenly the country needed to pull together for another potential emergency. For others, this internationalist turn was a rhetorical preparation for war and would lead to the creation in 1940, under the leadership of R. Stuart Douglas and Robert Wood, and with advocate Charles Lindbergh, of the America First Committee. Dedicated to keeping America out of the war, the committee advocated Americans to see the situation from all sides, not just from the British or French perspective. When in the aftermath of Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 Roosevelt pressed for repeal of the Neutrality Acts to assist those resisting the Nazis, Congress deferred and passed the fourth Act, which gave FDR something of what he wanted, but not all. This last Act, also known as the Cash and Carry, passed in November 1939 and lifted the arms embargo for nations at war, allowing them to purchase goods on a cash and carry basis. As the war raged through Europe in the first months of 1940, Roosevelt remained silent as to his political future. In response to the German offensive in Europe that ran through the lowland countries and into France in the spring, FDR asked that German assets be frozen as punishment. The situation grew direr after the fall of Paris, and a collaborative government was formed, giving the Nazis virtual control of Europe. After British troops barely escaped at Dunkirk FDR asked Congress for an additional billion dollars for defense and the right to call up the National Guard. The allocations for defense ballooned to over $20 billion by the summer. He also worked with allies in Latin America to extend the Western hemisphere’s neutral zone outward to three hundred miles. Given the gravity of the situation, and with the support of some within his administration, FDR allowed his name to be brought forth at the convention as the Democratic candidate for president in 1940.

Election of 1940 Roosevelt did not want to seem to be lobbying for another term. Some Democrats had made overtures toward running in 1940, but when the

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convention met in Chicago that year, the delegates overwhelmingly nominated FDR for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt ran on a platform of maintaining the New Deal and keeping the country out of the war. But the situation abroad was deteriorating fast. In early September as Britain’s situation as the only standing opponent of German aggression was nearing collapse, FDR used an Executive Act to announce the exchange of fifty World War I-era destroyers for leases of naval bases throughout the Atlantic from Britain. Around the same time, Congress authorized the first peacetime military draft with the Selective Training and Service Act for men between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five, and soon after FDR announced a spending and building policy to create a two-ocean Navy and an expansion of the Army from two hundred and fifty thousand to one and a half million. Potentially problematic so close to an election, his opponent, corporate lawyer and executive Wendell Willkie, had similar interventionist ideas and supported the move. Of course, he differed significantly on the policies and practices of the New Deal. However, the economy had improved in 1939 and 1940, largely due to increased defense contracts, meaning that Willkie’s attacks on the economy fell short and FDR won by a sizeable majority. In his 1941 State of the Union address, while recognizing that the American people did not want to enter the war, he believed the reality of continued German, Italian, and Japanese military actions would challenge basic American and human rights. Called the Four Freedoms speech, it articulated not only the ideals which would guide American efforts in the coming conflict but reaffirmed the basic tenets of the New Deal itself. It promised that the US government would fight for the freedom of speech and religion, but also connected to the welfare state ideals put forth in the second New Deal, freedom from want and fear. Throughout the spring and summer of 1941, the situations in Europe and Asia increased the tension between the US and what were now labeled the Axis powers. In March 1941 Congress passed a bipartisan Lend-Lease Act, giving Britain the ability to acquire up to fifty billion dollars’ supply of goods on credit. In the summer, tensions with Japan grew more tense leading to a total embargo on goods, especially oil, in response to their actions in the far east. In August Germany invaded the Soviet Union and all signs seemed to point to a German victory. Meeting secretly aboard naval vessels off the coast of Newfoundland, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill discussed Germany’s power and the limited nature of Britain’s response. Out of their meeting, they announced the formation of the Atlantic Charter with its eight principles, including not using the war to expand territories, a commitment to self-government, global cooperation to ensure freedom from fear and want throughout the world, disarmament policies, and freedom of the seas. Over forty-two nations signed on to the Charter by March 1942, making it a founding document for the United Nations. In many ways, the Charter can be seen as an extension of the ideals of the New Deal and how, when the time came, the US would engage in the

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conflict. Governments needed to accept the responsibility for the economic and social welfare of their people; and further, they needed to work together to ensure this commitment to all people. As the Charter was under discussion and in light of the Lend-Lease, both of which signaled the country’s tacit alliance with Britain, events were unfolding that would draw the US into the conflict by the end of the year. While three-quarters of the American people wanted to stay out of the conflict, beginning in September German submarines began harassing US Navy ships escorting Canadian and British vessels, firing on the USS Greer. FDR responded by permitting naval commanders to defend themselves against aggressive actions. Tensions escalated the following month when the submarines torpedoed the USS Kearney killing eleven US sailors. Less than three weeks later, on October 31 German U-boats sank USS Rueben James, killing one hundred and fifteen US sailors. The American response granted US convoy ships permission to fire upon any Axis naval vessel regardless of the threat. The situation in the Far East was also spiraling. Japan’s aggressive actions, beginning with the 1931 invasion and occupation of Manchuria, leaving the League of Nations in 1933, and the invasion of China in 1937, suggested their desire to rid the region of Western influence by announcing the formation, in 1938, of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. America was slow to respond to these actions, even after the news of Japanese atrocities in Nanking (now usually known as “Nanjing” in English). Only after Japanese warships sank the USS Panay in December of that year did the US begin to accept that the situation in this region of the world was as volatile as Europe. Germany’s blitzkrieg through western Europe in 1940, which saw the collapse of France, led to an official alliance with the Japanese in the early fall, allowing them to move further south from China into Vietnam and the rest of southeast Asia. The US responded to this action by embargoing most commodities, but it wouldn’t be until Japan’s continued aggressive actions in the south China sea and after the Germans invaded the USSR in August 1941 that Roosevelt froze Japanese assets and included gas and oil to the embargo list. With negotiations ongoing but going nowhere, the Japanese high command authorized the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. In response, Roosevelt asked for and was granted a Declaration of War the following day. Within a week and after Japan’s allies Germany and Italy declared war on the US, America entered both theaters of World War II. The country’s entry into the world war extended the policies and ideals of the New Deal. While the initial foray into expanded federal involvement in the economic life of the country came as a result of the emergency caused by the crash and its myriad ramifications, New Deal-like initiatives during wartime revealed that the federal government could effectively manage the economy to stimulate production, facilitate full employment, create a higher standard of living, and keep the nation solvent all the while using deficit spending and building strong alliances with both business and labor. The War Production Board, led by Sears vice-president Donald Nelson, was

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created in January 1942 to oversee the transition to a war economy by controlling the production and distribution of commercial and industrial goods, as well as directing the rationing of essential items like steel, coal, gas, oil, rubber, and a host of other items. Earlier, in August 1941 FDR used an Executive Order to create the Office of Price Administration to control inflation. In January 1942, in response to the declaration of war, Congress passed the Emergency Price Control Act which empowered the OPA to set price controls on consumer goods and authorized the rationing of necessary war materials. Soon citizens began receiving ration books with stamps for a wide range of consumer items like tires, gas, meats, dairy, and more. The Office of Civilian Defense, which Roosevelt created in spring 1941, also saw its powers expand after 1942 as nine regional centers organized local citizenry to sell bonds to pay for the war, as well as lead a series of drives for scrap metals, fats, and assist with other war-related civilian activities. There followed in the next months a series of projects and administrations to ensure that the nation’s war efforts were being met while at the same time ensuring that the domestic population’s needs were also satisfied. The Office of War Information (OWI) controlled the dissemination of information about the war and its effects on the home front. Led by Elmer Davis, OWI censored media on all levels and used propaganda to maintain support for the effort. The Office of Strategic Services served as the intelligence-gathering agency for international affairs, while the FBI stepped up its surveillance of domestic threats. In spring 1941, in anticipation of the coming conflict, FDR authorized the creation of the Office of Scientific Research Development (OSRD), whose task it was to improve on military technology with advances in detonation fuses, more accurate and devastating bombs, better weapons for soldiers, and what was called the Manhattan Project. The latter involved creating an entire community in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where tens of thousands of scientists and their families were relocated to develop the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to end the war in the Pacific. This wing of the OSRD employed more than one hundred and thirty thousand people during the course of the war. As the war was winding down in 1944, the Office of War Mobilization (OWMR), created in 1943 to coordinate the activities of the variety of defense offices and agencies that developed up to that point, was expanded to include Reconversion efforts once the war concluded. Hoping to avoid the calamity that came after World War I, the OWMR worked in conjunction with the recently passed Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, commonly known as the GI Bill, to ensure that the transition to peacetime would be smooth and the Depression, which was still in the forefront of people’s memories, did not reappear. For while the war had gotten the country out of the economic Depression and full employment had been reached, there was some uncertainty as to what the post-war economy might look like. War production, begun in earnest in 1939 and escalating dramatically in 1942, meant that there were job opportunities nearly everywhere. In the

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industrial heartland, the demand for coal, steel, and other heavy materials opened up new opportunities. Nearly twenty percent of the country’s population was on the move during wartime, most across state lines in search of better jobs. California experienced perhaps the greatest boon, attracting more than two million migrants. Los Angeles’s population grew by four hundred thousand. Others migrated to places like Mobile, Alabama, or Seattle, Washington to work in the shipyards. Detroit saw its population grow by nearly three hundred and fifty thousand. African American workers shared in this employment boon, although they faced racism and reduced wages in most cases. When the economy began heating up in late 1940, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, A. Phillip Randolph, petitioned FDR in the spring of the following year to address the fact that Black workers were being discriminated against in federally contracted jobs. After Roosevelt’s lackluster response, Randolph threatened to organize a massive march on Washington for that summer. To avert this public relations disaster Roosevelt issued an Executive Order which created the Fair Employment Practices Commission whose job it was to investigate claims of job and pay discrimination in companies receiving federal contracts. FEPC was not very effective, however, as it lacked Congressional support, funding, and was chaired by a white southerner comfortable with the idea of segregation. But the symbolic gesture did force some change. Previous to its issuance, Black workers comprised only three percent of war-related industrial jobs; by 1945 this number grew to eleven percent. Over one million new African American workers entered the market during the war, nearly two-thirds of them women, and most were migrants from the south. Some white workers resisted working with them or demanded higher wages for the same work. In June 1943 a hate strike fueled by Ku Klux Klan leaflets, police brutality, and racism broke out in Detroit, leading to two days of riots that left thirtyfour dead and hundreds wounded. Later that summer in Harlem, after a policeman shot an African American Military Police soldier trying to help diffuse a situation in a hotel lobby, many people took to the streets and caused millions of dollars in damages to Harlem businesses. The riot was confined to Harlem due to heavy police and National Guard presence and subsided quickly, leaving six dead and two hundred wounded. Women workers also increased during the war. With nearly sixteen million men serving in military capacities women were called upon to take up positions that had been closed to them beforehand. The number of women in the labor force grew by 6.5 million during the war, resulting in the employment of thirty-seven percent of all adult women by 1944. By the end of the war, they made up thirty-six percent of the total workforce, numbering nineteen million workers, including wives and mothers. To encourage women to enter job fields that were non-traditional at the time, the OWI and other organizations created posters and advertisements to encourage and challenge women to take up the mantle of “male” occupations. The

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War Production Coordinating Committee of the Westinghouse Corporation created a series of images and posters to promote female employment. The one made most famous by artist Norman Rockwell was labeled Rosie the Riveter and became an iconic symbol. Yet, when women did find work in male fields they were paid about half of what their male counterparts received for the same work. When the war came to an end, even though polls indicated that a plurality of women—married and single—wanted to keep their jobs, postwar attitudes pushed them back into the homes.

Assessment The New Deal faced numerous challenges after 1936. Some were caused by Roosevelt’s hubris, and others were the result of overzealous workers and an economy that was still very weak. Yet the New Deal signaled on. The welfare state initiative exemplified by the WPA, Wagner Act, social security, and legislation during the war pointed to a future where the federal government assumed the economic responsibility for its citizens. No longer would there be a debate as to Washington’s role in national emergencies, whether they be economic, social justice, Civil Rights, or military affairs. Even while being attacked from nearly all sides, the idea of the New Deal was resolute. Even the calamity of World War II did not signal the end of the New Deal; in fact, it made the relationship even stronger. The war created a situation where the government, working hand in glove with business and labor, guided the economy to ensure that most Americans felt they were in some way included in the nation’s goals and future. Union membership grew significantly during the war and under the Wagner Act, covering nearly forty-five percent of the workforce. Wages rose and in accordance with the ideals of the New Deal to work toward employment and economic security for its citizens, full employment was achieved by 1943. Business and industry expanded and prospered with the combination of defense contracts and pent-up consumer needs and demands. The final report of the National Resources Planning Board in 1943, created by FDR back in 1933, affirmed the goals and ideals of the New Deal and especially its welfare state policies. The federal government must continue, the final report concluded, to plan and organize the economy to ensure the economic well-being of its citizenry. Certainly, this was reaffirmed by FDR himself in his 1944 State of the Union address where he outlined the desire to create an economic bill of rights. In June 1944 Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights as a signifier of this commitment, making certain that the sixteen million people who had served during their country during the war would not be forgotten; and, of course, the benefits of this program would help stimulate the housing, automobile, steel, and numerous other American businesses and industries. By the time the initial program ended in 1956, nearly eight million veterans used the educational benefit, some two million for a college education, and the VA doled out over $33 billion in home loans.

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Yet, the GI Bill serves as an important reminder as to why, in 1935, Hopkins and others advocated for federal control of recovery programs like the WPA or NYA. As the bill was moving through Congress, Southern Democrats, fearful of the potential ramifications of providing equal benefits to the 2.2 million Black veterans, structured the law so that states and private financial institutions, and not the federal government, would be responsible for the disbursement of funds. This created a huge gap between what white veterans and what Black veterans received. Black vets were often hampered by their limited secondary schooling and were shunted to vocational schools where they were often denied training in the more profitable skilled positions like plumbing, electrical, or carpentry. For those Black veterans wanting to attend college, most found it difficult to gain entrance into America’s white colleges and universities and instead were encouraged to enroll in historically Black colleges and universities, schools which had been largely underfunded. When Black veterans tried to use the mortgage benefit, so much a part of the white vets’ ability to move out into the suburbs, they confronted the redlining activity of mortgage lenders which denied them loans in white neighborhoods or communities, reinforcing housing segregation in both the north, south, and west. The war ensconced the ideas of the New Deal into not just the political mindset of the country, but the people’s consciousness. They now saw the federal government as responsible for their economic, and by extension, their social, well-being and lobbied for expanded influence in Civil Rights, worker rights, business rights, and a growing desire to institutionalize the belief that the president should work for the benefit of all citizens and use the power of the executive office to guide and direct the country so that everyone could or should be free from economic insecurity and feel legitimate as Americans.

References Bindas, Kenneth J. All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935–1939. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1995. Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Cannon, Brian. Remaking the Agrarian Dream: New Deal Resettlement in the Mountain West. Albuquerque, NW: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Ghirardo, Diane. Building New Communities: New Deal America and Fascist Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Katznelson, Ira. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time. New York: Norton, 2013. Leuchtenberg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. McGovern, Charles. Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship, 1880–1945. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

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Phillips-Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan. New York: Norton, 2009. Sherwood, Robert. Roosevelt and Hopkins. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948. Sklaroff, Lauren Rebecca. Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Sparrow, James T. Warfare State: World War II Americans in the Age of Big Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Taylor, Nick. American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work. New York: Bantam Books, 2008.

5

Memory, popular culture, and the New Deal

Few epochs in the history of the United States elicit as much attention as the Great Depression. The memory of this era, which entails stories of bank and business failures, breadlines, and ballooning federal government programs, resonates well into the twenty-first century. But it also includes recalling the tremendous outpouring that promoted the unique qualities of American culture. What is most surprising is the consistency of the message. Whether talking about the hardships of the unemployed, the expanded powers of government, the challenge to democracy, the great films or music, or the unity of the people, there exists an overwhelming similar narrative regarding the Depression era. This seeming consensus reflects the influence of memory on how the Depression has been remembered, how the history of the era has been told, and how it has come to be used as an example of American exceptionalism.

Memory Memory has a long and varied relationship with the history of the 1930s. While on the surface the two seem intimate, historians have long suspected the validity of individual recall and favored the accumulation of archival, or more objective data to describe and interpret the past. But with an era like the 1930s, where actors in the political and social spheres seemed conscious of creating and preserving historical memories, the lines become blurred. Archival records could be crosschecked with individual memories to explore an event or historical moment with some objectivity. The effect, for example, of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats on the mindset of the American people can be measured by how the people framed these broadcasts compared to what the president said. The same holds for the Bonus March fiasco, which damaged Hoover’s public approval, helped contribute to his defeat in the November election and encouraged many Americans to blame him for the Depression. Given the numerous significant events that occurred during the Depression era, individuals constructed stories and even images that encouraged their recollection of the 1930s. These remembrances were then discussed and shared with others, made into DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-6

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books, articles, movies, radio broadcasts, and even history textbooks and so became part of the public’s memory of the New Deal era. Search through online oral histories and one comes away with the sense that nearly everyone had a similar experience. This was not accidental as the Depression-era brought forth a slew of memory projects or activities, both officially as part of the New Deal, or socially through the era’s popular culture, that ostensibly captured and exposed the realities of the era and preserved a record of its significance. This turn toward cultural nationalism came from a variety of directions: from Hollywood-produced movies, advertisements for everything from automobiles to refrigerators, radio broadcasts of the Yankees’ World Series with Ruth, Gehrig, and later DiMaggio, the Brown Bomber Joe Louis’s title fights, or Jesse Owens’s success at the Berlin Olympics, popular music— swing, country, Broadway, Tin Pan Alley. Government agencies like the Treasury Department and Federal Art Project painted murals throughout the country’s post offices and schools outlining a region’s or town’s history. The Farm Security Administration’s film The Plow that Broke the Plains or the host of documentary photographers, best exemplified by Dorothea Lange, captured the spirit of the age and became iconic representations of the era. The sidewalks throughout the nation stamped with the letters PWA, or the trails in state parks with CCC markers, or the thousands of post offices, schools, stadiums, and so much more with the WPA emblem right in front to remind the people of the time, the memory. Or the dams of the TVA. All reminders. All memory builders. Many people involved in the New Deal effort, from Franklin Roosevelt down to state and local administrators, recognized the significance of the historical moment and encouraged documentation. This is not to suggest this happened only in the 1930s, but because of the pervasiveness of the crisis and the potential significance of the New Deal, there was a conscious effort to create memory during the era. Projects like the Federal Writer’s Project collection of Slave Narratives, the American Guide Series, the American landmarks project, the Federal Music Project collection and preservation of over 7,300 compositions from 2,258 American composers stored for future use in the Library of Congress, or the rehabilitation of the nation’s National and State parks by the CCC, were designed not only to provide employment but to create future memories. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats, heard by millions of Americans constantly suggested to the people that the present situation signified a historical moment that future generations would look back upon with admiration, awe, and pride. Add to this the tens of millions of Americans who were directly engaged by the New Deal and the many millions more who were indirectly affected through the many project activities, programs, and performances. The WPA mandated that no American would travel very far without some reminder of how the New Deal was working in their community. The agency laid out over six hundred thousand miles of roadway, twenty-nine thousand linear

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feet of sidewalk, erected nearly a million traffic signs, constructed more than one hundred thousand schools, post offices, libraries, community centers, stadiums, sewed and created nearly four hundred million garments, canned over eighty-five million units of food, which were distributed to schools to provide over 1.2 billion lunches for school children. Those who worked on WPA usually remembered their experiences with fondness, oftentimes crediting the agency not only by providing them the means to survive but also for helping them to develop or maintain their skills—not to mention their dignity—in this very difficult time. Over one-third of all Americans had an experience with the New Deal in one way or another. If one adds to this number the long-term association with the New Deal that comes through Social Security, union membership, visitors to National or State parks, airports, bridges—the number is staggering. The memory of the New Deal remains a constant because it continues to exist and is validated all around us, even as people may or may not know anything about the New Deal. Even today, the American Congress is discussing a new New Deal, whether it be Green or otherwise, to deal with the complex issues facing the nation. The use of the phrase New Deal when discussing these reforms signifies its acceptance as a commonly understandable concept. Another aspect of how these programs contributed to the maintenance of the New Deal’s memory is how they reached out to neglected populations all around the country to include in their programs. Women, African Americans, Hispanics, rural people mired in ignorance and poverty, especially in the American south and west, young people, the elderly, the illiterate, the downtrodden, the many nameless and seemingly faceless people who made up the American mosaic were given some hope by the New Deal. Photographers sent out by the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration to document the American experience captured in stark black and white portraitures ordinary people and situations but in their unembellished presentation a recognition of commitment, pride, and social responsibility. It is necessary to remember too that often they were posed, reshot, and adjusted, because they were being created for posterity, for our memory. It comes as no shock that many of these people, and many more, listened to FDR’s Fireside Chats (and his other radio appearances not so designated) with reverence (fewer with scorn), wrote letters to the president and First Lady asking or thanking them for their help, named their children after him, and even hung his photo in their homes amongst those of their own family. They told their children and grandchildren stories about what the New Deal or Roosevelt did for them, and these became the foundation for the collective memory concerning the New Deal.

