American History - New Deal

NEW DEAL Name Emergency Banking Act – 1933

Economy Act 1933

Why • Stop the panic of the bank failures

• Designed to convince conservative Americans that the federal gov. was safe

Agricultural Adjustment Act – May 1933

Soil Conservation and Allotment Act - 1936

• Supreme Court argued that Agricultural Act had no constitutional authority to require farmers to limit

What •

Other

Protect larger banks from being dragged down by weakness of smaller ones • Provided for Treasury Dept. inspection of all banks before that would be allowed to reopen, federal assistance to troubled institutions, thorough reorganization of those in the greatest difficulty • Proposed to balance the federal budget by cutting salaries of gov. employees and reducing pensions to veterans • “domestic allotment” – producers of seven commodities would decide on production limits for crops • Gov. through Agricultural Adjustment Adm. (AAA) would tell farmers how much they should plant and pay them subsidies for leaving some of their land • Favored larger farms – dispossessed some struggling farmers • Permitted gov. to pay farmers to reduce production so as to “conserve soil”, prevent erosion, and accomplish other goals • Landlords required to share payments that received for cutting back production with

• Prices for commodities and gross income rose over the years

production Resettlement Adm.– 1935 & Farm Security Adm. – 1937 Rural Electrification Administration – 1935 National Industrial Recovery Act – June 1933

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NRA

NRA (continued…)

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those who worked - evaded Provided loans to help farmers cultivating soil to relocate to better lands

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Never moved more than thousand farmers

• Made electric power available to thousands of farmers through utility cooperatives Relax antitrust • Business people would have • One of most provisions to make recognition to labor complicated pieces to ensure income would rise of legislation in w/ prices history • Program of public works spending designed to pump needed funds to economy • “blanket code” – minimum • Director – Hugh wage of 30-40 cents/hr, max S. Johnson workweek of 35-40 hrs, • Codes hastily and abolition of child labor poorly written – (claimed would raise administration consumer purchase, increase beyond capacity employment, eliminate of federal officials sweatshops w/ no prior • NRA Blue Eagle – symbol of experience recognition • Large producers • Industrial codes – no co. dominated codewould lower prices or wages writing process – in its search for competitive made advantage advantage, included to themselves and agreements on maintaining not smaller firms employment and production Attempts to increase consumer purchase did not progress quickly as effort to raise prices Promised workers right to form union but no enforcement in recognition Public Works Adm. (PWA), established to administer spending programs only gradually allowed funds out – directed by Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes Production declined and businessmen ignoring codes, employers defying NRA, unions hostile

Tennessee Valley Authority - 1933

Glass-Steagell Act of June 1933

Truth in Securities Act of 1933

Securities & Exchange Corp. (SEC) - 1934

Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) - 1933

• Recovery Review Board, chaired by Clarence Darrow, reported that NRA was dominated by big business and encouraging monopoly • Public reformers • Complete dam at Muscle • Built dams and wanted Shoal & build others in waterways, development of region eliminated nation’s water flooding, provided • Generate and sell electricity resources as electricity to public source of • Reluctant to • Redevelopment – stopping electric power challenge local flooding, encouraging • Urged completion customs and few development of local of dam at stands against industries, supervising program Muscle Shoals racial prejudice for reforestation, helping • 1932 – utility farmers improve productivity empire of Samuel Insull collapsed • Gave gov. authority to curb irresponsible speculation by banks • Establish Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. which guaranteed all bank deposits up to $2500 • Protect investor • Required corp. issuing new in the stock securities to provide full & market accurate info about them to public • Police stock market • Indication of how far the financial establishment had fallen in public estimation • Relief and • Provided cash grants to prop • Harry Hopkins – private org. and up bankrupt relief agencies administered state and local program gov. were • Happry believed unable to meet in “pump priming” demand of – pumping money unemployed and into economy

in desperate need of assistance Americans Civil Works Adm. (CWA) - 1933

• FERA grants not sufficient enough to pull country through winter

Civilian Conservation Corps. (CCC) 1933

Farm Credit Adm.

• Mortgage relief was a pressing need of millions of indebted farm owners

Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act of 1933

Home Owners’ Loan Act – 1934

Federal Housing Adm.

• Mortgage relief was a pressing need of millions of indebted homeowners

badly in need of it and providing assistance to pple w/ nowhere else to turn (ltr known as Keynesianism) • Put people to work on temporary project •

Provide employment to urban young men who could find no jobs in cities and who were raising fears of violence • Advance the work of conservation and reforestation • Refinanced 1/5 of all farm mortgages in US

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• Enabled some farmers to regain their land even after foreclosure on their mortgages

• Despite such efforts, by 1934 25% of all American farm owners lost their land

• Refinanced the mortgages of more than 1 million householders • Insure mortgages for new construction and home repairs – combined effort to provide relief with a programs to stimulate lasting recovery of construction industry

Created series of camps in national parks and forests and other rural and wilderness settings

Holding Co. Act of 1935 (known as “death sentence bill”)

• Roosevelt was willing to openly attack corporate interests

• break up great utilities holding companies

• Series of tax reforms • Undercut the appeal of Huey Long’s Share-Our Wealth Plan

“soak the rich” scheme

National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (Wagner Act)

• National Industrial Recovery Act had problems – Section 7(a)

Social Securities Act - 1935

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Imp. Members of adm., such as Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, had been lobbying for a system of federally sponsored social insurance for

• Provided workers with more federal protection than Section 7(a) • Provided crucial enforcement mechanism, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) , which would power to compel employers to recognize and bargain with legitimate unions • Elderly, those who were destitute began receiving up to $15/month in federal assistance • Pensions system – workers and their employers could contribute by paying tax and which would provide them with an incomes on

• Highest and most progressive peacetime tax rates in history • Few people had enough money to qualify for bracket and most able to find ways to avoid full tax burden • More imp. Symbolically than economically • Created and led by Robert F. Wagner

Works Progress Adm. (WPA) – 1935

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elderly and unemployed

retirement • Created system of unemployment insurance • Provided aid to blind & other handicapped pple & dependent children

Social Security Act was made to fulfill longrange goals but some pple needed immediate help

• Established a system of work relief for the unemployed • Responsible for building or renovating 110,000 public buildings

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National Youth Adm. - 1935

Provided scholarship assistance to HS and college-aged men and women • Began federal sponsorship of public housing

Emergency Housing Division of the Public Works Adm.

United States Housing Authority Aid to Dependent Children Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC)

• And urge to launch a new assault on monopoly • Roosevelt sent message to Congress denouncing an

• Gov. provided a substantial amount of housing for truly poor • Designed to assist single mothers • Investigate impact of monop[oly on economy

• Much bigger than earlier agencies, size and budget • Federal Writers Project, Federal Arts Project, Federal Music Project, Federal Theatre Project

• Cleared some of nations slums and built new housing developments – most priced too high for those who displaced by slum clearance

• Program of Social Security • Representatives of both houses if Congress and of several executive agencies • Thurman Arnold – charged with enforcing federal

unjustifiable concentration of economic power and asking for commission to examine problem Fair Labor Standards Act – 1938 Other New Deal Legislations

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laws against monopoly

• Created a national min. wage and mandated 40 hr work week

Banking Act Federal Securities Act Public Utilities Holding Co. Act Revenue Act (wealth tax) National Housing Act • Second Agricultural Adjustument Act • Executive Reorganization Act