Early Responses to the Depression
The depression cast hundreds of thousands of Americans out of their homes. Most found shelter with relatives, but those with little choice had to make do as they could. Encampments places where the homeless crafted makeshift lodging out of whatever materials were at hand became known as __________
Hoovervilles
A series of informal radio addresses Franklin Roosevelt made to the nation in which he explained New Deal initiatives.
Fireside Chats
What are the 3 R's of the New Deal?
relief for the unemployed and the poor
recovery of the economy back to normal levels
reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.
A powerful Louisiana governor and US senator who was against FDR's New Deal; his slogan was "Share our wealth"
Huey Long
DAILY DOUBLE
A term applied to industrial democracies that adopt various government-guaranteed social welfare programs. The creation of Social Security and other measures of the Second New Deal fundamentally changed American society and established a national _____________for the first time.
welfare state
Who won the election of 1932?
FDR
New Deal legislation passed in May 1933 that aimed at cutting agricultural production to raise crop prices and thus farmers’ income.
Agricultural Adjustment Act
DAILY DOUBLE
A 1935 act with three main provisions: old-age pensions for workers; a joint federal-state system of compensation for unemployed workers; and a program of payments to widowed mothers and the blind, deaf, and disabled.
Social Security Act
An association of industrialists and business leaders opposed to government regulation. In the era of the New Deal, the group promoted free enterprise and capitalism through a publicity campaign of radio programs, motion pictures, billboards, and direct mail.
National Association of Manufacturers
An agency established in 1934 that refinanced home mortgages for mortgage holders facing possible foreclosure.
Federal Housing Administration:
The Republican candidate who assumed the presidency in March 1929 promising the American people prosperity and attempted to first deal with the Depression by trying to restore public faith in the community.
Herbert Hoover
A 1935 act that upheld the right of industrial workers to join unions and established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency with the authority to protect workers from employer coercion and to guarantee collective bargaining.
The Wagner Act
A New Deal construction program established by Congress in 1933. Designed to put people back to work, built the Boulder Dam (renamed Hoover Dam) and Grand Coulee Dam, among other large public works projects.
Public Works Administration
DAILY DOUBLE
A group of Republican business leaders and conservative Democrats who banded together to fight what they called the “reckless spending” and “socialist” reforms of the New Deal.
Liberty League
A series of dust storms from 1930 to 1941 during which a severe drought afflicted the semiarid states of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, and Kansas.
The Dust Bowl
DAILY DOUBLE:
A group of 15,000 unemployed World War I veterans who set up camps near the Capitol building in 1932 to demand immediate payment of pension awards due to be paid in 1945.
Bonus Army
A commission established by Congress in 1934 to regulate the stock market. The commission had broad powers to determine how stocks and bonds were sold to the public, to set rules for margin (credit) transactions, and to prevent stock sales by those with inside information about corporate plans.
Securities and Exchange Commission
Federal relief program that provided jobs to millions of unemployed young men who built thousands of bridges, roads, trails, and other structures in state and national parks, bolstering the national infrastructure.
Civilian Conservation Corps
This man believed that Roosevelt and the Democratic Party had not gone far enough in their efforts to ensure the social welfare of all citizens. For instance, he and his organization, the National Union for Social Justice, urged Roosevelt to nationalize the banks. His remarks in the early 1930s were often laced with anti-Semitism (anti-Jewish sentiment).
Father Charles E. Coughlin
A recession from 1937 to 1938 that occurred after President Roosevelt cut the federal budget.
Roosevelt Recession
A high tariff enacted in 1930 during the Great Depression. By taxing imported goods, Congress hoped to stimulate American manufacturing, but the tariff triggered retaliatory tariffs in other countries, which further hindered global trade and led to greater economic contraction.
Smoot-Hawley Tariff:
DAILY DOUBLE
A 1933 law that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insured deposits up to $2,500 (and now up to $250,000). The act also prohibited banks from making risky, unsecured investments with customers’ deposits.
Glass-Steagall Act
opposed to classical liberalism, ___________focused more on the individual liberty of humankind and the foundation of a democratic society, therefore being more individual to a person.
New Deal Liberalism
A plan proposed in 1933 that would give $200 a month (about $3,300 today) to citizens over the age of sixty.
Townsend Plan
DAILY DOUBLE
The theory, developed by British economist in the 1930s, that purposeful government intervention in the economy (through lowering or raising taxes, interest rates, and government spending) can affect the level of overall economic activity and thereby prevent severe depressions and runaway inflation.
Keynesian economics