American culture American culture, both popular and cultivated, worked hand in glove with the type of cultural nationalism the New Deal programs projected.

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Numerous historians have described the wealth and importance of the myriad of cultural manifestations projecting American cultural nationalism. They suggest that perhaps the challenge of the Depression encouraged the desire to explore the meaning of America and understand how its diverse population had created a vibrant and meaningful culture. Everywhere one looked during the Depression era there seemed to be a desire and need to define American culture. Anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, political scientists, educational specialists, and other disciplines researched, and published articles and books attempting to define the distinct qualities of American culture. Even the term the American Dream was coined during this period as a marker for collective identity. During the Great Depression American culture was rich and vibrant, exploring new ideas, new ways of seeing the world, utilizing new technologies, and, like the New Deal’s political and social reforms, much of the cultural production during this period sampled the ideas and cultures of America’s past to project hope for the future. The connecting tissue within each of these manifestations of the American spirit was the consumer-based economy that drove the expansion during the 1920s. Despite the economic collapse and the reduction of buying power by the American people, the entertainment of the American people during the 1930s was not only paramount to ease the psychological trauma of the Depression but played a significant role in the recovery process. The 1930s can be seen as a golden age of American culture, but it must also be viewed within the context of the desire to expand the role of the individual consumer in the recovery process. From the very beginning of his administration, FDR and his advisors believed that the foundational problem with the economy lay in the under-consumption of goods. Prices for goods were at an all-time low, but money was scarce. New Deal programs sought to put money directly into the hands of the consumer to stimulate growth, profit, and employment. The WPA, for example, when it created the formula for wages based against the needs of those on its rolls, included cigarettes, weekly movie attendance, and a myriad of other, now necessary, consumer items. Interestingly, all the ingredients for the contemporary American entertainment industry were formulated during the Depression era. Musical forms would spur a more robust music industry, expand the reach of orchestras, and give rise to celebrity status for its star performers. Hollywood, which developed the star system in the 1920s, would grow to even greater heights and its stars would become America’s favorites for some time. Radio programming would emerge as a primary force for what would later become staples of television: the situation comedy, the detective story, and the soap opera. Everywhere one looked there seemed to be a harkening to the future within the context of the present and a sampling of the past.

Songs of America The 1930s produced a wide variety of wonderful music, both popular and vernacular, as a result of several factors ranging from technology to

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generational identity. Music critic LeRoy Campbell wrote in 1937 that the diverse musical choices available brought people together and signaled the beginning of something new in American musical culture. Driving this optimism was the demographic market for the consumption of these musical choices. Those aged between fifteen and forty-four years old remained steady at forty-eight percent of the total US population between 1930 and 1940. Sixty-five percent of teenagers spent more time with their peers than with their parents or older generations, making them a distinct market for record companies. These generational characteristics were the prime targets for consumption of not just music, but all the commodities that went along with it, like radio, records, record players, musical instruments, sheet music, live performances, and many other items. The proliferation of American music was also tied to the advance of several technological innovations during the era. The development of more portable record players, first introduced in 1934 by RCA Victor and soon followed by other manufacturers, were moderately priced and produced a better sound. By the middle of the 1930s, these newer players amounted to over thirty million in annual sales. The recording process itself improved allowing multiple takes and a more precise understanding of the sonic range of microphones in the recording studio. Engineering improvements meant a better sound quality that could be transferred more efficiently onto the records themselves, which gave greater importance to the recording engineer whose job it was to make certain the range of sounds being recorded blended as per the direction of the producer, whose influence also increased. Since the 78 rpm record could only hold about three minutes per side for the 10-inch version used by popular music record companies, when artists went into the studio it was up to the producer to make certain the song came under time, often necessitating cutting elements to make the song fit. Over sixty percent of the records produced in the popular realm went directly to the nearly four hundred thousand jukeboxes in operation by 1940, and so the songs needed to come in under that time marker. Recordings were not allowed to be played over the radio during this time, as a result of the American Federation of Musicians’ power and contracts, and so jukeboxes were how record companies promoted consumer sales. And finally, the microphone itself changed the way a singer’s voice came through the speaker. Several innovations in this technology took place between 1930 and 1936 leading to better sound capture, improved amplification, and reproduction. An interesting example of how this transformed how people heard music came with the popularity of what were called crooners. These singers, Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee being the most famous, used the microphone’s increased sensitivity to sing in a softer, more intimate voice designed to appeal to female listeners. These and other technological innovations helped stimulate the moribund record industry. Sales declined by thirty-nine percent in 1930 and profits dwindled as the Depression deepened going from one hundred million

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records released with $75 million in profits in 1929 to only six million released and $11 million in profit by 1932. The crash forced a consolidation within the record industry, as it had in numerous other industries, resulting in a significant decline in the number of companies. During the 1920s small, independent recording companies proliferated America’s cities, catering to ethnic, regional, and racial demands. The economic collapse obliterated most of these small companies and those that had a significant presence were absorbed by RCA Victor, ARC (American Recording Company), Columbia, and Decca, who dominated production and sales during the era. The industry began a slow climb back into profitability, selling more than 40 million records in 1938 and finally by 1941 surpassing 1920s markers with over 130 million records sold. Popular music made up the bulk of this growth. Swing music in particular accounted for eighty-five percent of all records sold by the end of the decade. Benny Goodman was crowned the King of Swing in 1935, and his success allowed for RCA Victor to boast a three hundred percent boost in sales and encouraged other labels to promote their artists, some of whom had been performing the same type of music as Goodman, like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, and Andy Kirk, but because of they were Black, could not be crowned the King of Swing. Other white band leaders also followed, like Artie Shaw, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, and many others. Swing was a form of jazz music renamed and marketed to lessen some of the racial connotations associated with jazz, which many African American players were well aware of. But the rebranding also served a generational desire to separate the 1930s generation from the jazz age of the 1920s. The musicians in the bands also reflected the America of the thirties. Not only were they larger, but the ethnicity of the members more closely resembled the cultural make-up of the country. Between 1880–1920 more than 23 million people emigrated to the United States, with the largest number coming from eastern and southern Europe. Each group brought with them their musical heritages which were blended into the jazz/swing musical phenomena. Swing also became the first integrated popular culture when Teddy Wilson joined the Benny Goodman band in 1936. Other white bands followed suit. This should not imply equality, however, as Black musicians faced tremendous limitations to ply their craft, including a separate American Federation of Music membership, often not being allowed to sleep in the same hotel as the rest of the band, and verbal and sometimes physical attacks from audience members and local authorities. White bandleaders sought out the best players in Black bands, offering more money and greater opportunities. Bands led by Duke Ellington and Count Basie, while as good or better than other white bands, lacked the booking capability of the white bands (often represented by large, New York City-based agencies like William Morris) and far fewer promotional opportunities via radio broadcasts. Similarly, cowboy and hillbilly music (later called country music) spoke to and for the same generation. While swing may be the folk music of urban or

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cosmopolitan America, rural America favored cowboy/country music. This does not mean that urban areas were untouched by country music, for in many jukeboxes in Detroit, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and even New York City, country music was a favorite choice. This was due to several factors, including the migration of white southerners to northern urban areas in search of work, the popularity of cowboy singers on both the radio and in movies, and the lyrical themes of Americana that dominated country songs. It was the cowboy that became the face of country music during the Depression era, led by Gene Autry. Audiences heard him and their other favorite performers on regular radio broadcasts from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, the National Barn Dance in Chicago, or WSB in Atlanta. Autry was particularly popular with female listeners. His songs, like most cowboy or western music harkened back to the days when individuals determined their destiny and rode the wide-open ranges. Autry tapped into this emotion and parlayed his weekly performances on the National Barn Dance to sold-out national tours and in 1935 Republic pictures hired him to be their new cowboy movie star, following the western movie formula laid out by Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, Charles Starrett, and Ken Maynard. He would make forty-five films through 1940, was an ardent supporter of FDR and the New Deal, and opened the door for Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, and many others who would make hundreds of B-grade serial movies and sang songs like “Back in the Saddle,” “Happy Trails,” and “Rye Whiskey.” The popularity of the singing cowboy for country music opened the door, ever so slightly, for women. Patsy Montana, who began her career in the early part of the decade performing on the National Barn Dance, had a big hit in 1935 with “I Wanna Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” She was the first woman in country music to sell over a million records and allowed for the emergence of other cowgirl singers like Texas Ruby, Louise Massey, and Roy Rogers’s partner, Dale Evans. Yet women represented less than five percent of performers. Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, Marc Blitzstein, Roger Sessions, Peggy Seeger, Aaron Copland, and others created American compositions they hoped would contribute to the development of a distinct American modern art music. The FMP did much to promote this renaissance of American cultivated music and its nascent composers created cultivated music that spoke to their generation by blending American musical themes into their compositions. The composers looked to the past for inspiration, mining Arthur Farwell’s early-twentieth-century transcriptions published in the WaWan Press (1901–11) and Charles Wakeman Cadman’s Four American Indian Songs (1914) or Shanewis (1918). Many had flirted with more esoteric modernist compositions in the 1920s, but with the Depression, they turned to more American idioms influenced by the country’s varied cultures, history, and music. Harris was heralded as the great American composer due to his western birthright and lack of European training, and he produced two evocative symphonies in Farewell to Pioneers (1935) and Symphony No.

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3 (1938). Aaron Copland, a New York City-bred, Russian-Jewish homosexual, mined the fruits of American musical forms to create wonderful musical imagery in the Saga of the Prairies (1936) and the music for the ballet Billy The Kid (1939) and Rodeo (1942), as well as Fanfare for the Common Man (1942). But the staple of American music came from those associated with Tin Pan Alley (TPA), as they supplied the music for Broadway, Hollywood, and countless radio programs. These were professional songwriters who wrote popular songs in the form of sheet music in the early part of the century, and as the recording industry grew, so too did this industry. By the 1930s, TPA was foundational to the music and radio industries. Located in the newly built Brill Building in Manhattan, songwriting firms turned out hit songs for popular singers, swing bands, advertisers, radio, and Hollywood. Some of America’s greatest songwriters come from this period, including George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, and Hoagy Carmichael. They and others wrote songs that Americans would sing for generations, like “Blue Moon,” “God Bless America,” “Over the Rainbow,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Stardust,” and many more. The Brill Building would remain a center for popular music songwriters well into the 1960s.

Radio These popular songs and melodies, combined with the great on-air live performances by swing bands and cowboy and country singers, formed the foundation for radio broadcasting in the 1930s. Music represented over sixty percent of all broadcasting with popular music representing seventy-five percent of the total. Radio networks CBS and NBC’s two networks, Red and Blue, drew over fortytwo million listeners daily by 1932. By the end of the decade eighty-six percent of American homes had a least one set and over twenty-eight million American people were tuning in for over six hours a day. The networks controlled ninetythree percent of the broadcasting power in the country and over eighty-eight percent of Americans preferred network programs emanating out of New York City to their local programming. A certain conformity of formatting resulted, and radio quickly became the number one source for advertising. Numerous books and articles appeared by sociologists, psychologists, and marketing professionals extolling the virtues of this new advertising medium and provided advice as to how best to design ad campaigns and tie-ins with network programming. Studies done during the era revealed that most listeners were able to identify the shows they listened to by the commodity that sponsored the program. One of the best examples of this coalescence of programming and advertising was the soap opera, which were among the networks’ most profitable shows. They were cheap to produce, as they did not employ stars and were often broadcast from less expensive locations, and were broadcast during

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the daytime to a captured target audience of women engaged in unpaid labor in the home. To a certain extent, they provided some general advice on relationships and family, but primarily they were designed as escapist dramas. Efforts were made to ensure that all regions of the country were represented. One Man’s Family was set on the west coast and detailed the trials and tribulations of stockbroker/father Henry, his wife Fanny, and their five children. Southern experiences came from Ma Perkins, who not only ran the family lumber yard but also dealt with three children and a wide variety of local townspeople. The Goldbergs were a Jewish family in the Bronx who blended urban humor with episodes featuring the day-to-day neighborhood activities. And The Guiding Light connected with midwestern themes emanating from Chicago. Many were produced out of Cincinnati where the Procter & Gamble soap company had its headquarters and used the shows to promote its goods. Ma Perkins, for example, was sponsored by Oxydol. Radio also provided the foundation for what would become television’s situation comedy. Amos ’n’ Andy featured two white men doing blackface comedy about two African American men who migrated to Chicago from Georgia to find a better life. They eventually form their own cab company— Fresh Air Taxi (because it had no windshield)—and were involved in weekly shenanigans featuring a variety of members of the local Black community. There was an active campaign mounted by the Pittsburgh Courier to protest the negative image of Black people on Amos ’n’ Andy which resulted in a petition with over five hundred thousand signatures but to no avail. With little power to challenge radio’s control over the airwaves, portrayals of African Americans reinforced racist stereotypes, and programs like Amos ’n’ Andy continued unabated. Another comedy favorite was Fibber McGee and Molly, which regaled its audience with his outlandish get rich quick schemes and interactions with his wife and neighbors. Some of the most successful shows, like those hosted by Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, and Ed Wynn, blended stand-up comedy routines and musical acts, while others used their own identities, like Jack Benny or George Burns and Gracie Allen, as a backdrop for comedic effect. Other radio programs relied on ongoing plotlines or scintillating and frightening stories to arouse audience interest. Among the more popular was The Shadow, initially airing in 1930 and voiced by Orson Welles, the program featured a crime-fighting detective whose identity was never revealed. He warned potential criminals in the opening segment that they would never know where he was or when he would capture them, but rest assured, they would be caught. The Lone Ranger followed this formula as his identity was hidden behind a mask and criminals never knew when or where he would appear. The Ranger, of course, was also the seminal American hero in the cowboy and was assisted by his silent yet cunning Indian companion Tonto, which gave him added credibility. The Green Hornet was about the greatgrandson of the Lone Ranger who also hid his identity and had an ethnic

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sidekick. Certainly, the popularity of these types of programs encouraged young listeners to create heroes of their own and helped spawn the comic book superheroes Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, The Comet, Flash, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, and many more. Lights Out presented horror and grisly stories which followed in the lineage of Edgar Allen Poe’s horror mysteries from the previous century that blended the macabre with terrifying real-life situations. One of the most famous of these types of radio programs was Orson Welles’s 1938 War of the Worlds. Based upon the classic H.G. Wells book, the Sunday night broadcast in the fall of that year utilized realistic news breaks which caused some terrified listeners to call their local radio stations inquiring as to the reliability of the story. The radio became the centerpiece in most American homes, as a font for entertainment and news. Numerous contemporary observers called it the new hearth, the place where families came together to listen to the president, the Grand Ole Opry, swing concerts from atop swank New York City hotels, or their favorite comedy or drama. The radio served to both provide escape and information. Further, much like the New Deal itself, it brought the American people together through the shared experience of listening and imagining their country and its diverse peoples.

Hollywood Movies played a similar role. Before the crash, Americans spent an average of twenty-four percent of their recreation dollar on going to the movies. Average movie attendance fell to less than fifty-five million per week in 1932 and profits dropped so much that most studios found themselves either in receivership or bankruptcy. A rebound began in 1934 as weekly attendance increased and by the end of the decade movies were drawing almost eightyfive million people a week, mostly blue-collar Americans in the fifteen- to forty-five-year-old age group, in seventeen thousand theaters. African Americans were often forced to sit in segregated areas, whether by law or custom. Sometimes they were prohibited entirely. Black moviegoers did have a few of their own theaters—only four hundred for a population of nearly thirteen million. This pattern of ignoring African Americans in the theater was replicated onscreen as Black representation from Hollywood was at best prejudiced and at worst racist. The 1930s was Hollywood’s Golden Age, driven by new sound technology, a plethora of new stars, and a well-controlled studio system. By the early 1930s, sound pictures had replaced the silent films of the 1920s and encouraged Hollywood to create new stories, formulas, and stars to attract audiences. The talkies, as they were called, allowed Hollywood to weather the economic storm and their influence had wide-ranging social effects. Young people learned a variety of social skills from what was presented on the screen, and both men and women adopted and adapted to the fashion sensibilities of the Hollywood stars. So widespread was the influence of film

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on the American population that scholars and critics advised and warned parents of the potential ramifications. Books such as Motion Pictures and Youth and Our Movie-Made Children warned parents that too much viewing could lead to aberrant and even criminal behavior, increase sexual urges, and even provoke a decline in academic performance. The fear of Communist influence and immoral behavior and the influence of a wide variety of pressure groups led to a stricter production code imposed in 1934, largely due to pressure from the Catholic League of Decency. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) began adopting self-regulation in the mid-1920s under the leadership of Will Hayes and by 1930 had created a set of codes and standards that included issues and images that were allowed and those that were not. But Hollywood often ignored the Code’s edicts, especially when times were tight in the early thirties, but faced with increased scrutiny from critics and clergy, and fearing government intervention, in 1934 the Production Code Administration director Joseph Breen held the studios to stricter oversight of themes and images. Five studios—MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and RKO—dominated the industry in the 1930s not just because they released the majority of films and made the most money, but also because they controlled the distribution of movies and owned the theater chains where their films played. These theaters were primarily located in the nation’s cities and were the most lucrative, with some accommodating over twenty-five hundred people. Smaller studios, like Columbia, Universal, and United Artists, catered to less populated regions of the country and tended to produce lower budget offerings. The industry produced nearly five hundred pictures a year throughout the decade. The studio system replicated an assembly line, where the producer served as the general foreman controlling all aspects of the film. Screenwriters, directors, editors, and actors were assigned roles which they had to fulfill. Actors, the staple of the industry, came from diverse backgrounds, were signed to seven-year contracts, and were prohibited from refusing roles. The studio had the power to change the actor’s name, to use their likeness in any way they chose, required them to work in whatever film or live performance they deemed appropriate, and hire them out to other studios without compensation. Stars like Will Rogers, Clark Gable, Deanna Durbin, Shirley Temple, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and so many more were instrumental in the industry developing an audience following, perhaps because in many ways they were just like them. One of the most popular new formats was the big studio extravaganzas featuring A-list stars attending gala openings covered by newsreels, radio, and print reporters. Films like Cavalcade (1933) and Street Scene (1931) adapted contemporary prize-winning plays from noted playwrights to draw in large audiences, or, as in the case of Little Women (1933) or The Good

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Earth (1937) literary classics. Period pieces set in Europe or the adaptation of Shakespeare relied on elaborate sets and costumes, and films like Cleopatra (1934) were as much about the design as they were about the stories. Probably the most famous of these gala openings was 1939’s Gone with the Wind. Hailed as an American story and much anticipated since its release as a novel in 1936, a three-day celebration culminated with three hundred thousand people packing the streets of downtown Atlanta to celebrate the movie’s opening. Like many of the other films released at the time, the theme focused on perseverance, commitment, and the willingness to sacrifice to survive. Another foundational format used by the studios was the musical. Busby Berkeley set the stage for this genre in 1933 with 42nd Street and Footlight Parade which featured highly choreographed song and dance numbers with elaborate sets. The storyline revolved around a naïve but likable newcomer to the theater and the trials and tribulations of making it in the big city or the challenges of getting a show on Great White Way. Of course, these musicals borrowed heavily from the traditions of Broadway, but they added twists with the ability of the camera to manipulate what and how the audience saw. The Gay Divorcee (1934) launched the careers of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that would span the decade. The musical Gold Diggers of 1935 was the first to blend musical numbers into the dialogue of the movie, and musicals afterward were closely integrated into the script to build the story, like The Wizard of Oz (1939). One of the most popular musical performers was child star Shirley Temple, who starred in twentyfour films from 1935 until 1940 in which she sang and danced to the audience’s delight and performed classic songs like “Animal Crackers in My Soup” and “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Hollywood, like advertisers, were well aware of their target audience— women—and produced a variety of films designed to draw them into the theaters. Whether the film concerned a gold-digger, fallen woman, hardworking girl, or even a woman rescued by a man, the storyline remained fairly consistent. Women in virtually every position, from mother to daughter to worker to lover, had to inevitably sacrifice some aspect of themselves for the greater good. Stars like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and many more became staples of the movie industry. Shearer’s early 1930s films like Strangers May Kiss (1931) challenged the dominant view of demure womanhood and acted in ways that had generally been reserved for men. Her emancipated character was similar to that presented by Dietrich in Blonde Venus (1932), and later in The Devil is A Woman (1935), or Garbo’s Anna Karenina (1935), or even Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage (1934). These were women who against all odds still found ways to keep themselves, their lovers, and their families safe. Both Jezebel (1938) starring Bette Davis and Gone with the Wind (1939) with Vivien Leigh depicted women who overcame vanity to save the men and society they loved.

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While there is a tendency to view women’s activism during the 1930s as less than that of her sisters in the suffragette years and the feminist years afterward, women portrayed on the silver screen served as positive role models not only by what they did in the films but by the fashions they utilized that challenged existing sexual norms. The style of dress, whether it be overtly sexual as in Mae West’s outfit in Belle of the Nineties (1934), the more demure look of Vivian Leigh in Gone With the Wind (1939), or even the gender challenging outfits worn by Greta Garbo in Queen Christina (1933) or Katherine Hepburn in numerous films, symbolized women’s use of performance to create a space of legitimate power within an industry and society which hemmed them in. Hollywood women wearing pants in movies and publicity photos directly led to the legitimacy of the pantsuit and women’s slacks by the early 1940s. The range of films in which women were featured outlined the extent of women’s power, and the fashions employed, from clothing, makeup, hair, and how they carried themselves, outlined the ability to operate and garner power. Women in films celebrated their individuality and this message was not lost to the millions of women and men who went to the movies every week. Many women left the theater understanding that the outfits and makeup worn by the stars on the screen could be purchased at their local stores, breaking down the class barriers within fashion and opening up another avenue for American women to better define themselves. They emulated those that they saw on screen, and with product placement and advertising tie-ins especially for cosmetics, women were spending more than two billion dollars annually on beauty products. In a country desperate for diversion, comedies were a staple of Hollywood. Coming out of the silent movie era, where slapstick and physical comedy dominated the screen, stars like Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and even Charlie Chaplin gave way to a variety of films that combined pathos with double-entendre dialogue to touch the heartstrings of the audience even as they made them laugh. State Fair (1933) starring Will Rogers set the tone for many of the films that would follow. The movie followed an ordinary family experiencing the excitement and amusement of a state fair. The simple humanness of the film reminded audiences of the simple pleasures that still existed and the hope that through family outings, whether a state fair or a picnic, the social fabric of the country could remain strong. Films like Alibi Ike (1935) starring Joe E. Brown, It Happened One Night (1934) with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, The Thin Man series (1936+) with Myrna Loy and William Powell, and even Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant’s 1938 Bringing Up Baby, were sentimental in their treatment of the human condition revealing the humor one found in everyday activities. These types of films, called sentimental and or screwball comedies, eventually lost their appeal and a newer family-style comedy led by the likes of young Mickey Rooney and the Andy Hardy series became a favorite. 1937’s You’re Only Young Once established the formula of the foibles of young love and the reality of a generation gap between young people and their

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parents, a division not fraught with frustration or fear, but with humor— what will these young kids think of next type of stories. Slapstick and physical humor did not go away, but storylines featuring this type of comedy, best exemplified by the Marx Brothers’ run of films in the era—Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), Duck Soup (1933), and Night at The Opera (1935)—blended with the sentimental and screwball motif and added language twists, pantomime, sarcasm, anarchistic Molière-like switches, and sexual innuendo. Mae West, in a way, used the same ideas as the Marx Brothers but exposed the vagaries of sexual identity and power. Beginning with She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel, both in 1933, she used overt sexuality to poke fun at men and their fear of sexualized women. Both films contained songs that were considered risqué, like “A Guy What Takes His Time” or “Easy Rider,” and brought criticism from the Production Code. Her films afterward were toned down considerably. There were all sorts of movies made during the era. Some tried to expose the real social issues of the day like 1932’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, or later Our Daily Bread (1934), Wild Boys of the Road (1933), Dead End (1937), and Angels with Dirty Faces (1938). These documented unfair policing, the detrimental effects of poverty, and lack of education. Without some intervention, whether it be the clergy as in Boys Town (1938) or by honest law enforcement men like those in G-Men (1935) and Bullets or Ballots (1936), the country would fall into an active battle between the have nots and the rest of society. In the early part of the 1930s gangster films played on the public’s fascination with criminals like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and others to capture the audience’s attention. Films like Little Caesar, starring Edward G. Robinson, Public Enemy with James Cagney, both in 1931 and of course Paul Muni’s role in Scarface (1932) revealed the pitfalls of a life a crime. While the top movies were made by the eight studios that dominated the industry, more than seventy-five percent of all films made during the Depression era were made by studios along what was called Poverty Row. Mascot, Grand National, Monogram, and Republic were the four main studios that produced these low-budget, high turnaround films. Movies like Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds (1935), starring Gene Autry, were shot in a few weeks using mostly outdoor sets to reduce the cost of lighting and crews. Cowboy films are the most remembered of this genre, which were generally serialized stories that ran as the second bill to a major release or played in rural areas ignored the larger theater chains. But these B films were the bread and butter of the industry. Other B films, like the Tarzan and Charlie Chan serials, which emphasized racist stereotypes, were part of the Saturday matinee campaigns to attract younger movie-goers. The Bs also allowed African American directors and actors to act in and make movies for their audience. Hollywood offered few true opportunities for either and so actors like Ralph Cooper, Lorenzo Tucker, Louise Beavers, and Herb Jeffries were featured in movies like Dark Manhattan (1937), Mystery in Swing (1939),

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Harlem Rides the Range (1939), or even Voodoo Drums (1933). These and other what were called ethnic films were made on a shoe-string budget in a matter of weeks and played to specific theaters catering to the local population. They were not huge profit makers but did allow for the artistic expression of those not included among the big studios or dominant society.

Historians In the aftermath of World War II and under the growing specter of international communism, memoirs, biographies, and the first wave of New Deal historiography detailed how democracy dealt with significant economic and social crises without reverting to dictatorship or the suspension of personal liberties. Former New Deal insiders like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, TVA’s David Lilienthal, an early supporter and speechwriter Raymond Moley, economic advisor Rexford Tugwell, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, advisor Samuel Rosenman, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, and others recounted the exciting and often revolutionary atmosphere of the first and second Roosevelt administrations. Much of the context for the era was also made available through the publication of FDR’s public papers, speeches, and press conferences, which augmented the opening of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, the first of its kind, in 1941. Given the extent to which FDR held the office of the presidency, combined with the many crises he faced during the unprecedented four terms that he served, the FDR library’s holdings, as well as those held in the National Archives and the Library of Congress, became a significant resource for historians and others to mine to better understand the complexities of not only the Depression era and World War II, but of the early part of the twentieth century and the Cold War era that followed. The vast amount of primary source material made available suggested both an openness and a desire by FDR and his advisors to play a central role in the writing of the history of the New Deal. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s three-volume The Age of Roosevelt (1957–1960) typified this school of thought, where the readers—most of whom had lived through the Depression—were led through the myriad of situations, problems, and discussions concerning not just the political realities of the New Deal, but the overall emergency and concern for the salvation of democracy that the president and his advisors faced on a near-daily basis. Multi-volume biographies of FDR began appearing led by historian Frank Friedel’s Franklin Roosevelt (1952) and political scientist James MacGregor Burns’s The Lion and the Fox (1956). These scholarly works, while sometimes critical of FDR and his policies, nonetheless lionized him in a manner comparable to other great American heroes like Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. Historian William Leuchtenberg’s 1963 synthesis, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal capped this generational outpouring. While at times critical of the New Deal for not going far enough, Leuchtenberg helped inspire

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a new generation of scholars like Howard Zinn, Ronald Radosh, Barton Berstein, and Paul Conkin. These revisionists challenged the limitations of FDR and the New Deal, outlining its reinforcement of capitalism and its inability to effectively deal with the continuing problems of racial and sexual discrimination. They wrote for and amid their own generation’s struggles and looked to the past for explanations. The New Deal thus served as the perfect foil for a generation seeking clarity concerning the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, feminism, and so many of the other social, economic, cultural, and political issues of the sixties era. The New Deal desire for inclusion had led, it now seemed, to near-blind consensus and conformity, and the children of the Depression generation labeled the baby-boomers, chastised their elders for not doing enough to alter the basic social, political, and economic foundation of the country. The New Deal became passé, an example of how the corporatist state used power and influence to subvert potential radical change to maintain the status quo. These challenges to the New Deal and the limitations of Roosevelt’s policies had a dual effect. On one hand, it served to chastise the consensus generation for the decisions it did not make during the Depression and those it did make in the post-war years; while on the other, it led to a reevaluation of the era and an almost nostalgic recollection of the simplicity of the bygone days. Activist groups, like the Students for a Democratic Society, initially looked back to the era for examples for organizing and rallying the masses, selecting key individuals as heroes, and modified the “common man” rhetoric for their causes. The folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s idolized the passion and sincerity of Depression-era troubadours like Woody Guthrie, channeling both their focus on social justice and their hard-traveling fashions. Blues music also underwent a revival, as its Depression-era icons like Lead Belly and Robert Johnson were rediscovered and repackaged by young electric guitarists in rock and roll bands. Hollywood too played a role in this, as the younger generation began to slowly amass power and in doing so critiquing the Depression-era generation in films like The Graduate, and celebrating the era’s rebelliousness in Bonnie and Clyde. The recycling of the Depression within popular culture often focused more on form than function but did help to maintain the memory of the era within the newer generations. At the same time this generation was chastising and glamorizing the New Deal and the era of the 1930s, historians were beginning to focus on more individual aspects of the Depression to get a better understanding of the meaning and impact of the New Deal. This resulted in a flowering of New Deal studies from scholars like Nancy Weiss, Lizabeth Cohen, Richard Pells, Alan Brinkley, and others whose studies were as varied and complex as the New Deal itself. Over the next twenty-five years, university library bookshelves would become full of studies of the TVA, WPA, Wagner Act, Social Security, NYA, Supreme Court, AAA, and many others which gave way to even more specific regional, state, or local studies. Also into the mix,

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evaluations of the New Deal’s policies toward race, class, and gender opened up newer fields of evaluation within each of the agencies. New Deal studies were augmented by the organized collection of Depression-era remembrances stimulated by the rise and popularity of oral history. Perhaps the most celebrated of this new genre was oral historian Studs Terkel’s iconic 1971 collection of Depression-era recollections, Hard Times. The book was more than just a literary success, as its impact helped propel many scholars to consider the meaning and significance of memory and its interconnection to history. Soon oral history projects seeking to collect the memories of the American people were proliferating around the country. Some explored popular music, like the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored Jazz oral history collections at Rutgers and Tulane Universities. Other universities would dedicate whole centers to the collection of regional memories, like those at Baylor University, Georgia State University, and the University of North Carolina. State and local historical societies began compiling oral histories and with the introduction and proliferation of the internet, they became sites for anyone to explore. College and high school teachers started their oral history projects and loaded them up onto the web. Digitization of government records and archives created even more New Deal era-related sites, many sponsored or working in conjunction with the Library of Congress’s American Memory Project. One can spend days exploring the New Deal on the Internet, as the number of sites relating to it or the 1930s is almost overwhelming.

Assessment Nearly ninety years after the beginning of the New Deal, its memory and meaning have grown even stronger. The economic problems of the twentyfirst century have made the New Deal more relevant, as some point to it for possible solutions to the climate crisis or post-pandemic relief. What does the longevity of the memory of the New Deal mean? Does it resonate because it still affects so many people? Or is it because the Depression called for individual sacrifices for the betterment of the country, which nostalgically made it seem as though people were less divided, referring to it as the last golden age of the American century? Like other epochs that refuse to be forgotten—for example, the Civil War continues to thrive as re-enactors year after year dress up and replay battles—the New Deal legacy reminds Americans what the people can accomplish in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. People who lived through the era recall how everyone in their family, neighborhood, or community seemingly helped each other and felt connected because they shared the struggles they and the country faced, first in the Depression and then in World War II. Popular culture in all its forms reinforced this generational understanding and they took with them into the future the songs, movies, and radio programs that helped them through these dark and uncertain times. This helped make the memory of

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the New Deal and the 1930s resilient to economic, cultural, political, or social changes. Nearly all aspects of the New Deal as memory or history resonates with this understanding, for there is no escaping the reality that during the 1930s the country, on the brink of total collapse, redefined itself, created a new identity for the modern century that could not be shaken. The historians who wrote and continue to write critiquing or celebrating aspects of the New Deal do so against this same foundation—they have to confront this new identity. The New Deal created all types of monuments to the spirit of its citizenry, in parks, roads, sidewalks, toilets, art, music, photographs, films, mattresses, plays, literacy, shoes, touching nearly every aspect of American society detailing the formation of this new identity. The country became a living museum to the New Deal, because no matter where one turned or whom one talked with, it was there. This new identity differed from the nationalistic rhetoric used by dictators during the same period because FDR encouraged Americans to work together to help build the new identity, to propagate it, and even defend and die for it. The New Deal remains a constant in the American historical memory because, like the many wars the country has fought, the struggles of the people outline their willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. But what makes the New Deal legacy even stronger, is that it was not a baptism under the fire of war, but of peace, whose common enemy was injustice, poverty, ignorance, and as FDR said, fear itself. The New Deal was not perfect. In many ways, it failed to adequately address the issues regarding racial and sexual equality. And even its support of labor came with limitations that would hamstring the development of a distinct working-class identity in the country. Some of the successes of the CCC, TVA, or many WPA projects were later challenged as environmental mistakes. The New Deal was vast and affected every aspect of American society and in hindsight, some of its programs and policies were not well thought out, and perhaps even exacerbated economic issues. But the policies and programs of the New Deal did bring the country together. It did provide relief and employment to millions of Americans. Programs brought a sense of hopefulness and optimism when there seemed little evidence to suggest such emotions. New Deal projects were designed for the future, an idea not lost to the people. It signified that America, and democracy, could address the limitations of capital and use the power of government to modify its excesses and try to create a more perfect union without resorting to demagoguery, totalitarianism, or war. The country came together with the New Deal, a sense of unity that had only occurred in times of war. This is what makes the New Deal and the Great Depression era so interesting and unusual: this unity was built not under the threat of conflict or the threat of war or invasion, but rather through a clear purpose of inclusion. The New Deal helped many Americans not just in the 1930s, but in the decades that came afterward and well into the twenty-first century.

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References Balio, Tino. Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993. Bergman, Andrew. We’re In the Money: Depression America and its Films. New York: New York University Press, 1971. Berry, Sarah. Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Bindas, Kenneth J. Remembering the Great Depression in the Rural South. Tallahassee, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007. Cripps, Thomas. Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Cutler, Phoebe. The Public Landscape of the New Deal. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Dinerstein, Joel. Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the Wars. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003. Duchemin, Michael. New Deal Cowboy: Gene Autry and Public Diplomacy. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. Lenthall, Bruce. Radio’s America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Levy, Beth E. Frontier Figures: American Music and the Mythology of the West. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012. Percell, Aaron D. (editor). The New Deal and the Great Depression. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014. Rydell, Robert W. and Laura Burd Schiavo (editors). Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon, 1970.

Part II

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-7

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Document 1 Herbert Hoover, on American individualism It is not the individualism of other countries for which I would speak, but the individualism of America. Our individualism differs from all others because it embraces these great ideals: that while we build our society upon the attainment of the individual, we shall safeguard to every individual an equality of opportunity to take that position in the community to which his intelligence, character, ability, and ambition entitle him; that we keep the social solution free from frozen strata of classes; that we shall stimulate effort of each individual to achievement; that through an enlarging sense of responsibility and understanding we shall assist him to his attainment; while he in turn must stand up to the Emory wheel of competition. … individualism has been the primary force of American civilization for three centuries. It is our sort of individualism that has supplied the motivation of America’s political, economic, and spiritual institutions in all these years. It has proved its ability to develop its institutions with the changing scene. Our very form of government is the product of the individualism of our people, the demand for an equal opportunity, for a fair chance … There are malign social forces other than our failures that would destroy our progress. There are the equal dangers of both reaction and radicalism. The perpetual howl of radicalism is that it is the sole voice of liberalism— that devotion to social progress is its field alone. These men would assume that all reform in human advanced must come through government. They have forgotten that progress must come from the steady lift of the individual and that the measure of national idealism and progress is the quality of idealism in the individual. The most trying support of radicalism comes from the timid or dishonest minds that shrink from facing the result of radicalism itself but are devoted to the fence of radicalism as proof of a liberal mind. Source: Herbert Hoover, American Individualism (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922), 8–9, 63, 67

Document 2 Hoover on the New Deal, 1935 We are told today by men high in our government both legislative and administrative that the social organization which we have developed over our whole history is “outworn” and “must be abandoned.” We have been told that it has “failed.” We are told of “outworn traditions,” that we have come to the “end of an era,” that we are passing through a “bloodless revolution.” We were also told that the American system “is in ruins,” that we must “build on the ruins of the past a new structure.” It is advocated

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now that many of the emergency measures shall be “consolidated” and made “permanent.” We should therefore earnestly and dispassionately examine what the pattern of this transformation of economic, social, and governmental system is to be, and what the ultimate effect of its continuance would be upon our national life. Source: Herbert Hoover, The Challenge to Liberty (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), 105

Document 3 Franklin Roosevelt’s statement on the National Industrial Recovery Act June 16, 1933 The law I have just signed was passed to put people back to work, to let them buy more of the products of farms and factories and start our business at a living rate again. This task is in two stages; first, to get many hundreds of thousands of the unemployed back on the payroll by snowfall and, second, to plan for a better future for the longer pull. While we shall not neglect the second, the first stage is an emergency job. It has the right of way. The second part of the Act gives employment through a vast program of public works. Our studies show that we should be able to hire many men at once and to step up to about a million new jobs by October 1st, and a much greater number later. We must put at the head of our list those works which are fully ready to start now. Our first purpose is to create employment as fast as we can, but we should not pour money into unproved projects. We have worked out our plans for action. Some of the work will start tomorrow. I am making available $400,000,000 for State roads under regulations which I have just signed, and I am told that the States will get this work under way at once. I have also just released over $200,000,000 for the Navy to start building ships under the London Treaty. In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level—I mean the wages of decent living. Throughout industry, the change from starvation wages and starvation employment to living wages and sustained employment can, in large part, be made by an industrial covenant to which all employers shall subscribe. It is greatly to their interest to do this because decent living, widely spread among our 125, 000,000 people, eventually means the opening up to industry of the richest market which the world has known. It is the only way to utilize the so-called excess capacity of our industrial plants. This is the

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principle that makes this one of the most important laws that ever has come from Congress because, before the passage of this Act, no such industrial covenant was possible. On this idea, the first part of the Act proposes to our industry a great spontaneous cooperation to put millions of men back in their regular jobs this summer. The idea is simply for employers to hire more men to do the existing work by reducing the work-hours of each man’s week and at the same time paying a living wage for the shorter week. No employer and no group of less than all employers in a single trade could do this alone and continue to live in business competition. But if all employers in each trade now band themselves faithfully in these modern guilds—without exception—and agree to act together and at once, none will be hurt and millions of workers, so long deprived of the right to earn their bread in the sweat of their labor, can raise their heads again. The challenge of this law is whether we can sink selfish interest and present a solid front against a common peril. It is a challenge to industry which has long insisted that, given the right to act in unison, it could do much for the general good which has hitherto been unlawful. From today it has that right. Many good men voted this new charter with misgivings. I do not share these doubts. I had part in the great cooperation of 1917 and 1918 and it is my faith that we can count on our industry once more to join in our general purpose to lift this new threat and to do it without taking any advantage of the public trust which has this day been reposed without stint in the good faith and high purpose of American business. But industry is challenged in another way. It is not only the slackers within trade groups who may stand in the path of our common purpose. In a sense these groups compete with each other, and no single industry, and no separate cluster of industries, can do this job alone for exactly the same reason that no single employer can do it alone. In other words, we can imagine such a thing as a slacker industry. This law is also a challenge to labor. Workers, too, are here given a new charter of rights long sought and hitherto denied. But they know that the first move expected by the Nation is a great cooperation of all employers, by one single mass-action, to improve the case of workers on a scale never attempted in any Nation. Industries can do this only if they have the support of the whole public and especially of their own workers. This is not a law to foment discord and it will not be executed as such. This is a time for mutual confidence and help and we can safely rely on the sense of fair play among all Americans to assure every industry which now moves forward promptly in this united drive against depression that its workers will be with it to a man. It is, further, a challenge to administration. We are relaxing some of the safeguards of the anti-trust laws. The public must be protected against the abuses that led to their enactment, and to this end, we are putting in place

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of old principles of unchecked competition some new Government controls. They must, above all, be impartial and just. Their purpose is to free business, not to shackle it; and no man who stands on the constructive, forwardlooking side of his industry has anything to fear from them. To such men the opportunities for individual initiative will open more amply than ever. Let me make it clear, however, that the anti-trust laws still stand firmly against monopolies that restrain trade and price fixing which allows inordinate profits or unfairly high prices. If we ask our trade groups to do that which exposes their business, as never before, to undermining by members who are unwilling to do their part, we must guard those who play the game for the general good against those who may seek selfish gains from the unselfishness of others. We must protect them from the racketeers who invade organizations of both employers and workers. We are spending billions of dollars and if that spending is really to serve our ends it must be done quickly. We must see that our haste does not permit favoritism and graft. All this is a heavy load for any Government and one that can be borne only if we have the patience, cooperation, and support of people everywhere. Finally, this law is a challenge to our whole people. There is no power in America that can force against the public will such action as we require. But there is no group in America that can withstand the force of an aroused public opinion. This great cooperation can succeed only if those who bravely go forward to restore jobs have aggressive public support and those who lag are made to feel the full weight of public disapproval. As to the machinery, we shall use the practical way of accomplishing what we are setting out to do. When a trade association has a code ready to submit and the association has qualified as truly representative, and after reasonable notice has been issued to all concerned, a public hearing will be held by the Administrator or a deputy. A Labor Advisory Board appointed by the Secretary of Labor will be responsible that every affected labor group, whether organized or unorganized, is fully and adequately represented in an advisory capacity and any interested labor group will be entitled to be heard through representatives of its own choosing. An Industrial Advisory Board appointed by the Secretary of Commerce will be responsible that every affected industrial group is fully and adequately represented in an advisory capacity and any interested industrial group will be entitled to be heard through representatives of its own choosing. A Consumers Advisory Board will be responsible that the interests of the consuming public will be represented and every reasonable opportunity will be given to any group or class who may be affected directly or indirectly to present their views. At the conclusion of these hearings and after the most careful scrutiny by a competent economic staff the Administrator will present the subject to me for my action under the law. I am fully aware that wage increases will eventually raise costs, but I ask that managements give first consideration to the improvement of operating

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figures by greatly increased sales to be expected from the rising purchasing power of the public. That is good economics and good business. The aim of this whole effort is to restore our rich domestic market by raising its vast consuming capacity. If we now inflate prices as fast and as far as we increase wages, the whole project will be set at naught. We cannot hope for the full effect of this plan unless, in these first critical months, and, even at the expense of full initial profits, we defer price increases as long as possible. If we can thus start a strong, sound, upward spiral of business activity, our industries will have little doubt of black-ink operations in the last quarter of this year. The pent-up demand of this people is very great and if we can release it on so broad a front, we need not fear a lagging recovery. There is greater danger of too much feverish speed. In a few industries, there has been some forward buying at unduly depressed prices in recent weeks. Increased costs resulting from this Government-inspired movement may make it very hard for some manufacturers and jobbers to fulfill some of their present contracts without loss. It will be a part of this wide industrial cooperation for those having the benefit of these forward bargains (contracted before the law was passed) to take the initiative in revising them to absorb some share of the increase in their suppliers’ costs, thus raised in the public interest. It is only in such a willing and considerate spirit, throughout the whole of industry, that we can hope to succeed. Under Title I of this Act, I have appointed Hugh Johnson as Administrator and a special Industrial Recovery Board under the Chairmanship of the Secretary of Commerce. This organization is now prepared to receive proposed Codes and to conduct prompt hearings looking toward their submission to me for approval. While acceptable proposals of no trade group will be delayed, it is my hope that the ten major industries which control the bulk of industrial employment can submit their simple basic Codes at once and that the country can look forward to the month of July as the beginning of our great national movement back to work. During the coming three weeks Title II relating to public. works and construction projects will be temporarily conducted by Colonel Donald H. Sawyer as Administrator and a special temporary board consisting of the Secretary of the Interior as Chairman, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of War, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor and the Director of the Budget. During the next two weeks the Administrator and this board will make a study of all projects already submitted or to be submitted and, as previously stated, certain allotments under the new law will be made immediately. Between these twin efforts—public works and industrial reemployment— it is not too much to expect that a great many men and women can be taken from the ranks of the unemployed before winter comes. It is the most important attempt of this kind in history. As in the great crisis of the World War, it puts a whole people to the simple but vital test:—“Must we go on in

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many groping, disorganized, separate units to defeat or shall we move as one great team to victory?” Source: FDR Presidential library archives, http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist. edu/odnira.html

Document 4 Editorial from The Kendallite, a CCC camp newspaper (August 30, 1935) Not long ago an editorial appeared in The Kendallite, stating the benefits the nation was receiving through the CCC. When writing about the CCC, the writers of most periodicals tell only of the advantages of that organization to the country. It is time, however, that we begin to consider the young men of this country as our most valuable resource. Let us discuss the way thousands of young men are benefiting themselves as well as their country. There is a threefold purpose in the development of men in the CCC. They must be developed physically, mentally, and spiritually. Upon their arrival, rookies usually get their first work experience. Many are just out of school looking to the CCC as their first job. Others, unable to find employment, turned to the CCC as their opportunity to earn a living. In most every instance, those rookies quickly improve their physical condition; many gain an average of 10 to 15 pounds within the first three months. Others replaced fat with hard muscle. Healthful out-of-door exercise, coupled with regularity of meals and sleep tend to make these men gain weight. The CCC enrollee develops mentally through his work, as well as the education Department. There is a large field of different types of work that an enrollee has a chance to do, such as cooking, office work, road construction, carpentry, nursery work, quarrying, and many others. By actually experiencing and learning different types of work, an enrollee may be helped to choose and prepare his life work. To supplement the education in the field, a number of evening classes are offered. Many of these classes teach related material—that is material related to the job in the field. Among these first aid, English, mathematics, and drawing are prominent. The journalism class writes news and feature stories for The Kendallite. Some of the classes, such as boxing, swimming, and wrestling, are recreational in nature. Photography and beekeeping may be considered avocational and vocational in nature, inasmuch as many of the enrollees take up this line of study for pleasure; others expect to make their living by following one of these occupations. Many of the classes are taught by enrollees who are interested in helping fellow enrollees by sharing their experiences and knowledge. Each camp maintains an educational Department and an average of over $10 per year is spent for the education of each enrollee in the CCC. Many

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enrollees take advantage of one or more classes and go forth from the CCC with their minds more developed than when they entered. The CCC experience plays the part of high school and college education to thousands of young men of America who are unable to attend their schools. Thirdly, the enrollee develops spiritually. This he may do through the act of religious service which are held in camp. Outwardly, it may appear that the enrollees are not religious, but many have high minded conceptions of the true meaning of religion. It has been noticed that religious prejudice is almost forgotten in the CCC. The men are friends and work together regardless of different personal beliefs. Many other benefits which the enrollee of the CCC obtains could be mentioned, such as learning to live and work with other men, and learning to take and give orders. Most all benefits, however, are grouped under physical, mental, and spiritual development dash which is the primary purpose of the CCC to the young men of the United States. signed Joseph Stahl, editor Source: Cuyahoga Valley National Park archives, Peninsula, Ohio

Document 5 Director Fechner to NAACP on racial discrimination in the CCC Mr. Thomas L. Griffith, Jr. President National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 1105 E. Vernon Avenue Los Angeles, California September 21, 1935 Dear Mr. Griffith, The president has called my attention to the letter you addressed to him on September 14th, 1935, in which you asked for information relating to the policy of segregation in CCC camps. The law enacted by Congress setting up Emergency Conservation Work specifically indicated that there should be no discrimination because of color. I have faithfully endeavored to obey the spirit and letter of this, as well as all other provisions of the law. At the very beginning of this work, I consulted with many representative individuals and groups who were interested in the work, and the decision to segregate white enrollees, negro enrollees, and war veterans, was generally approved. I believe that the record of the past 30 months will sustain the wisdom of our decision. While segregation has been the general policy, it has not been inflexible, and we have a number of companies containing a small number of negro

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enrollees. I am satisfied that the negro enrollees themselves prefer to be in companies composed exclusively of their own race. This segregation is not discrimination and cannot be so construed. The negro companies are assigned to the same types of work, have identical equipment, are served the same food, and have the same quarters as white enrollees. I have personally visited many negro CCC companies and have talked with the enrollees and have never received one single complaint. I want to assure you that I am just as sincerely interested as anyone in making this work of the greatest possible value to all who have a part in it. Sincerely yours, Signed Robert Fechner Director, CCC Source: “CCC Negro Selection” file, Box 700, General Correspondence of the Director, RG 35, National Archives

Document 6 Hopkins to state administrators regarding potential issue WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION Walker-Johnson Building 1734 New York Avenue NW. Washington, DC Harry L. Hopkins March 13, 1936 General Letter No. 8 TO: All State Works Progress Administrators SUBJECT: Notice to all WPA Workers All state works progress administrators are hereby instructed to post in every district office and to deliver every project form in an exact copy of the following regulations: “No employee of the Works Progress Administration, either administrative or engaged on a project, his required to make any contribution to any political party. “No Works Progress Administration employee’s job will be in jeopardy because of the failure of said employee to make such contribution. “No employee of the Works Progress Administration shall at anytime solicit contributions for any political party and evidence of such solicitation will be cause for immediate discharge. The question of whether or not to contribute to any political party is a matter entirely for the voluntary decision of said employee.

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“No person shall be employed or discharged by the Works Progress Administration on the ground of his support or non-support of any candidate of any political organization.” Signed Harry L. Hopkins Administrator Source: WPA 444c, FDR library

Document 7 Ellen Woodward to FDR regarding his second term WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION Walker-Johnson Building 1734 New York Avenue NW. Washington, DC Harry L. Hopkins Administrator September 29, 1937 Dear Mr. President: We’re all waiting for that first speech of yours in Wyoming and we did a bit of guessing and much expecting. But nothing could have been more reassuring than your assertion that you are “not going to coast” through your second term. That is even more significant than your stirring challenge “we have just begun to fight.” The splendid fight that you have led against the depression is now reaching its final stage; the true value in that victory surely lies in the chance it gives you now to lead us forward along new roads. When the history of your administration is written, Part 1 from 1933 to 1937 will be mainly the record of an unparalleled work of salvage done; the salvage of our institutions, our property and our human values; the effective aid given to human beings deprived of their bare necessities dash food, clothing, shelter and the means of earning a livelihood. But these have been rescued—for what? You have never failed to emphasize that relief and rehabilitation must go hand in hand; that the more abundant life is the legitimate hope and aim of all citizens. Without the hope and chance for a better future, our underprivileged third, even in their own estimation, had better not been salvaged. It is your task and privilege to carry forward that American civilization which you have rescued; That democracy with all of its culture, its arts, its handicrafts, its literature, its drama; all of its forward looking activities in hopes. A tremendous task, a glorious privilege, and one that will be recorded, I am convinced, in the record of your administration from 1937 to 1941 (Part

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II) in words that shall tell of a Golden Age of American Culture; one that will have justified all our struggles and sacrifices as a nation, to survive the depression, and to make our survival worth the fight we have made for it. You are “not going to coast” Mr. President! Indeed, we never thought you intended to. But it is heartening to have you say so, not only to that small anxious group in Wyoming, but to the nation, and to us who are working under you with an abiding faith in the outcome of the fight that you have led and the plans you have laid. With kind personal regards and best wishes, I am Sincerely yours Signed Ellen S. Woodward Source: WPA, 444c, FDR library

Document 8 Hopkins on the radio defending the WPA The Works Program Works Progress Administration For release on delivery, Sunday, June 19th, 1938. Address delivered by Harry L. Hopkins, Works Progress Administrator, on the WOR Forum Hour, Sunday, June 19th, 1938, 6:45 PM EST: I will speak tonight not about the direct aims of the Works Progress Administration, but about its indirect effects. Impartial nationwide polls and studies have proved, first, that the American people favored jobs for the unemployed instead of the dole, and second, that the improvements created are useful and valuable to local communities. Finally, I am sure no person will question the importance of these jobs to a man whose family needs food and shelter. Where does a WPA dollar go, after the federal government pays it to an unemployed worker? To hear some people talk, you might think it mysteriously vanish is somewhere, perhaps in that worker’s pocket. I believe I can show you that at the time it is taking care of him and his family, it is helping take care of the butcher, the baker, the doctor and the manufacturer. During the next eight months, the WPA will spend about 1 billion 425,000,000 federal dollars. This will cause city, County and state governments which want improvements to spend about 400 million more. This is a total of 1 billion 825,000,000 dollars to be spent because of WPA programs. Who will get this money? Where will it go? What will it do for American business? We know from our records that 300 million will go to buy materials, supplies and equipment, such as 100 millions for cement and brick, 70

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millions for iron and steel, trucks and other machinery, 35 millions for lumber, 25 millions for textiles. The added business through purchase of materials will give indirect fulltime private jobs to a quarter of a million workers entirely apart from those on the WPA rolls. They, also, will buy things and create other jobs. Second, thousands of trucks and other types of heavy equipment must be rented from contractors. Equipment, warehouses, and other buildings must be rented. Material must be shipped to the job. This place is another 200 million into the pockets of the owners of machinery, the owners of buildings, the railroads and a host of other business concerns. Finally we arrive at the biggest single item in the WPA program—1 billion 325,000,000 dollars which goes directly in pay to the workers. What happens to it? The average WPA worker makes about $55 a month—some make as low as 30—and has three dependents to support on it. Every cent of his paycheck is needed, immediately for the basic necessities of living. It is obliged for the purchase of food, clothing, rent, medical care and other necessities. It swells the stream of American trade where it is needed most—among those with the lowest income stash so that the turnover is repeated the maximum number of times. Where do WPA workers dollars go—the 1 billion 325,000,000 they will receive—and spend—in the next 8 months? About 515,000,000 dollars will go for food to the grocer, the baker, the butcher. About 220,000,000 millions will go to the owners of rooms, houses and apartments for rent. Another 150 millions will go for household operation—for furniture, fuel, kitchen equipment, gas, water, electricity. The rest of the wages will be spent for a wide variety of things. 50 millions, for example, will go to doctors and dentists, 60 millions for streetcar and bus fare. These figures are hard to grasp because of their size. Let us take the food bill of 515,000,000 million dollars. That will be an average of about $1000 in trade for every one and a half million food stores in the nation. It means that WPA workers will spend two and a half million dollars a day, for food alone. We must remember that each of these purchases starts a series of transactions. From the corner grocery store, this trade causes new orders, gives indirect private employment on farms, and canning factories, and transportation. The landlords rent money creates more jobs as it goes for paint, for repairs, even for new houses and apartments. The WPA dollar spreads in an over widening circle. The doctor can buy a new car, the publisher’s wife a new dress, the furniture man can take his family on a trip. These purchases in turn create more private jobs.

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And so the WPA money flows, like the blood in the human body, giving life and strength to the economic system. The story of the WPA is not half told if you stop with the millions to whom it means the only chance for work. There are hundreds of thousands perhaps you are one of them who never have dreamed of facing the problem of relief, yet whose private jobs in many lines of businesses have been made sounder and safer by the spending of the WPA dollars. There are many proprietors of stores and factories to whom these dollars at this time in the difference between profit and loss dash profit that will stabilize the jobs of others. There are stockbrokers in thousands of business concerns, and gas and electric and transportation companies, who have money to spend—money that will protect still other jobs. For our big problem is no longer the ability to produce, but the ability to consume. It is how to increase and distribute buying power so that all our people are constantly helping to move goods off the shelves of business, and keep them moving on and off, to create the maximum of private employment, and of national income. Our working population is getting so big, and our machines so efficient, that there must be no slackers amongst consumers. The federal government is determined that the able bodied unemployed shall have a chance to work, and that millions of potential consumers shall be brought into the market as customers for America’s goods. Source: press release, Works Progress Administration, Washington, DC

Document 9 On communists on the WPA 9a Memo to Harry L. Hopkins regarding Communist activity in the WPA March 16, 1936 MEMORANDUM FOR HONORABLE HARRY L. HOPKINS: Would appreciate it if the return of the attached letter from Dick Sears you would have prepared for my signature of proper reply. M.H. McIntyre Assistant Secretary To the President 9b Hopkins’s response to Marvin H. McIntyre WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION Walker-Johnson Building 1734 New York Avenue NW. Washington, DC Harry L. Hopkins Administrator

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March 20, 1936 Honorable Marvin H. McIntyre Assistant Secretary to the President The White House Washington, DC Dear Mac: I am enclosing here with suggested reply to the letter of Mr. Sears, regarding a series of articles which have appeared in Hearst papers, charging that communism is being advocated in our workers education courses. We have looked into this matter very thoroughly and cannot find that any of the charges are substantiated by the actual facts. It would appear that in every instance they are either elaborate distortions of the true facts or else actual fabrications. I am personally convinced that that part of our education program which is made available classes to working people has done a fine job in a pioneering field. Sincerely yours Signed H. Hopkins administrator 9c Hopkins’s suggested letter to citizen dismissing the charge Miami, Florida March 24, 1936 Dear Dick: Thank you for your letter of March tenth, bringing to my attention an article which appeared in the Boston Sunday Advertiser, charging that communism was being advocated in a women’s camp operated by the Works Progress Administration in Georgia. Mr. Hopkins tells me that this is one of a series of such articles which have appeared in the Hearst papers, charging that the Works Progress Administration, through its Worker Education Program, has been engaged in communist propaganda. He tells me that they have checked all specific charges, item by item, and are unable to find that any of them are substantiated. It would appear that in every case they are either distortions of the actual facts or completely untrue. The purpose of the Workers Education Program as defined by the Works Progress Administration is to give an opportunity to wage earners to study current economic problems in the light of all the facts and to develop a greater sense of civic responsibility. There is no evidence that this program is being used for spreading communist propaganda. Very sincerely yours, M.H. McIntyre Assistant Secretary to the President Richard W. Sears, Esq.,

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60 Church Street, Boston, Massachusetts Source: WPA 444c, FDR library

Document 10 On the need for a permanent CCC, 1944 The Nation cannot afford to have its resources neglected or wasted; they must be protected at all times. Their extra values are only now being fully realized in the world-wide struggle for freedom and liberty. It will take years to restore replaceable resources now being spent so freely to win the war. This can be done only by careful planning and hard work. Most of our natural resources are remote from urban populations. The work necessary to conserve and protect these natural resources can generally be performed best by the establishment of camps. In the case of the CCC, the camps brought together groups of boys who were taught to work, live, and play, with common interests and community respect. Working in the open, with nature, brings optimum beneficial results to an individual which are almost impossible to attain otherwise. It builds the body and the mind; it teaches the basic principles of existence; and it creates an understanding of what must be done to protect and properly use natural resources. A future permanent Civilian Conservation Corps must take into consideration these basic facts which should be made known to every home and command the respect of all people through its teachings and accomplishments. It is recommended that an organization similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps be established on a permanent basis and designated the “Conservation Corps” and that such an organization be a joint enterprise of the Federal departments and agencies administering and protecting the natural resources of the nation. The purpose of the Corps should be to provide a pool of manpower and funds for those agencies charged by Congress with the development, protection, and use of natural resources of the United States. The main objectives should be: 1 2 3

Development and protection of natural resources of the country for the use and enjoyment of the president and future generations; Teaching the workers and others the real necessity and the importance of proper use of natural resources; The coordination and integration of nationally planned program through a uniform and respected work organization.

Source: Civilian Conservation Corps Program of the United States Department of the Interior, March 1933 to June 30, 1943, A Report to Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior (Washington, DC: GPO, January 1944), 5

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Document 11 Eleanor Roosevelt to Walter White (NAACP) regarding lynching PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON March 19, 1936 My dear Mr. White: Before I received your letter today I had been into the President, talking to him about your letter enclosing that of the Attorney General. I told him that it seemed rather terrible that one could get nothing done and that I did not blame you in the least we’re feeling there was no interest in this very serious question. I asked him if there were any possibility of getting even one step taken, and he said the difficulty is that it is unconstitutional apparently for the federal government to step in in the lynching situation. The government has only been allowed to do anything about kidnapping because of its interstate aspect, and even that has not as yet been appealed so they are not sure that it will be declared constitutional. The President feels that lynching is a question of education in the states, rallying good citizens, and creating public opinion so that the localities themselves will wipe it out. However, if it were done by a Northerner, it will have an antagonistic effect. I will talk to him again about the Van Nuys resolution and will try to talk also to Senator Byrnes and get his point of view. I am deeply troubled about the whole situation as it seems to be a terrible thing to stand by and let it continue and feel that one cannot speak out as to his feeling. I think your next step would be to talk to the more prominent members of the Senate. Very sincerely yours Signed Eleanor Roosevelt Source: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records, American Memory Project, Library of Congress

Document 12 Selected African American newspaper accounts 12a “Wave of police brutality in DC,” Atlanta Daily World (September 7, 1932), 2 Despite official assurances or more courteous action on the part of metropolitan police here given by Major General Pelham D. Glassford, chief of police, officers of the law continued last week a wild rampage against colored citizens. Last week’s fatalities included the shooting of a 14 year old boy and the assault upon a colored truck driver.

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Last Thursday Robert Jones, 29, was shot in the neck by officer Hubert Estes following an argument between the two over an alleged traffic violation. Estes declared that Jones had resisted arrest and that while using his revolver as a club, the gun exploded. And even more flagrant abuse of authority occurred last week Thursday night when officer Ignatius Cannole shot and killed Charles Young, 14 year old boy, while he and several of his companions were playing on a vacant lot. At a Coroner’s inquest last Friday, Cannole was exonerated after testifying that he shot the boy in defense of his own life. Testimony at the hearing was to the effect that the boy had been playing on a lot near Cannole’s home. The officer, who is on duty at the White House, tried to catch him, and when the boy ran, he fired, the bullet hitting the little fellow in the back of the neck below the left ear. Cannole insisted that the boy reached for his hip pocket when ordered to halt. There is no testimony that the boy had a weapon of any sort. The youth was a student in the elementary school he ran had a good reputation in his community. Despite the coroner jury acquittal local citizens here plan action against the youths’ killer. 12b “NAACP to take action on police brutality,” New Journal and Guide (August 18, 1934), 19 Aroused by the rising wave of police brutality of colored citizens during the past two months, the Chicago NAACP is directing a call to action through the clubs, churches, and newspapers to the citizens themselves to bring about an end to this terrorism. More than a dozen cases of merciless beatings, kicking of women, and threats of bodily violence, perpetrated by brutal policemen upon colored citizens have been reported since the 1st of June. 12c “Committee airs police brutality,” Afro-American (January 16, 1937), 1 In a one-hour, spirited hearing, Tuesday morning, the district commissioners heard colored and white representatives of 30 liberal and civic organizations flay brutality on the part of Metropolitan Police who, since 1925, have killed 50 persons, 10 of them white. Charles E Russell led the delegation. Superintendent of police Ernest Brown was present, but took no part and declined to make a statement to reporters. “The standard police defense in a killing,” said [Harlan] Glazier, “is that the officer saw the victim reaching for his hip pocket.” … [Russell added] “we feel that the general attitude of the Police Department is not as civilized as it might be. We have laid before you the evidence, and we demand in justice that you do something to put a stop to this killing and beating of colored people.” A.S. Pinkett, secretary of the local NAACP branch told the

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commissioners that he was “satisfied that 50% of the police killings, were victims shot in the back.” The Reverend Robert W. Brooks, pastor of Lincoln Congregational Church, warned the commissioners that “unless you use your influence to see that something is done, you are going to have open violence here. Colored people are beginning to feel that they have no protection under the law here.” H.D. Woodson, of the N.E. Boundary Citizens Association, condemned the selection of “country boys from the South” for the local police force, and asked for the appointment of more colored police officers, “who really try to preserve order, whereas white officers seek to jail us on the slightest case.” 12d “Making the new deal effective,” The Chicago Defender (June 23, 1934), 14 The government at Washington will be unable to make the New Deal effective as an instrument of justice in fair play unless, in the new social structure, it will extend the right of suffrage to every city in every section of our country. A voteless citizen in Alabama, Georgia or any other state is a provocation, in fact an invitation for the oppressor to impose his whims on the voiceless victims of the ever ready mob. There can be no New Deal in America so long as there are countless thousands of American citizens denied the right to determine who shall speak for them in the application of the New Deal … No American who believes in America, regardless of his racial identity, can conscientiously refuse to challenge the situation of prescriptive and degrading measures the continuance of which threatens the complete destruction of the orderly progress of our country. The New Deal will become but a symbol of the old deal if this new order of things is to be dressed in the same habitations of arrogance and brutality so characteristic of the old school of social and political oppressors … … No nation can claim to be a free country that allows its national law to become a social and political miscarriage—an abortive, fruitless instrument. A citizenship which does not carry with it a guarantee of free and untrammeled use of those prerogatives which it creates is but a bare inspector. Such a citizenship wields no power, nor does it give to one who possesses it any assurance of security in the operation of those rights with which he is presumed to be invested. A voteless citizen lives under the influence of dread, hampered in the operation of his civil rights by fear and is disgraced by lack of the proper protection of his government. 12e “Now go ahead, Mr. President: an editorial,” Afro-American (November 14, 1936), 17 There could be but one honest interpretation of the unprecedented sweep of the New Deal victory at the polls Tuesday, and that is that the people have spoken and said, “Go ahead, Mr. President.” …

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The election, perhaps to Mr. Roosevelt himself, no less than to the country at large, was a shocking revelation of the thundering surge of the masses. No New Deal partisan would have thoughtfully prophesized such an avalanche of sediment on the clear-cut issues involved … FIRST OF ALL, COLORED VOTERS in this election, despite reactionary old timers, emphasized their absolute divorce from the one-party idea. If this election did not wipe out the Republican Party, its leaders will never forget the vengeance lashed out against it for its negligence of racial interests in its heydays … But if the Democratic Party now thrust into power by the greatest avalanche of votes ever cast in this country, fails as did the Republicans, to meet with courage in action the demands of the colored voters, these colored voters will have up their sleeves the same weapon they used Tuesday. SECOND, COLORED VOTERS are now positive that what they want is unabridged, undiluted and complete American citizenship. The core of the leadership which pulled the colored masses from Republican moorings was the militant type which fits into the leftward trend of new deal principles. The old leaders were willing to accept a few political crumbs flung as two dogs from the bounteous spread tables of America. But the new idea behind the political upsurge of the colored voters is unmistakably to brush aside any leaders who will compromise, by one iota, their fundamental American rights. This, Mr. Roosevelt, we hope will keep fully in mind. The colored voters who joined this New Deal procession now understand that the President has a clear mandate, with power to act, and if his promises that there shall be “no forgotten races” was the word of an honest man, he now has full opportunity to make good.

Document 13 The Negro woman worker Women workers in general have been restricted by lack of opportunities for employment, by long hours, low wages, and harmful working conditions, but among them are groups upon whom these hardships have fallen with double severity. These women are the latest comers into industry to whom are opened only the lowest paid jobs that more experienced workers had vacated in favor of something better. Negro women came late into the job market, and in addition, they bore the handicap of race discrimination. their origin placed a stigma on their capabilities and they were considered unfit for factory or skilled work. White men and women, partly because of this and partly because they resented the competition of cheap Negro labor, or unwilling to be engaged on the same work processes with them. To the Negro woman, therefore, have fallen the more menial, lower paid, heavier, and more hazardous jobs.

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Their story has been one of meeting, enduring, an impart overcoming these difficulties … In 1930, almost 2,000,000 Negro women were in gainful employment, making up about 1/6 of the entire woman labor force of the nation. Practically two in every five Negro women and girls 10 years older and over worked for a living, in contrast to only one out of five white women and girls. one reason for this higher proportion of workers among Negro women lies of course in the lower wages paid to Negro labor comma whether men or women comma and the need for more persons in a family to bolster the inadequate income. Occupations open to Negro women The vast majority of Negro women still work in agriculture or in domestic and personal service; In fact, nine of every 10 Negro women workers in 1930 had occupation in these two fields of employment. Most of the half million Negro women in agriculture were unpaid family laborers, but there were many wager workers too, and a few independent farmers among them. Of the Negro women in domestic and personal service half were workers in private homes and the others were home laundresses or laundry workers, waitresses, charr women, cleaners, untrained nurses, midwives, beauty operators, elevator tenders, and so on. Of the remaining one-tenth of the Negro women workers, about half were in the census group manufacturing and mechanical industries, employed chiefly in tobacco, clothing (including home dressmaking), food, and textile industries. The other half, only 5% of the total, were in white collar occupations, that is in trade, clerical work, transportation and communication, and the professions, especially school teaching, nursing, and acting. For Negro women the growing beauty culture industry offers occupational advancement, in spite of the long hours and low wages in Negro beauty shops. Even work in a power laundry is progress from working in a washwoman at home. Factory work is a step ahead of jobs in agriculture and domestic service. However, studies have shown that in factories Negro women usually are employed at such dirty hot or heavy jobs as cleaning and sweeping, sorting old rags or bags, or pressing finished garments. The opportunity to tend a machine usually is denied the Negro woman. Lower wages for Negroes Just as women in general are not permitted to do the more skilled jobs in factories and therefore are paid less than men, so Negro women are denied the higher-grade jobs open to women in factories and consequently are paid less than white women. An example of this is found in a study of the cigar and cigarette industry, which showed that Negro women averaged $10.10 in

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cigars and $8.00 in cigarettes while white women averaged $16.30 in cigars and $17.05 in cigarettes. Most Negro women had a disagreeable job of stripping the tobacco leaf while the white women were making or packing the product. No wage has been considered too low to pay Negro women. During the depression year there were reports of Negro women in the South doing a day’s washing in return for lunch and address, or doing the week’s wash of a family for 50 cents. Average wages of Negro women doing both maid and laundry work and private homes were reported at $3 a week. In 1934 at 26 communities in the South, average weekly wages of Negro household workers were $6.17 for an average workweek of 66 hours. Much lower wages, ranging down to nothing but clothing or house room, have been reported here in recent years period. Worst of all, probably, is a situation of the Negro farm worker, usually employed on the cotton lands of the South. At least half of all Negro women farmworkers in 1930 received no wage for their labor except as they had a share of the family wage. For when a man goes to work on a southern cotton plantation as a sharecropper or tenant, his whole family is expected to go to work too, and he contracts for the labor of his wife and children and all able-bodied members of his family as much for his own labor. Yet, with the whole family’s working in the fields, the average cash income of southern farmers white or Negro, in prosperous 1929 was only $186 a year. Negroes’ share in progress Education is one great need of Negro women of the South. Even where schools are available in the South their quality is poor, or the number of weeks that the schools are open is very limited. Not much education can be secured with teacher salaries at $388.00 a year, which was the average paid Negro school teachers in rural schools of 17 States and the District of Columbia in 1934. The unions to have passed the Negroes by to a large extent and especially the women. This is partly because Negro women even more than white, are concentrated in occupations that are most difficult to organize—agriculture and household service. But even in occupations that are fairly well organized among white women Negro women have shown a tendency to stay out of unions. Today, however, Negro women are awakening to the need for organization and white women are coming to realize that it is better to have Negroes as fellow union members than as competitors in time of strike. In recent years there have been the beginnings of organization among Negro tobacco workers, laundry workers, crab pickers, cotton pickers, and other agricultural workers. Many Negro garment workers, originally brought into Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia as strikebreakers, are now organized in the great garment workers unions. The problem of organizing household

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workers, at which some after is being made in various parts of the country, is to a large extent the problem of the Negro woman worker. The depression fell with particular severity on the Negro worker. For example, many Negroes in low paid jobs were discharged to make room for white workers who in times of prosperity would not have accepted such work. In 1935 one of every four Negro women workers was on relief period When various measures were set up by the government to correct the depression’s evils, these failed to reach the Negro women at to the same extent as the white. The Social Security and Federal Fair Labor Standards Acts for instance, exclude the two great occupational fields in which most Negro women are employed, agriculture and household service. Likewise, the state minimum wage laws help Negro women less than white women. Though 1/4 of all Negro women live in states with minimum wage laws, under the present limitations of the laws only one-tenth of the Negro workers are covered. However the application of these laws to the service industries, such as laundries, is reaching Negro women. It is reported that 10,000 Negro laundry workers in New York City alone have better conditions as a result of the New York laundry order issued in 1938, which provides an 8 hour day and a minimum wage of $14.00 a week. Formerly Negro laundry workers labored 10 to 14 hours a day for a wage of from $6 to $10 a week. Moreover, the Works Progress Administration has helped the Negro woman worker in certain ways not only by providing jobs but through workers’ education projects. Workers have been taught how to read and write, others have learned new skills to help them get jobs. The household training projects of the WPA for instance, have enabled hundreds of unskilled Negro women to qualify for jobs as trained domestic workers. Source: Women at Work: A Century of Industrial Change, US Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Bulletin no. 161 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1939), 58–64

Document 14 NYA and status of African Americans, 1939 This committee expresses appreciation to the National Youth administration and specifically to Mrs. Bethune for her foresight and statesmanship and calling the first national conference on the problem of the Negro and Negro youth. We acknowledge the work of the first conference whose findings established the standard for governmental activity in the protection of equal rights. We now seek to evaluate the extent to which the recommendations of the first conferences committee on civil liberties has been realized in the intervening two years. The basic principle in our evaluation is that the extent to which the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection of the law are

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actually accorded to Negroes, as the most oppressed minority in the population in the United States, is the fundamental test of American democracy and of the ability of the government to establish a regime of law and order, equal opportunity and civil liberties in this country. Lynching The Democratic process broke down in the 75th Congress so far as the … anti-lynching bill was concerned in the face of a southern filibuster in the Senate. The southern states have not demonstrated their ability or willingness to punish lynchers as not a single lyncher has been tried and convicted since the first conference adjourned, in spite of all the lynchings which have occurred. The character of lynching is such that a slight reduction in the number occurring in any calendar year is not significant and offers no excuse for not passing the federal anti-lynching law. Lynchings make this country’s protests against the oppression of other minorities in European countries a mockery. Insurance of civil rights and equal protection under the law We report no progress (a) in further incorporating and integrating knee grows in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Aviation; (b) toward enactment of a new Corrupt Practices Act which would make primary elections a part of the general election machinery and thereby remove some of the disabilities affecting suffrage; (c) in enactment of an amendment of the Interstate Commerce Act in regard to discrimination on public carriers. On the contrary, ground has been lost by the adverse decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the case of Mitchell vs The Rock Island Railroad. We note that Congressman Koppleman introduced a civil rights bill for the District of Columbia but no hearings were had nor other action taken on the same. Negroes still have their citizenship insulted by being excluded from Senate and house restaurants in the United States capitol. No legislative enactment has been made prohibiting discrimination on projects financed by the Federal Government. But some progress has been made administratively in developing a technique in procedure to serve this same purpose in the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, United States Housing Authority and the National Youth administration. We deplore the fact that the LaFollette Senate committee has failed to use Negro investigators. However, we do feel that under these investigations workers have gained by the disclosure and condemnation of the practice of certain corporations employing spies for the purpose of inciting strife between black and white wage earners. Source: “Report of the Evaluation Committee on the Recommendations on Security of Life and Equal Protection Under the Law,” submitted by

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Jesse O. Thomas, Charles Houston, A. Maceo Smith, James Nabrit, Jr., John P. Davis, Thyra Edwards, Walter White, Proceedings of the Second National Conference on the Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth (January 12, 13, 14, 1939), GPO

Document 15 Ellen Woodward to the First Lady, regarding the Women’s Work Program, 1935 TO: Mrs. Roosevelt FROM: Ellen S. Woodward SUBJECT: Report of the Women’s Division, October 31 You will be pleased to know that the number of women actually at work on projects is increasing daily. Since my letter to you of October 26, the total has jumped to 61,608. This figure is as of October 30th, and for 33 States and New York City. One of the most encouraging notes in the work release situation is the increasing number of women who are enabled to secure positions in private industry as a result of the training and experience received on work relief projects. Since our eventual goal is to return the unemployed as rapidly as possible to normal industrial channels, I feel that this trend—out of work relief projects into regular jobs—is perhaps even more significant than the figures on employment on work relief projects themselves. While the reports of our State Directors indicate that a few women on almost all types of projects have been able to secure private employment, it is notable that the largest number of cases of reemployment are from those projects where the emphasis was definitely on training for future industrial employment, rather than merely furnishing work and a security wage. In New York City some 300 manual bookkeepers who were taught to keep books by machine succeeded in getting jobs. In Mississippi 40 women who were given employment on the public health nursing project, and while there received training in public health nursing methods, are now engaged regularly in public health and allied work. The largest majority of young women who entered the “practice houses” conducted by the Women’s Division last year, and who received training in household service, have been able to secure such employment directly as a result of their training. In Missouri it was found possible to discontinue entirely an overallmaking project which had been operated according to factory methods. The women in the community who had been employed on his project had developed their skill and efficiency to the point where they were practically all hired by a nearby factory. Similarly, many women employed on book repair and library projects, have acquired sufficient skills to secure regular jobs. These are but a few of

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the instances of this kind reported to us by our State Directors of Women’s Work, and I know you will be interested in examining the attached excerpts from our records in our files of women leaving projects for private employment. Our experience of a year and a half with a woman’s work program has taught us that women because of their previous training and qualifications for work and because of the special services they can render to their communities must be employed on small and varied projects. They cannot be successfully employed on large mass production projects such as those suitable for men. The women in our program because of their dual function of mother and homemaker as well as breadwinner, and because of the fact that many of them lack industrial training and experience, must be given training on projects. They must be trained not only for efficiency on the projects themselves but more important still, toward the end that those who must continue to be the breadwinners for their families may be enabled to win places in private industry and so that they and others may return to their homes better equipped as mothers and homemakers. This can only be accomplished with small scale work rooms and with a very varied program which emphasizes training. I should like to discuss with you at some other time convenient to you this very important problem of training involved in the Women’s Program. If it is agreeable to you, I should like to bring with me to our discussion Miss Agnes Cronin, a member of my staff who has special experience in training persons for employment. Miss Cronin, a graduate of Radcliffe college, and Ed.M of Harvard University and Simmons College, joined my staff last July. For some years previous to that she was a director of training for Gimbels Department store in New York. Her experience in fitting persons for employment there and elsewhere I know will prove helpful to us in our consideration of this problem, and of the plans for training women on projects with I which I should like to discuss with you. Signed Ellen S Woodward Source: WPA, 444c, FDR library

Document 16 Selections from women’s magazines 16a Dorothy Thompson, “The World—and Women,” Ladies Home Journal, 55 (March 1936), 4 Many, many times I have thought that if there is to be a revival in the world, or in this country, of the truly liberal spirit, it will come through the influence of women. What is wrecking the world today is hatred and intolerance; simply that and nothing else. The problems of economic and

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political reorganization posed by man’s own genius are, probably, insoluble, in any definite and final sense, since life is dynamic and eternally changing, and only a world of robots could be perfectly organized to function like a machine. But the object of mankind is not to live in a perfectly functioning universe, but to live in a tolerable universe, which means one suited to the nature and aspirations of human beings. We may eventually organize a world in which nobody is hungry, cold and unsheltered, and certainly as possible to organize one in which nobody is ever unemployed. The dictatorships have demonstrated that. But the object of being alive is not encompassed by these definitions. We want to live in a world in which we have such things as contentment, freedom, personal pride, opportunity for self-development, love, affection and spiritual purpose. We want to live in a warm world, a kind world, a human world. We want to be on good terms with ourselves, and with one another. And whatever new program or governmental system fails to assist these very simple human desires is a ghastly failure, even if it produces more goods, greater wealth, more economic stability and more national power that have ever been produced or concentrated before, and distributes them more equitably … What every woman who is sensitive and conscious knows—and she may know it even if she isn’t conscious, feeling it in her bones dash is that the America of today, as elsewhere in the world, there is a sterility in human relations, in the family, in the state, an atomization, loneliness, frustration, lack of warmth and juice, hatred, cleavage, shrillness, mechanicalness, heading toward new disciplines which will not be self-imposed but coerced … Someday, when women realize that the object of their emancipation is not to make them more like men, but more powerfully womanly, and therefore greater use to men and themselves in society, this implicit demand in need of women for a world based, not on mechanical but on human principles, may break through as the most important influence upon history, and bring with it a renascence of liberalism and humanism. 16b Katherine F. Lenroot, “Security for Mothers and Children,” Parent’s Magazine 10 (October 1935), 15, 70 When President Roosevelt on August 14th signed the Social Security bill he described the occasion as “historic for all time.” Not only does this act affords some measure of protection to the average citizen against the hazards of unemployment and dependency in old age, but it constitutes the most important permanent federal child welfare legislation and acted up to this time in the United States. The significance of this act to children is fourfold: it makes possible a beginning, on a permanent and not on an emergency basis, in collective provision against that major threat to family life represented by unemployment; It incorporates special measures for the health and welfare of children

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as an integral part of a broad economic and social program; the grants in aid features of the Act, including all the specific provisions relating to child health and child welfare, afford a method of Federal cooperation with the States which will preserve a very large measure of State and local initiative and responsibility, and at the same time provide a wide tax base together with the Federal stimulation and participation with the states in the development of standards and methods; and, finally, the act provides a unique opportunity for coordinated and harmonious action in the fields of public health, child health, and social service for children … The United States Children’s Bureau was founded in the belief that the problems of childhood are best dealt with through a unified approach to the child as a whole, and that physical, mental, and social needs are interrelated. The Social Security Act provides further opportunity for this correlated treatment of children’s problems. Its various measures constitute a broad, practical plan which will make a beginning in safeguarding the security of the American family. It will doubtless stand as one of the principal contributions of our generation to the progress of human welfare and as evidence of the vision and courage of the statesman of our time. 16c Frances Perkins, “Our Crimes Against Children,” Parents’ Magazine 8 (June 1933), 13 Of the many measures proposed for relieving unemployment, there is one which should be of special interest to parents, that of excluding children from the labor market. In New York State alone, over 20,000 boys and girls under 16 were gainfully employed in 1930; in the entire country more than a half a million. It is an ironical fact that these children left school to become wage earners while millions of adults were looking for work … One familiar with working conditions for young people today finds the answers not reassuring. Though we may look for boys and girls in positions with training value and opportunities for advancement, we are most apt to find them running errands for fly-by-night shops, doing housework, folding circulars, or canvassing from door to door with stocks of hard luck stories of their employers’ fabrication. There have been marked decreases in the numbers of children employed in factories and offices during the past 10 years, particularly the past three, but an actual increase in their employment as canvassers, delivery boys, and in similar blind alley jobs. Of a group of children found illegally employed in Brooklyn, New York, half earned less than $4.50 a week. Girls are earning $0.35 for a full day’s work in a factory; others “clean” men’s pants in establishments for six cents an hour; while others do housework and laundry for a family of five for $2.00 a week. While the depression has provided less incentive for the better-type employer to hire children, it has greatly increased opportunities for the unscrupulous to exploit them. There is a marked increase in the proportion of children found working in violation of child labor laws. Yet,

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with small prospect of finding desirable jobs, children continued to leave school in the hope of augmenting lowered family incomes. It would be far better when necessary to provide relief to their families equivalent to their almost negligible earnings. In spite of the need in every state for laws raising the standards protecting working children, little progress in that direction was made last year and there were many attempts to breakdown existing standards. During the coming year we must give support to the constructive child labor program if we desire that our children, as well as those who suffer more directly from the shortcomings of the president industrial situation, shall live their lives under more tolerable conditions. 16d Nels Anderson and James Rorty, “Women Adrift,” Red Book Magazine 61 (July 1933), 34–35, 121 About four years ago the proud economic ship upon which we were all sailing to a land flowing with milk, honey, investment trust shares, and stocks, that were bound to go to 500, ran into a hurricane, struck something partly submerged, and went down by the head. But when this disaster overtook us, the tradition of the sea was violated in one important particular: not one voice was ever heard to say, “Women and children first!” So it is that today, among all the tremendous emergency problems that we face, none is more disturbing or more pressing than the plight of the unemployed woman. There are, at the present time, according to the best available estimates 150,000 American woman not only unemployed but homeless—either miserably accepting the handouts of organized charity, or with equal misery beginning now to turn, like their unemployed brothers, to a migratory existence of hitchhiking from one town to another, hunting always for some mythical place where things won’t be quite so bad … Who are these women? They are young women, mostly—the average age would appear to be about 35. They are American women—ninety percent are native born. And what is most surprising and most significant, a good proportion of them are “white collar” workers, educated women. From 17 to 35% of them, varying from city to city, have had one year or more of college, and most of them have been through high school … Yet great as are the losses that women in industry have suffered today, the chart of their achievement is not altogether negative. The impact of the depression is of course leaving its mark on the morale of unemployed women. But women have a great abundance of nervous energy, and a great capacity to revive in the face of adversity. For one thing, the psychological effect upon women of being left jobless without funds is different from the effect of the same situation upon men. In general, it may be said that they are facing their ordeal with a gallantry and fortitude superior on the whole to that of men. One relief worker described it thus: “When a man loses everything, he may jump out of the window; a woman merely moves to a cheaper room.”

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16e Margaret Collins, “Careers, Limited,” Scribner’s Magazine 102 (October 1937), 45, 48, 69 [Subtitled, “When the modern young woman tries to combine motherhood and a full-time business career her own children suffer and society as a whole is harmed”] We 20th century realists have convinced ourselves that if a woman is sufficiently clever, she can simultaneously bring up a family and have a fulltime career outside the home … this current piece of romanticism is doing twofold damage. Its challenge is ruining the children of those women who are demonstrating their versatility. Its implications of inferior ability are poisoning the satisfaction of those who stay at home … Since the turn of the century, higher education for women has increased tremendously, and with it have come new vistas of opportunity. Society might legitimately have expected superior children to come from the homes of the new woman. Unfortunately, that expectation has not been realized. The more educated a young woman is, the more she looked down on motherhood as a job … since the depression, the college graduate is often ambitious to work toward an improved social order. Talking enthusiastically of her “responsibility to society,” she ignores her primary obligation to care for her children, and enter some political or sociological field … Persuading the modern woman to a wholehearted acceptance of the responsibilities of motherhood will not be easy … for while the care of her children necessitates return to her home, it need not entail the suppression of any special ability she may possess … An ideology which insists on a career for a woman at the expense of her children is as foolish as one which insists that she be a complete homemaker at the expense of other interests. Must we always be torn between adolescent extremes? Can we not be sufficiently realistic and imaginative to reach a solution which satisfies both the legitimate demands of society and the desires of our own hearts? 16f Mary Cookman, “Is Yours a Model Wife?” Ladies Home Journal 55 (March 1938), 21 (To take the test, each question answered yes counts five. 70 is passing, 80 good, 90 and 100 impossible.) 1 Is she good fun at a party, and does she let you make a little hoopla too? 2 Can she keep her account straight and her checkbook balanced without going limp and running to you for assistance? 3 Can she listen to you praising another woman (that is anyone under 65) without a meow? 4 Does she leave you free to ride your hobby without shrieking that after all she’s more important than a horse?

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5 Does she refrain from public criticism of your smoking, eating or other convivial habits? 6 Does she put herself out to be as nice to your family as she is to her own, without indicating that your family is made up of pretty weird people? 7 Does she let you tell a story all by yourself without “helping you along?” 8 Can she take personal criticism and not assume a “you don’t love me any more” expression? 9 Can she accompany you on a motor trip without driving from the back seat? 10 Does she refrain from telling you about the marvelous men she might have married? 11 Does she make you believe she enjoys your company more than that of anyone else? 12 Does she refrain at breakfast from asking you what you want for dinner? 13 Does he permit you, without subsequent criticism, to choose your own clothes? 14 Can she see you settled comfortably with the evening paper without automatically finding chores for you to do? 15 Is she careful about her appearance at home as when she is going someplace where she might see an old beau? 16 Does she make you feel that she is happy and satisfied with what you provide? 17 Does she welcome the unexpected guest you bring home for dinner without making him feel that there probably is arsenic in the chocolate pudding? 18 When you come home tired, does she forgo the movies or bridge administer to your wishes without telling you how bored she is with life? 19 Does she refrain from using you as a threat when correcting the children? 20 Is she a good sport about occasional evening “out with the boys?”

Document 17 Packinghouse worker Jesse Perez, Chicago The bosses in the yards never treat Mexican worker same as rest. For ’sample, they been treatin’ me, well, ever since I start wearin’ the button they start to pick an’ ’scriminates. I was first to wear CIO button. I start in as laborer. Get 62 1/2 cents hour. I get laid-off slip from fellow who has to leave town, that’s how I get in employment office. Now I work as beef lugger, carryin’t the beef on cuttin’ floor. Work is heavier than laborer, make 72¢ hour.

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I can butcher, but they won’t give me job. They fired me on account of CIO union one time. I started organize the boys on the gang. I was acting as steward for CIO union. We had so much speed up and I was advisin’ the boys to cut the speed and so when I start tellin’ the boys we have a union for them they all join up. Almos’ all join right away. So we talk all the time what the union goin’ to do for us, goin’ raise wages, stop speed-up, an’ the bosses watch an’ they know it’s a union [comin’?]. So every day they start sayin’ we behin’ in the work. They start speedin’ up the boys more an’ more every day. The boys ask me, what you gonna do? Can’t keep on speed-up like this. We made stoppage. Tol’ bosses we workin’ too fast, can’t keep up. The whole gang, thirteen men, they all stop. Bosses come an’ say, we ain’t standin’ for nothin’ like this. So 4 days later they fire the whole gang, except 2. So we took the case in the labor board and they call the boys for witness. Labor board say we got to get jobs back. Boss got to promise to put us back as soon as they can. That time was slack, but now all work who was fired. All got work. Now the bosses try to provoke strike before CIO get ready, before the men know what to do. Foremen always try to get in argument about work, to make the boys mad so they quit work. We know what they do, we don’t talk back, got to watch out they don’t play trick like that. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, Jesse Perez and Betty Burke, Illinois, Manuscript/Mixed Material, www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001076

Document 18 Frederick Savage, Massachusetts farmer, interviewed 1938 … Course I’m sorry for the poor fools. I don’t mean it’s their fault—that is not entirely. They just didn’t use their heads getting tide up with unions and crying for government aid. I don’t believe in unions—never saw any good in him and never belonged to one in my life. In hell, I don’t believe in the government feeding the men and their families when they are out of work by their own will. It’s got so no man can sell his labor for what it’s worth without joining a union. You hear a lot of talk about things being UN American. By God, that’s an American if anything is. And it’s UN American for Washington to be telling the businessmen what to do and how to do it. America isn’t a free country anymore like it was when I was young and when people not only supported themselves but the government too. I’ll tell you if a man will work and not avoid it and will economize, he’ll get along. Source: Frederick Savage and Christabel Kidder, Massachusetts, 1938, Manuscript/Mixed Material, www.loc.gov/item/wpalh000642

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Document 19 Franklin Roosevelt’s statement on signing the GI Bill June 22, 1944 This bill, which I have signed today, substantially carries out most of the recommendations made by me in a speech on July 28, 1943, and more specifically in messages to the Congress dated October 27, 1943, and November 23, 1943: 1

2

3

4 5 6

It gives servicemen and women the opportunity of resuming their education or technical training after discharge, or of taking a refresher or retrainer course, not only without tuition charge up to $500 per school year, but with the right to receive a monthly living allowance while pursuing their studies. It makes provision for the guarantee by the Federal Government of not to exceed 50 percent of certain loans made to veterans for the purchase or construction of homes, farms, and business properties. It provides for reasonable unemployment allowances payable each week up to a maximum period of one year, to those veterans who are unable to find a job. It establishes improved machinery for effective job counseling for veterans and for finding jobs for returning soldiers and sailors. It authorizes the construction of all necessary additional hospital facilities. It strengthens the authority of the Veterans Administration to enable it to discharge its existing and added responsibilities with promptness and efficiency.

With the signing of this bill a well-rounded program of special veterans’ benefits is nearly completed. It gives emphatic notice to the men and women in our armed forces that the American people do not intend to let them down. By prior legislation, the Federal Government has already provided for the armed forces of this war: adequate dependency allowances; mustering-out pay; generous hospitalization, medical care, and vocational rehabilitation and training; liberal pensions in case of death or disability in military service; substantial war risk life insurance, and guaranty of premiums on commercial policies during service; protection of civil rights and suspension of enforcement of certain civil liabilities during service; emergency maternal care for wives of enlisted men; and reemployment rights for returning veterans. This bill therefore and the former legislation provide the special benefits which are due to the members of our armed forces—for they “have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of

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sacrifice than the rest of us, and are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems.” While further study and experience may suggest some changes and improvements, the Congress is to be congratulated on the prompt action it has taken. There still remains one recommendation which I made on November 23, 1943, which I trust that the Congress will soon adopt—the extension of social security credits under the Federal Old-Age and Survivors’ Insurance Law to all servicemen and women for the period of their service. I trust that the Congress will also soon provide similar opportunities for postwar education and unemployment insurance to the members of the merchant marine, who have risked their lives time and again during this war for the welfare of their country. But apart from these special benefits which fulfill the special needs of veterans, there is still much to be done. As I stated in my message to the Congress of November 23, 1943, “What our servicemen and women want, more than anything else, is the assurance of satisfactory employment upon their return to civil life. The first task after the war is to provide employment for them and for our demobilized workers … The goal after the war should be the maximum utilization of our human and material resources.” As a related problem the Congress has had under consideration the serious problem of economic reconversion and readjustment after the war, so that private industry will be able to provide jobs for the largest possible number. This time we have wisely begun to make plans in advance of the day of peace, in full confidence that our war workers will remain at their essential war jobs as long as necessary until the fighting is over. The executive branch of the Government has taken, and is taking, whatever steps it can, until legislation is enacted. I am glad to learn that the Congress has agreed on a bill to facilitate the prompt settlement of terminated contracts. I hope that the Congress will also take prompt action, when it reconvenes, on necessary legislation which is now pending to facilitate the development of unified programs for the demobilization of civilian war workers, for their reemployment in peacetime pursuits, and for provision, in cooperation with the States, of appropriate unemployment benefits during the transition from war to peace. I hope also that the Congress, upon its return, will take prompt action on the pending legislation to facilitate the orderly disposition of surplus property. A sound postwar economy is a major present responsibility. Source: FDR Presidential Library Archives, http://docs.fdrlibrary. marist.edu/odnira.html

Glossary

100 Days allotment plan

America First Committee American Liberty League

Bank Holiday Battle of the Running Bulls Blue Eagle Dust Bowl Fireside Chats

Good Neighbor policy Hooverisms

Name given to President Roosevelt’s slew of legislation passed between March and June 1933. A voluntary program where farmers agreed to reduce their crop acreage by less than twenty percent in exchange for a subsidy from the federal government equal to the market value of the commodity. Ruled unconstitutional in 1936; revised in 1938. Led by R. Stuart Douglas and Robert Wood, and with advocate Charles Lindbergh, sought to keep America out of the war. Led by the DuPont brothers, General Motors’s Alfred Sloan, and former New York governor Al Smith, Jacob Raskob, they sought to restore the image and influence of business in the American consciousness and oppose FDR’s New Deal. Term FDR used to ease the country’s fears over his closing the banks in March 1933 to solidify the industry. Conflict that formed part of the 1936–17 Flint sit-down strike where twenty-eight workers were injured. Symbol for the NRA that shopkeepers and others displayed to show their support for the New Deal. Term used to describe a series of devastating dust storms that raged through the southern American plains states. Series of popular radio broadcasts by FDR designed to inform the American people of aspects of the New Deal, and later the World War. American policy toward Latin America that modified the relationship from intervention to economic influence. Term used to describe the sense of hopelessness many American felt during the Depression era.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-8

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House Un-American Activities Committee intelligent action

Created to investigate foreign influence within American society. The New Deal became a target beginning in 1938.

Philosopher John Dewey’s theory which called for the use of rational and reasonable solutions to the social and economic problems of the day. Little Steel Made up of Republic Steel, Bethlehem, Youngstown Sheet & Tube, and Inland Steel, they worked to prevent unionization. National Used a variety of tactics to attack the New Deal’s support Association of for unionization. Manufacturers National Created in 1933, its final report in 1943 concluded that the Resources federal government needed to continue to plan and orgaPlanning nize the economy to ensure the economic well-being of its Board citizenry. New Era A term used to describe policies enacted during the 1920s under Republication leadership that sought to amend existing Progressive era legislation to ease the regulations on business and industry. new liberalism An ideology that deviated from classic liberalism’s laissezfaire belief to advocate for stronger planning, organization, and control of the economy by the federal government. NRA’s 7(a) Provision within the Codes that for the first time gave guarprovision antees for worker’s right to collective bargaining. Roosevelt Label given to the recession that began in the summer of recession 1937 which revealed the inadequacies of New Deal policies. welfare state Policy introduced that announced the federal government’s commitment to the economic well-being of its citizenry. work relief Concept introduced as part of the WPA, whereby people’s skills were matched to the type of project they were assigned.

Guide to further reading

One of the best ways to understand the complexities of the New Deal era is to examine the writings and remembrances of many of the key figures from the time period. The speeches and many public papers of Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt can be found online on a variety of sites, starting with the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum (https:// hoover.archives.gov) and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (www.fdrlibrary.org) and the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov). These sites are also the entry point for investigating specific New Deal programs, as well as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (https://americanhistory.si.edu) and a variety of oral history sites many of which are listed on the Living New Deal (https://livingnewdeal.org/oral-his tories) or at The New Deal Network (http://newdeal.marist.edu). Of course, placing any of the programs or key administrators into your search engine will generate a wide variety of sites specific to your request, many of them excellent primary sources, including the Internet Archive (https://archive. org) and the Hathi Trust (www.hathitrust.org). For basic demographic and other statistics, visit the US Census Bureau (www.census.gov/en.html) or the Historical Statistics of the United States (2006). If you prefer more tactile primary sources, Samuel Rosenman edited thirteen volumes of The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1938–50. New Deal principals also published their remembrances: Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (1949), Raymond Moley, After Seven Years (1939), Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (1946), James A. Farley, Behind the Ballots (1938), Harold Ickes’s three volume The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes (1953–4), and Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948). The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (1951) present a slightly different view of the New Deal. Also see Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (1970), Robert S. McEvaine (editor), Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man (1983), and Robert Cohen (editor), Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression (2002), each of which offer an interesting look into the mindset of the people. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, 1929 (1954) outlines the causes and effects of the Crash, and other books that help contextualize the era DOI: 10.4324/9781003043430-9

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leading up to the New Deal include David J. Goldberg, Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s (1999), Joan Hoff Wilson, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (1975), Charles Rappleye, Herbert Hoover in the White House (2016), Phillip G. Payne, Crash: How the Economic Boom and Bust of the 1920s Worked (2015), Bill Bryson, One Summer: 1927 (2013), Lynn Dumenil, Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (1995), and the excellent contemporary examination of 1920s America, Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown: A Study in American Culture (1929). Historical examinations of the New Deal began appearing in the latter stages of FDR’s tenure as president, best exemplified by Basil Rauch’s The History of the New Deal, 1933–1938 (1944). The most comprehensive of the early examinations is the three volume Age of Roosevelt (1957–60) by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., while William E. Leuchtenberg’s highly readable Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (1963) opened up the scholarship to a new generation of scholars, including Paul Conkin’s revisionist examination The New Deal (1967). There are numerous excellent works published in the last twenty-five years assessing the New Deal from a variety of perspectives, including Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (1995), David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War (1999), Eric Rauchway, The Great Depression and the New Deal (2008), Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013), Adam Cohen, Nothing To Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America (2009), Eric Rauchway, Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash over the New Deal (2018), Alonzo Hamby, Man of Destiny: FDR and the Making of the American Century (2015), and as reprise of their 1920s study, Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (1937). There has also been a number of works that examine the New Deal in an international context, including Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933–1939 (2007), Diane Ghirardo, Building New Communities: New Deal America and Fascist Italy (1989), Klaus Kiran Patel, Soldiers of Labor: Labor Service in Germany and New Deal America, 1933–1945 (2005), and his The New Deal: A Global History (2016). While most surveys of the New Deal and Roosevelt, including the ones listed above, provide excellent detail concerning all the programs, there are numerous studies that focus on specific programs. Some of the more recent include Neil M. Maher, Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement (2008), a recent examination of the NRA by Jason E. Taylor entitled Deconstructing the Monolith: The Microeconomics of the National Industrial Recovery Act (2019) goes well beyond Bernard Bellush’s 1975 study The Failure of the NRA. For FERA and the ideas behind its policies and its long-term effect,

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see William R. Brock, Welfare Democracy, and the New Deal (2002). Alexander J. Field provides an excellent discussion of the overall impact of New Deal programs in A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and US Economic Growth (2011), while Edwin Amenta’s When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security (2006) provides excellent context to understand the Social Security Act. Nick Taylor does magisterial work in American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work (2008), while numerous studies of various projects within the WPA include Ennis Carter, Posters for the People: The Art of the WPA (2008), Jerrold Hirsch, Portrait America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project (2003), Victoria Grieve, The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture (2009), and Kenneth J. Bindas, All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935–1939 (1995). The New Deal’s focus on youth can be explored in Richard A. Reiman, The New Deal and American Youth (1992) and Britt Haas, Fighting Authoritarianism: American Youth Activism in the 1930s (2018), while the story of the RA and the Supreme Court battle can be found in Brian Cannon, Remaking the Agrarian Dream: New Deal Resettlement in the Mountain West (1996) and Jeff Shesol, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court (2010). Examining specific populations and the effect of New Deal policies is a very broad field, but some of the best works include Susan Ware, Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal (1981) and Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Feminism, and New Deal Politics (1989), Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (1982), Nancy J. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of FDR (1983), Lawrence C. Kelly, The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform (1983), Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks (50th anniversary edition, 2009), Irving Bernstein, Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933–1941 (1970), Douglas R. Hurt, Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History (1981), and Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodriquez, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (revised edition, 2006). Biographies of significant women include Martha H. Swain, Ellen S. Woodward: New Deal Advocate for Women (2005), Linda Gordon, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits (2010), and Kirstin Downey, The Women Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and his Moral Conscience (2009). To understand how specific New Deal programs affected African Americans, workers, and rural Americans, see Karen Ferguson, Black Politics in New Deal Atlanta (2002), Nancy L. Grant, TVA and Black Americans: Planning for the Status Quo (1990), Mary Poole, Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State (2006), Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era (2009), Patricia Sullivan, Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era (1996), Olen Cole, The African

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American Experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps (1999), Janet Irons, Testing the New Deal: The General Textile Strike of 1934 in the American South (2000), Robert Zeiger, The CIO: 1935–1955 (1995), Lizabeth Cohen, Making A New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (2008), Irving Bernstein, A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression (1985), Laura Hapke, Labor’s Canvas: American Working-Class History and the WPA Art of the 1930s (2008), and Rhonda Levine, Class Struggle in the New Deal: Industrial Labor, Industrial Capital, and the State (1988), James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (1991), and Kenneth J. Bindas, Remembering the Great Depression in the Rural South (2007). The New Deal had a tremendous effect on American society as a whole. For a more detailed look at the myriad aspects in which Roosevelt’s programs operated within the American consciousness, see Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (2009), Richard H. Pells, Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years (1973), Warren Susman, Culture as History (1984), Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture (1998), Kenneth J. Bindas, Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society, 1930–1941 (2017), Christina Cogdell, Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s (2004), Susan Currell, The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression (2005), Phoebe Cutler, The Public Landscape of the New Deal (1985), Kathleen G. Donohue, Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Idea of the Consumer (2004), Charles McGovern, Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship, 1880– 1945 (2006), Sharon Ann Musher, Democratic Art: The New Deal’s Influence on American Culture (2015), and Alan Ryan, John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (1995). The New Deal era was rich with popular culture. Some of the better examinations of the many different forms available are Craig B. Douglas, Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920–1940 (2000), Kenneth J. Bindas, Swing, That Modern Sound (2001), Andrew Bergman, We’re In the Money: Depression America and its Films (1971), Sarah Berry, Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood (2000), Peter Stanfield, Horse Opera: The Strange History of the 1930s Singing Cowboy (2002), Michael Duchemin, New Deal Cowboy: Gene Autry and Public Diplomacy (2016), Bruce Lenthall, Radio’s America: The Great Depression and the Rose of Modern Mass Culture (2007), Beth E. Levy, Frontier Figures: American Music and the Mythology of the West (2012), Colleen McDannell, Picturing Faith: Photography and the Great Depression (2004), Robert W. Rydell and Laura Burd Schiavo (editors), Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s (2010), Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942 (revised ed. 1993), Cynthia B. Meyers, A Word From Our Sponsors: Admen,

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Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (2014), Lewis A. Erenberg, Swingin’ The Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture (1998), Sherrie Tucker, Swing Shift: “All Girl” Bands of the 1940s (2000), Joel Dinerstein, Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the Wars (2003), Ronald D. Cohen, Woody Guthrie: Writing America’s Songs (2012), Richard M. Sudhalter, Stardust Melody: The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael (2002), and Tino Balio, Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939 (1993). For the continuation of the New Deal within the struggle of World War II, see James T. Sparrow, Warfare State: World War II Americans in the Age of Big Government (2010), Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (2009), Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (1979), as well as Alan M. Winkler’s 1974 standard Homefront USA: America During World War II (1974).

Index

100 Days legislation 22–24, 27–39, 40–41 20th Century Fox 89 42nd Street (film) 90 AAA see Agricultural Adjustment Act Abbott and Costello 87 advertising 3–4, 91; radio 86–87 African Americans 35, 39, 40, 81; in agricultural sector 57, 119; and Black cabinet 50; civil rights 37, 50, 77, 94, 122; and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 27, 37–38; and Democratic party 37, 118; education and training 77, 120; equal protection under the law 122; and FERA relief 30; and Hollywood 88, 92–93; lynchings 115, 122; musicians 84; and National Youth Administration (NYA) 49, 50, 121–122; police brutality against 115–117; radio portrayals of 87; and social security 51; unemployment 9, 24, 37, 49; veterans 77; wages 5, 34, 37, 118, 119–120; war–related jobs 75; women workers 118–121; WPA enrollees 45, 47, 121; see also racial discrimination; racial equality/ inequality; racism; segregation African immigration 4 Afro-American (newspaper) 116–117, 117–118 The Age of Roosevelt (Schlesinger) 93 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) (1933) 27, 28–29, 37, 40, 45, 68, 94 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929) 5 agricultural sector 24, 28–29, 40, 56–58; African Americans in 57, 119; allotment plan policy 28–29, 36; contraction of 5; cooperatives 5, 42, 56–57; electrification 57–58; farm debt 28;

farm foreclosures 28; farm income 5; farm prices 5, 9, 11, 28, 29; farm tenancy stability 68; sharecroppers 29, 37; surplus 29 Agriculture Department 23, 26 airline industry 68 Alabama 27 alcohol 36 Alibi Ike (film) 91 Allen, Fred 87 Allen, Gracie 87 allotment plan policy 28–29, 36 Alsberg, Henry 67 Amalgamated Clothing Workers 53 America First Committee 71 American culture 81–82; see also popular culture American Dream 82 American exceptionalism 79 American Federation of Labor (AFL) 53–54 American Federation of Musicians 83, 84 American Guide Series 80 American individualism 9, 101 American landmarks project 80 American Liberty League 61 American Plan 5 American Way concept 33 Amos 'n' Andy (radio program) 87 Anderson, Nels 127 Andy Hardy (film series) 91 Angels with Dirty Faces (film) 92 anti-Semitism 41 anti-trust legislation 31, 103–104 Arkansas 27 Arlen, Harold 86 arms embargoes 71 army 122; expansion of 72

Index art projects see Federal Art Project Asian immigration 4 assembly line production 4 assimilationist policy 36 Astaire, Fred 90 Atlanta Daily World (newspaper) 115–116 Atlantic Charter (1942) 72–73 atomic bomb development 74 Austrian Jews 41 authoritarianism, Japan 21 Auto-Lite 52 automobile workers 54 automobiles: ownership 3; production 7 Autry, Gene 85, 92 Axis powers 72 baby-boomers 94 Banking Act (1935) 59 bankruptcies 6; city 11 banks/banking 6–7, 24, 39; Bank Holiday 22–23, 68; closures 6, 8, 14; credit payment plans 7; FDR reforms 22–23; Glass—Steagall Act (1932) 12, 23; margin calls 6, 8; runs on 16 Barker, Ma 92 Basie, Count 84 Battle of the Running Bulls 54 Baylor University 95 Beavers, Louise 92 Belle of the Nineties (film) 91 Benny, Jack 87 Berle, Adolph 20 Berlin, Irving 86 Berstein, Barton 94 BF Goodrich 3 bill of rights 76; see also GI Bill Billy the Kid ballet (Copland) 86 Black Americans see African Americans Black Brains Trust 37 Black cabinet 50 Black Monday 8 Black Tuesday 8 Blitzstein, Marc 85 Blonde Venus (film) 90 Blue Eagle campaign 33 blues music 94 Bonnie and Clyde 92 Bonnie and Clyde (film) 94 bonus, veteran's 12–14, 25, 64, 79 Bonus Act (1924) 12 Bonus Bill (1932) 12, 25 Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF) 12–13 Bonus March (1932) 12–14, 79

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boom years of 1920s 3–5, 9, 16 Boston 9 Boys Town (film) 92 Breen, Joseph 89 Bricker, John 45 Brico, Antonio 46 Brill Building, Manhattan 86 Bringing Up Baby (film) 91 Brinkley, Alan 94 Britain: and gold standard 8, 11; and Lend-Lease Act (1941) 72, 73; naval destroyer deal with 72 broadcasting 4; see also radio; television Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 75 Brown, Edgar 37 Brown, Joe E. 91 Brownsville, Texas 34 budget balancing: FDR and 64, 65; Hoover and 10, 12–13 building 6, 24 Bullets of Ballots (film) 92 Burns, George 87 Burns, James MacGregor 93 business 24, 39, 41; closures 8–9; see also National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) (1933) business leaders 61–62 Cadman, Charles Wakeman 85 Cagney, James 92 California 42; wartime migrants 75 California Pacific International Exposition (1935) 63 Campbell, LeRoy 83 canning projects, WPA 45, 46, 81 capital 6, 7, 17; equality of opportunity of 21; and labor relationship 17 capitalism 20, 21, 57, 94; free enterprise 62; welfare 3 Cardenas, Lazaro 70 Carmichael, Hoagy 86 cartels 31–32, 34 Cash and Carry Act (1939) 71 Catholic League of Decency 89 Catholics 41 Cavalcade (film) 89 CBS 86 CCC see Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) centralized planning 20, 21 Century of Progress (COP) World's Fair, Chicago (1933) 62 Chamber of Commerce 10 Chamberlain, John 21

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Chaplin, Charlie 91 Charlie Chan (film series) 92 Chase, Stuart 20 Chicago 15; bankruptcy 11; Century of Progress (COP) World's Fair (1933) 62; National Barn Dance 85; unemployment 9, 37 The Chicago Defender (newspaper) 116 child labor 32, 34, 56, 126–127 children 125–127 China, Japanese invasion of (1937) 73 Chrysler 54 Churchill, Winston 72 CIO see Committee for Industrial Organization city bankruptcies 11 Civil Aeronautics Authority 68 civil rights 37, 50, 77, 94, 122 Civil Service Commission 69 Civil War 95 Civil Works Administration (CWA) 24, 31, 43, 45 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 24–27, 40, 43, 48, 80, 96, 106–107; African Americans and 27, 37–38, 107–108; document on need for permanent (1944) 114; racism in 27, 107–108; women and 27, 38 class 21, 95 classic liberalism 19–20, 21 Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) 31 Cleopatra (film) 90 Cleveland 15; Great Lakes Exposition (GLE) (1936) 63 coal industry 4, 68 Cohen, Lizabeth 94 Colbert, Claudette 91 collective bargaining 32–33, 52, 53 Collier, John 36 Collins, Margaret 128 Columbia Broadcast Company 4 Columbia film studios 89 Committee on Economic Security 51 Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) 53–54, 55, 56, 66, 68 Communist Party 21 communists/communism 21, 61, 66–67, 89 competition 31, 32, 103, 104 Congress of Industrial Organizations 53, 54 Conkin, Paul 94 consumer items 4, 7 consumer marketplace 3, 4, 6, 82

Consumers Advisory Board 104 consumption 64, 105; under- 38–39, 58, 82 Cookman, Mary 128–120 Coolidge, Calvin 3, 5, 12 Cooper, Ralph 92 cooperatives: agricultural 5, 42, 56–57; electricity 58; factory 42 Copland, Aaron 85, 86 corporate tax 12 Costa Rica 70 cotton 29 Coughlin, Father Charles 41, 51, 61 cowboy films 92 cowboy/country music 80, 84–85 Crosby, Bing 83 cultural nationalism 80, 81–82 culture: American 81–82; see also popular culture Cummings, Homer 23 CWA see Civil Works Administration dams 34, 35, 45 Dark Manhattan (film) 92 Davey, Martin 45 Davis, Bette 90 Davis, Elmer 74 Dawes Act (1887) 36 Dawes Plan (1924) 6 Dead End (film) 92 debt: farm 28; foreign 6 Delano, Jack 57 democracy 7, 10, 14, 25, 43, 79, 93, 96, 109, 122 Democratic party 24, 36, 37, 42–43, 55, 58, 66, 118; see also Southern Democrats Detroit: bankruptcy 11; riots (1943) 75; unemployment 9, 37; wartime migrants 75 The Devil is A Woman (film) 90 Dewey, John 20–21 Dies, Martin 66, 67 Dietrich, Marlene 90 Dillinger, John 92 DiMaggio, Joe 80 disaster aid 46 discrimination: racial 94, 107–108, 118, 122; sexual 94 dockworkers strike (1934) 52 documentaries 57, 80 documentation 80, 81 domestic service 38, 51, 119 Dominican Republic 70

Index Dorsey, Jimmy and Tommy 84 Douglas, R. Stuart 71 Dow Jones Industrial Average 8 draft, peacetime 72 Dubinsky, David 53 Duck Soup (film) 92 DuPont brothers 61 Dust Bowl 11, 15, 56, 57 Duvalier, François 70 70 Early, Stephen 26 26 eastern European immigration 4, 84 economic bill of rights 76 Economic Security Act see Social Security Act (1935) education and training 45; African Americans 77, 120; veterans 76, 77, 131–132; women 128; see also National Youth Administration El Salvador 70 elections: 1932 16–17; 1936 58, 61; 1940 71–72 electricity 4, 7, 24, 35, 57–58 Ellington, Duke 84 Emergency Banking Act (EBA) (1933) 22 Emergency Committee for Employment (ECE) 11 Emergency Conservation Work Act (1933) 25 Emergency Farm Loan 35 Emergency Price Control Act (1942) 74 Emergency Quota Act (1921) 4 Emergency Relief Appropriations Act (1935) 31, 44 Emergency Relief Construction Act (1932) 12 employment 4, 30; full 74, 76; insecurity 5; training see National Youth Administration; see also National Industrial Recovery Act; unemployment; work relief End Poverty in California (EPIC) program 42, 56 Enlightenment 20 entertainment industry 82; see also Hollywood; music industry; radio; television equality: racial 37, 50, 59, 96; sexual 59, 96 equality of opportunity of capital 21 Evans, Dale 85 Evans, Walker 57 Every Man a King (Long) 42 evolutionary socialism 42

143

executive reorganization 68–69 expositions, regional and international 62–64 factories: assembly line production 4; cooperatives 42; electrification 4 Fair Employment Practices Commission 75 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (1938) 56, 121 Fanfare for the Common Man (Copland) 86 Fansteel manufacturing plant strike (1937) 68 Farewell to Pioneers (Harris) 85 Farewell to Reform (Chamberlain) 21 Farley, James 23 Farm Credit Act (1933) 35 Farm Security Administration (FSA) 56, 57, 80, 81 Farm Tenant Act (1937) 68 Farmers' Holiday Association 28 farms/farming see agricultural sector Farwell, Arthur 85 fascism 21, 66 fast food restaurants 3 FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) 74 Fechner, Robert 25, 27, 107–108 Federal Art Project 46, 67, 80 Federal Communications Commission 68 Federal Council of Negro Affairs 37 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) 23 Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works see Public Works Administration (PWA) Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) (1933) 27, 30 Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) 23, 30–31, 34, 38, 45, 48, 67 Federal Farm Board 5 federal government control 58–59 Federal Home Loan Banks 12 Federal Music Project (FMP) 46, 80, 85 Federal Reserve 22, 35, 59 Federal Surplus Relief Corporation 29 Federal Theater Project (FTP) 67 Federal Writers' Project (FWP) 67, 80 feminism 94 Fibber McGee and Molly (radio program) 87 films see documentaries; Hollywood

144

Index

Fireside Chats, FDR 23, 36, 79, 80, 81 Firestone 3 Fish committee (1930) 66 Flanagan, Hallie 67 Flint sit-down strike (1936—37) 66, 68 flophouses 25 Florida 7, 27 Floyd, Pretty Boy 92 folk music revival 94 Footlight Parade (film) 90 Ford Motor company 3, 33, 54 Fordism 7 Fordney—McCumber Tariff (1922) 6 foreclosures 6, 7, 24, 36; farm 28 foreign debt 6 foreign policy 69–71; Good Neighbor policy 69–70 Forest Service 26 Forgotten Man speech 38–39 forty-hour workweek 32, 34 Foster, William Z. 21 Four American Indian Songs (Cadman) 85 Four Freedoms speech (1941) 72 France 6; collapse of (1940) 73 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (Leuchtenberg) 93–94 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum 93 Franklin Roosevelt (Friedel) 93 free market 21 Friedel, Frank 93 FTP see Federal Theater Project full employment 74, 76 FWP see Federal Writers' Project G-Men (film) 92 Gable, Clark 91 Garbo, Greta 90, 91 Gastonia Mill strike (1929) 52 The Gay Divorcee (film) 90 Gehrig, Lou 80 gender 21, 95 General Motors 3, 54, 61, 63 The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Keynes) 44, 64 Geneva Naval Conference (1927) 70 Georgia 27 Georgia State University 95 German Jews 41 Germany: blitzkrieg (1940) 73; harassment of US navy ships 73; invasion of Poland 71; invasion of Soviet Union

72, 73; offensive in Europe (1940) 71; war debt 6 Gershwin, George and Ira 86 GI Bill 74, 76–77, 131–132 Gibson, Hoot 85 Girdler, Thomas 54, 55 Glass—Steagall Act (1933) 12, 23 Gold Diggers of 1935 (film) 90 gold standard 6, 8, 11, 35 gold supply 6, 8, 11 The Goldbergs (radio program) 87 Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco 45, 47 Golden Gate Exposition (1939) 63 Gone with the Wind (film) 90, 91 The Good Earth (film) 90 Good Neighbor policy 69–70 Goodman, Benny 84 Goodyear 3 The Graduate (film) 94 Grand Coulee Dam 34, 45 Grand National film studio 92 Grand Old Party (GOP) see Republican party Grand Ole Opry, Nashville 85 Grant, Cary 91 Great Depression 7, 9–12, 14–17, 20, 21, 79, 95, 96 Great Lakes Exposition (GLE) (1936) 63 Greater East Asian Co–Prosperity Sphere 73 The Green Hornet (radio program) 87–88 gross national product 9 Guatemala 70 Guffey—Vinson Act (1937) 68 The Guiding Light (radio program) 87 Guthrie, Woody 94 Haiti 70 Hard Times (Terkel) 95 Harding, Warren G. 3, 12 Harlem Rides the Range (film) 93 93 Harlem riots (1943) 75 Harrington, F. C. 67 Harris, Roy 85 Hart, Lorenz 86 Havana Conference (1928) 70 Hayes, Will 89 health care 51 Hepburn, Katherine 90, 91 Hillman, Stanley 53 Hiroshima 74

Index historically Black colleges and universities 50, 77 historiography 93–95, 96 Hitler, Adolf 21, 71 Hobbes, Thomas 20 “hoboing” 14 Hollywood 82, 86, 88–93, 94; African Americans and 88, 92–93; B films 92–93; comedies 91–92; cowboy films 92; extravaganzas 89–90; gangster films 92; musicals 90; Poverty Row studios 92; women and 90–91 Home Owners Loan Act (1933) 36 Hoover, Herbert 3, 5, 19, 38, 40, 62; on American individualism 9, 101; budget balancing 10, 12–13; election campaign (1932) 16–17; and Good Neighbor policy 69, 70; and Great Depression 7, 9–12, 14–17, 20; inaugural address (1929) 7; legislative lobbying to aid economic stabilization 11–12; Memoirs 15; on the New Deal (1935) 101–102; President's Organization for Unemployment Relief (POUR) (Emergency Committee for Employment) 11; and Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) 12, 14; and veterans bonuses 12–14, 79; and volunteerism 10–11 Hooverisms 10 Hoovervilles 10, 13, 14 Hope, Bob 87 Hopkins, Harry L. 23–24, 37, 38, 43, 65, 77; and Civil Works Administration 31; on communists in WPA 112–113; and Federal Emergency Relief Administration 30; and Federal Surplus Relief Corporation 29; and Public Works Administration 34; and Works Progress Administration 44–47, 67, 77, 110–112 Horse Feathers (film) 92 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) 66–67 Housing Act (1937) 68 Housing Authority 68 housing segregation 77 I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (film) 92 Ickes, Harold 23, 34, 65, 93 I'm No Angel (film) 92 immigration 4, 32, 84 import duties 11

145

inclusion, commitment to 59, 94, 96 Indian Reorganization Act (1934) 36 individualism, American 9, 101 Industrial Advisory Board 104 Industrial Recovery Board 105 industry 24, 39; see also National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) (1933) inequality 21; racial 37–38 inflation 5, 43, 74 intelligent action, theory of 20–21 Interior Department 23, 26, 69 International Apple Shippers 10 International Ladies Garment Workers 53 internet 95 Interstate Commerce Act 122 isolationism 69, 70 It Happened One Night (film) 91 Japan 21, 72; attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) 73; invasion of China (1937) 73; invasion and occupation of Manchuria (1931) 73; sinking of USS Panay 73 jazz music 84, 95 Jeffries, Herb 92 Jews 41 Jezebel (film) 90 Jim Crow policy see segregation Johnson, General Hugh 23, 33, 34, 40, 105 Johnson, Robert 94 Johnson—Reed Act (1924) 4 jukeboxes 83 Justice Department 23 Keaton, Buster 91 Kellogg Briand Pact (1928) 70 The Kendallite (CCC camp newspaper) 106–107 Keynes, John Maynard 43–44, 64, 65 Keynesian economics 43–44, 51, 64 Kirk, Andy 84 Knights of Labor 53 Ku Klux Klan 75 La Guardia Airport, New York 47 labor 52–56, 64, 96, 103; and capital relationship 17; child 32, 34, 56, 126–127; see also collective bargaining; strikes; unions/unionization Labor Advisory Board 104 Labor Department 23, 25, 56, 66

146

Index

Ladies Home Journal 124–125, 128–129 laissez-faire economics 20 Landon, Alfred 61, 62 Lange, Dorothea 57, 80 Latin America 21; immigration from 4; US policy in 69–70 Lead Belly 94 League of Nations 70, 73 Leigh, Vivien 90, 91 Lend-Lease Act (1941) 72, 73 Lenroot, Katherine 125–126 Leuchtenberg, William 93–94 Lewis, John L. 53 liberalism: classic 19–20, 21; new 19–22 Liberalism and Social Action (Dewey) 21 Library of Congress 80, 93; American memory project 95 Lights Out (radio program) 88 Lilienthal, David 93 Lindbergh, Charles 71 The Lion and the Fox (Burns) 93 literacy 45, 49 Little Caesar (film) 92 Little Steel 54–55 Little Women (film) 90 living wage 32, 102, 103 The Living Newspaper (FTP performance) 67 Lloyd, Harold 91 London Stock Exchange 8 The Lone Ranger (radio program) 87 Long, Huey 41–42, 51, 61 Lorenz, Pare 57 Los Alamos, New Mexico 74 Louis, Joe 80 Loy, Myrna 91 Lunceford, Jimmie 84 lynching 115, 122 Lynd, Robert and Helen 5 Ma Perkins (radio program) 87 MacArthur, General Douglas 13 Manchuria, Japanese invasion and occupation of (1931) 73 Manhattan Project 74 margin calls 6, 8 Marx Brothers 92 Mascot film studio 92 Massey, Louise 85 mattress projects, WPA 45 Maynard, Ken 85 McCormick–Dickstein committee (1934—37) 66

McIntyre, Marvin H. 112–113 McKinley, William 17 McLeod Bethune, Mary 37, 50 McMahon, Thomas 53 Means, Gardiner 20 memory of the New Deal 79–81, 95–96 Mercer, Johnny 86 Mexican Americans 39 Mexico 70 MGM film studios 89 microphone technology 83 middle class 37, 38 migration: wartime 75; see also immigration milk 29 Mills, Ogden 22 minimum wage 32, 34, 56 Mississippi 27 Mitchell v. The Rock Island Railroad 122 Mix, Tom 85 Modern Corporations and Private Property (Berle and Means) 20 Mohawk Valley formula 54–55 Moley, Raymond 38, 93 Monkey Business (film) 92 Monogram film studio 92 monopolies 31, 104 Monroe Doctrine Corollary (1904) 69 Montana, Patsy 85 Moore, Mary Carr 46 Morgenthau, Henry 65 motel chains 3 Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) 89 Motion Pictures and Youth 89 movies see Hollywood Muncie, Indiana 5 Muni, Paul 92 munitions industry 70 Murphy, Frank 54, 66 music: broadcasting 86; cultivated 85– 86; Federal Music Project (FMP) 46, 80, 85; popular 80, 82, 83–85, 86, 94, 95; recording technology 83 music industry 82, 83–84 Mystery in Swing (film) 92 NAACP see National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Nagasaki 74 Nanking (Nanjing), Japanese atrocities in 73 National Archives 93

Index National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 37, 107–108, 115, 116 National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) 61–62 National Barn Dance, Chicago 85 National Broadcast Company 4 National Conference on Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth (1937) 50 National Endowment for the Humanities 95 National Guard 52, 54, 55, 71 National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) (1933) 27, 31–34, 102–106 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) 53, 55, 56 National Origins Act (1924) 4, 32 national parks 26, 45, 80, 81 National Planning Board 69 National Recovery Administration (NRA) 23, 31–34, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43; 7 (a) provision 32–33, 52, 53; Codes 32–33, 34, 40 National Resources Planning Board 76 National Union for Social Justice 41 National Youth Administration (NYA) 47–50, 59, 94; African Americans and 49, 50, 121–122; Student Aid program 49; works project program 49–50 nationalism, cultural 80, 81–82 Native Americans 36, 39 natural laws 19–20 navy 102, 122; and destroyer deal with Britain 72; German harassment of 73; two–ocean 72 Nazis 66, 71 NBC 86 Nelson, Donald 73 Neutrality Acts 70–71 New Era 5–7, 16, 19 New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Virginia newspaper) 116 new liberalism 19–22 New Orleans 10 New York City: street corner apple sales 10; unemployment 9 New York Times (newspaper) 64 New York World's Fair (1939) 62, 63–64 Nicaragua 70 Niebuhr, Reinhold 20 Night at The Opera (film) 92NIRA see National Industrial Recovery Act NLRB see National Labor Relations Board

147

NLRB v. Fansteel (1939) 68 NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp (1937) 55 non-interventionism 70 Norris, Tennessee model town 35, 37 NRA see National Recovery Administration NYA see National Youth Administration Nye Committee hearings (1934—36) 70 Of Human Bondage (film) 90 Office of Civilian Defense 74 Office of Price Administration 74 Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) 74 Office of Strategic Services 74 Office of War Information (OWI) 74, 75 Office of War Mobilization (OWMR) 74 old-age pensions 42, 50–51 oligopolies 31 One Man's Family (radio program) 87 oral history 95 orchestras 46 OSRD see Office of Scientific Research and Development Our Daily Bread (film) 92 Our Movie-Made Children 89 overtime pay 56 Owens, Jesse 80 OWI see Office of War Information OWMR see Office of War Mobilization Oxley, Lawrence 37 Paramount film studios 89 Parents' Magazine 125–127 parks, state and national 26, 45, 80, 81 Parks, Gordon 57 Pearl Harbor (1941) 73 Pells, Richard 94 pensions 42, 50–51 Perez, Jesse 129–130 Perkins, Frances 23, 30, 43, 51, 56, 65, 66, 93 petroleum industry 3 Philadelphia 9; unemployment 24, 37 photography projects 57, 80, 81 Pittsburgh 9, 15 Pittsburgh Courier (newspaper) 87 planned economy 20 The Plow That Broke the Plains (documentary) 57, 80 Poe, Edgar Allen 88 Poland, Hitler's invasion of 71

148

Index

police, treatment of African Americans 115–117 political parties: employee contributions to 108–109; see also Communist Party; Democratic party; Republican party; Socialist Party popular culture 80, 81, 82–93, 94, 95 Popular Front 66 popular music 80, 82, 83–85, 86, 94, 95 pork 29 Porter, Cole 86 Powell, William 91 President's Organization for Unemployment Relief (POUR) 11 President's Re-Employment Agreement 33 prices 24, 105; control 74; farm 5, 9, 11, 28, 29; stock 5–6, 65 Procter & Gamble 87 Progressive era 23 progressive socialism 20 Prohibition 36 Public Enemy (film) 92 Public Works Administration (PWA) 31, 34, 38, 122 Queen Christina (film) 91 race 21, 95 racial discrimination 94, 107–108, 118, 122 racial equality/inequality 37–38, 50, 59, 96racial segregation 24, 27, 35, 36, 37, 107–108 racism 24, 35, 37–38, 45, 50; in Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 27, 107–108; wartime 75 radicalization of youth 25 radio 4, 58, 83; advertising 86–87; programming 82, 86–88; situation comedies 87; soap operas 86–87 Radosh, Ronald 94 Railroad Coordination Act (1933) 36 railroads 12, 14, 36, 111 Randolph, A. Phillip 75 Raskob, Jacob 61 rationing 74 RCA Victor 83 real estate booms 7 reason 20, 21 recession of 1937 64–65 Reconstruction Finance Act (1932) 12 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) 12, 14, 30

record industry 83–84 record players 83 Red Book Magazine 127 redlining 77 Reflections on the End of an Era (Niebuhr) 20 relief see Federal Emergency Relief Act; Federal Emergency Relief Administration; work relief Remington Rand company 54 Republic film studio 92 Republican party (Grand Old Party, GOP) 3, 16, 24, 38, 40, 42, 43, 55, 61, 62, 66, 118 Resettlement Administration (RA) 56–57, 81 Revenue Act (1932) 12 Revenue Act (1935) 51 The Revolt of the Beavers (FTP performance) 67 Richberg, Donald 33, 34 riots 75 Ritter, Tex 85 The River (documentary) 57 River Walk, San Antonio 47 RKO film studios 89 road building 26, 30, 44, 45, 49, 80, 102 Robinson, Edward G. 92 Rockwell, Norman 76 Rodeo (Copland) 86 Rodgers, Richard 86 Rogers, Ginger 90 Rogers, Roy 85 Rogers, Will 91 Rooney, Mickey 91 Roosevelt, Eleanor (First Lady) 25, 37, 50, 81, 93, 115 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 17, 19, 30–31; assassination attempt (1933) 21–22; banking reform 22–23; biographies of 93; Black cabinet 50; budget balancing 64, 65; Coughlin, Father Charles attacks on 41; cult of personality 24; on economic bill of rights 76; executive reorganization plan 68–69; Fireside Chats 23, 36, 79, 80, 81; Forgotten Man speech (1932) 38–39; Four Freedoms speech (1941) 72; on GI Bill 131–132; and Keynesian economics 43–44, 64; landslide victory in 1936 election 58, 61; Long, Huey attacks on 41–42; on National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) 102–106; on Prohibition repeal 36;

Index publication of papers, speeches etc 93; re-election 1940 71–72; second inaugural address (1936) 43; spending cuts 64, 65; Supreme Court-packing plan 65–66; and welfare state 42–43; Woodward, Ellen letter to FDR regarding his second term 109–110 Roosevelt recession 64–65 Roosevelt, Theodore 69 Roper, Daniel 23 Rorty, James 127 Rosenman, Samuel 93 Rosie the Riveter 76 rural America 56–58, 81; see also agricultural sector Rural Electrification Act (1936) 58 Rural Electrification Administration (REA) 57–58 Rutgers University 95 Ruth, Babe 80 Saga of the Prairies (Copland) 86 San Diego, California Pacific International Exposition 63 San Francisco 9; Golden Gate Bridge 45, 47; Golden Gate Exposition (1939) 63 Savage, Frederick 130 Sawyer, Colonel Donald H. 105 Scarface (film) 92 Schechter v. US (1935) 34 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. 93 scientific advancement 62, 63 Scribner's Magazine 128 Seattle 9, 24 second New Deal 36, 40–60 Securities and Exchange Act (1934) 6, 35 Securities and Exchange Commission 35 Seeger, Peggy 85 Seeger, Ruth 46 segregation (Jim Crow) 24, 27, 35, 36, 77, 107–108 Selective Training and Service Act (1940) 72 Serviceman's Readjustment Act see GI Bill Sessions, Roger 85 sexism 21, 45 sexual discrimination 94 sexual division of labor 46 sexual equality 59, 96 The Shadow (radio program) 87 Shahn, Ben 57 Shakespeare, William 90 Shanewis (Cadman) 85

149

Share the Wealth clubs 42 sharecroppers 29, 37, 68 Shaw, Artie 84 She Done Him Wrong (film) 92 Shearer, Norma 90 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) 31 Sick Chicken Case 34 Sinclair, Upton 42, 51, 56 Slave Narratives 80 Sloan, Alfred 61 Smith, Al 3, 61 Smoot—Hawley tariff (1930) 11 soap operas 86–87 social contract 20 social security 50–51, 76, 81, 94; see also pensions Social Security Act (1935) 51, 58, 121, 125–126 socialism 57, 66; evolutionary 42; progressive 20 Socialist Party 21 Somoza, Anastasio 70 Soule, George 20 South Carolina 27 Southern Democrats 42, 56, 66, 67, 77 southern European immigration 4, 84 Soviet Union 11, 21; German invasion of 72, 73 spending cuts 64, 65 Spingarn, Joel 37 Starrett, Charlse 85 State Department 41, 81 State Fair (film) 91 state parks 26, 45, 80 steel industry 53–54, 54–55; see also US Steel Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) 53–54, 55, 68 stock market: crash (1929) 7–9, 14; manipulation of 5–6; regulation 35 Stock Pools 5 stock prices 5–6, 65 Strangers May Kiss (film) 90 street corner salespeople 10 Street Scene (film) 89 strikes 5, 28, 33, 52, 54–55, 65, 66, 67–68 Stryker, Roy 57 Students for a Democratic Society 94 suffrage 117 Sumner, William Graham 38 Supreme Court 94; court packing plan 65–66 swing music 80, 84

150

Index

SWOC see Steel Workers Organizing Committee Tallmadge, Eugene 52 Tarzan (film) 92 Taussig, Charles 48 tax 42, 43, 51; breaks 10; corporate 12; personal 12; on wealth 41, 42 technological advancement/innovation 62, 63, 83 teenagers 83 television 82 Temple, Shirley 90 Tennessee Valley Act (1933) 35 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 35, 37, 38, 40, 43, 58, 80, 94, 96 Tenth Amendment 29 Terkel, Studs 95 Texas Ruby 85 textile workers strike (1934) 52 Textile Workers' Union 53 The Thin Man (film series) 91 Thomas, Norman 21 Thompson, Dorothy 124–125 Thomson, Virgil 85 Timberline Lodge, Oregon 47 Tin Pan Alley (TPA) 80, 86 Toledo, Ohio 9 Townsend, Dr. Francis 50–51 trade 11 trade associations 31–32, 104 trade surplus, with Europe 7 Trading with the Enemy Act (1917) 22, 23 training see education and training Treasury Department 80 Trujillo, Rafael 70 Tucker, Lorenzo 92 Tugwell, Rexford 56, 57, 93 Tulane University 95 Tumblin' Tumbleweeds (film) 92 TVA see Tennessee Valley Authority Twenty-first Amendment 36 under-consumption 38–39, 58, 82 unemployment 4, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 40, 43, 64, 65; African Americans 9, 24, 37, 49; compensation 42, 51; women 38, 127; youth 24–25, 48 unions/unionization 33, 52, 53–56, 62, 64, 65, 76, 81, 120–121 United Artists film studios 89 United Auto Workers (UAW) 54, 56 United Mine Workers 53

United Nations 72 United States v. Butler (1936) 29 United Steel Workers (USW) 54, 56 United Textile Workers of America 52 Universal film studios 89 University of North Carolina 95 US Steel 11, 14, 54 USS Greer 73 USS Kearney 73 USS Panay 73 USS Reuben James 73 Vachon, John 57 Vallee, Rudy 83 veterans: African American 77; bonus 12–14, 25, 64, 79; education and training 76, 77, 131–132; unemployed 25; see also GI Bill Veteran's Administration 25 Vietnam War 94 Volstead Act (1919) 36 volunteerism 10–11 Voodoo Drums (film) 93 Wa-Wan Press 85 wages 5, 9, 32, 34, 76; African Americans 5, 34, 37, 118, 119–120; living wage 32, 102, 103; minimum wage 32, 34, 56; women 5, 34, 38, 118, 119–120 Wagner Act (1935) 52–53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 65, 66, 67, 76, 94 Wallace, Henry A. 23, 29 war: attitudes to 70–71; see also Civil War; World War I; World War II War Department 25 War Industries Board 31 War Production Board 73–74 The War of the Worlds (radio program) 88 Warner Brothers 89 Waters, Walter 12 wealth: distribution of 44; tax on 41, 42 weapons development 74 Weaver, Robert 37 Weiss, Nancy 94 welfare capitalism 3 welfare state 42–44, 59, 61, 65, 69, 72 Welles, Orson 87, 88 Wells, H. G. 88 West, Mae 91, 92 Westinghouse Corporation, War Production Coordinating Committee 76 White, Walter 115 white working-class 39

Index Wild Boys of the Road (film) 92 Wilkie, Wendell 72 Williams, Aubrey 47, 50 Wilson, Teddy 84 Wilson, Woodrow 70 The Wizard of Oz (film) 90 Wolcott, Marion Post 57 women 38, 40, 81; African American workers 118–121; and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 27, 38; in country music 85; education of 128; and FERA relief 30, 38, 45; and Hollywood 90–91; and motherhood 128; purge from workforce 38; and social security 51; unemployment 38, 127; and unions 120–121; wages 5, 34, 38, 118, 119–120; wartime workers 75–76; and women's magazines 124–129; WPA enrollees 45–46 Women's Work Program 123–124 Wood, Robert 71 Woods, Arthur 11 Woodward, Ellen 38, 45, 46, 67, 109–110, 123–124 work relief 44–47, 65 Workers' Alliance 66–67 Workers' Councils 24, 33 working hours 32, 34, 56, 103 working-class, white 39

151

Works Progress Administration (WPA) 29, 31, 44–47, 58, 59, 63, 76, 77, 80–81, 82, 94, 96; African Americans and 45, 47, 121; canning projects 45, 46, 81; and communism 67, 112–114; disaster aid 46; Education project 45; Federal Art Project 46, 67, 80; Federal Music project (FMP) 46, 80, 85; funding 65, 67; Hopkins defence of, on radio (1938) 110–112; and House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) 66–67; and political party contributions 108–109; women and 45–46; see also National Youth Administration World War I 5, 6 World War II 71, 72–76, 95 WSB, Atlanta 85 Wynn, Ed 87 You're Only Young Once (film) 91–92 youth: radicalization 25; unemployment 24–25, 48; see also Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); National Youth Administration Zinn, Howard 94