Essay on The Effects of Peter Seeger Songs

“His "New Deal," it turned out, involved regulation and reform of the banking system, massive government spending to "prime the pump" by restarting the economy and putting people back to work, and the creation of a social services network to support those who had fallen on hard times” (Shmoop). To summarize, Roosevelt did a lot of government spending. Surprisingly, such huge amounts of government spending had not been on Roosevelt’s original agenda. The concept of spending one’s way out of a recession comes from John Maynard Keynes, an English economist whose ideas revolutionized the world of macroeconomics. Keynes reached out to Roosevelt on a number of occasions.

In February 1933, “the Senate passed a resolution calling for the newly elected president, Franklin Roosevelt to assume unlimited power” (Bailey, Beth, et al. “Chapter 22: The Great Depression and the New Deal.” A People and A Nation: Brief Tenth Edition. Vol. 2. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2015. 632-667. Book. [Further: Bailey, Blight, and Chudacoff]). Through the New Deal, Roosevelt sought to “revive the economy through economic planning and relief programs” (Bailey, Blight and Chudacoff). These relief programs helped many Americans find jobs and ultimately restore the economy.

One of the most severe worldwide economic downturns in history is known as the great depression. Numerous amount of issues and problems were taken place between the years of 1929-1939. The great depression brought a rapid rise in unemployment, bank failure, and much more. Despite the wide range of issues, Franklin D Roosevelt was actually concerned about the depression. Roosevelt's response to the great depression was very effective because he had launched the new deal, due to the uprising problems and issues of the great depression.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal in 1933 to address the challenges of the Great Depression. His plan aimed to create jobs and ease economic struggles, as mentioned in “Fireside Chat” on May 7, 1933. Although some programs provided temporary help, they didn’t fix the main problems causing the Great Depression. This led to ongoing criticism and doubts about whether the New Deal worked. Document E, presenting unemployment data from 1929 to 1941, provides insight into the dangers and endurance of the economic crisis during the Great Depression.

D. Roosevelt in 1933 in direct response to the unemployment, poverty and economic deflation caused by the Great Depression (Romer, 2003:2), was a system of policy adjustments for which “Keynesian economics form the basis” (Henretta, et al., 2011:368). Before Roosevelt’s election, President H. Hoover had adopted policies based largely on classical economics – an essentially laissez-faire approach which favoured minimal government intervention (Dautrich & Yalof, 2013:426). The “Keynesian View” (Parkin, 2009:634), adopted by Roosevelt, “attempts to alleviate the pain of economic downturns, hold down the unemployment rate, and boost the disposable income of the worst off” (Boix, 1997:816) with government-implemented policy at its

In 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed and the country was beginning to plunge into the largest economic depression they had ever experienced. Millions of people were losing their jobs and nobody could do anything. In 1932, the unemployment rate was at an all time high of 22.5% (Smiley 1983). In that same year, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. He came up with the New Deal that could save the country from the depression. He started by trying to find people jobs in any field possible for the young men of the country. Many new organizations were founded to help every type of human in the United States. They eventually were able to lower the unemployment rate all the way down to 6% in 1941. It took nine years to get out of the depression.

WWII brought on a lot of social changes for many types of people, especially minorities in America. Japanese citizens in America around the coastal areas or military bases were forced to sell their homes and shops, to go to live in internment camps. The U.S. government tried to sell the idea that it was to protect Japanese Americans and send the out of harm’s way, when in actuality it was more because of the fear Americans had in the Japanese, especially since they looked different. (Document 2) The discrimination within many people because Japanese Americans were so easily identifiable is why that group of people were specifically interned and why German or Italian Americans weren’t. The government tried to make it seem like Japanese Americans were happy to leave their homes to live in the government camps set up for them to live in during the war. Women also

The income change from 1929-1933 was drastic. It went from $700 per year down to $375 per year, as seen in Trends in Personal Income, 1929-1933 (Document #5). That is a difference of $325, which is nearly 50% of what the annual income was in 1929! After FDR observed this, he immediately took action to try and change this trend. He encouraged the federal and state governments to start the Public Works Administration (PWA), and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) to recover this crisis, as seen in Document #8. The PWA is an administration that issues public works projects. The purpose of it was to not only improve the nation’s infrastructure, but also create thousands of jobs, which will decrease the unemployment rate. The NRA was an administration simply aimed to improve the economy and the nation in general. It tried to keep prices stable, as well as employ people. Many people took advantage of these opportunities, and they got jobs, and started making an income, however small it may be. As FDR correctly assumed, the more people working and out of the streets, the more the nation will shape up and slowly begin to

Pete Seeger was a smart man when it came to politics and being a musician, he got accepted to Harvard University, although he wasn’t your average college student; he couldn’t study which lead him into feeling his classes and dropping out. After Seeger dropped out of school he went into politics, Seeger always had a thing for music and politics; he had a lot of hobbies such as music, painting, hiking, and he loved being outdoors (Winkler 2011, 2). Pete’s father loved academics and enjoyed playing music, he was a great pianist and played harmony, his colleagues liked hearing him play, they thought he was a great musician. Seeger learned a lot from his dad. Seeger and Guthrie came from singing in the saloons, radio shows, political rallies, Guthrie wrote thousands of songs. Seeger and Guthrie both had a lot in common; they both were musicians; and both enjoyed playing music, rather it was playing with a banjo or writing music. Guthrie and Seeger appeared at a few gatherings at an American piece mobilization March in Washington DC to protest the nations drift toward war (Winkler 2011, 24-25). They were the only band who rehearsed on stage before performing. Guthrie and Seeger were known as the Almanac singers; the Almanac singers wrote their first antiwar songs, they were looking for someone to record them. Even though in a couple of their

Musician, song-writer, and social activist, Pete Seeger wrote the hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” which was popularly covered by the American rock band, The Byrds. Seeger adapted the lyrics from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Before delving deeper into the meaning of Ecclesiastes 3 in class, I would have seen little to no difference between the meaning of the Bible and the meaning of the Seeger song. For me initially, both the song and chapter expressed the notion of life’s beautiful and dark times: the time for joyously dancing about the room or the time for feeling frozen with grief. But, when reading and discussing Ecclesiastes in class, I finally read the verses in a larger context. As a whole book Ecclesiastes has a more negative tone, even expressing the uselessness or the meaninglessness

In 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, the citizens of the United States had possessed sufficient time to realize that they could no longer be proud, but they must take anything they could get. Therefore, the programs set up by FDR’s New Deal program were perfect for the country at the time. These programs helped the people directly, providing relief, recovery, and reform. FDR based his plans on the philosophy of Keynesian economics, where the government spends money to make money. The government gave money and jobs to those in need, who in turn, had money to spend in the marketplace. The demand for products increased, and businesses were able to hire more workers and produce more products, as well as pay more money in taxes. FDR’s plans worked because they gave money not to those who would take advantage of the government, but to those who would use it in the way the government intended it to be used. During FDR’s first term in office alone, the unemployment rate dropped 4%. Because of FDR’s success in bringing the country out of the Depression, I give him an A.

The 1960’s in America was often referred to as an age of protest because of not only the social protests that have taken place, but also for the upbringing of protest music, which became very popular during that era. The roots of protest music were largely from folk music of American musicians during 1950’. Folk musicians, such as Joe Hill, composed labor union protest songs and distributed song booklets, hoping to “fan the flames of discontent.” (Rodnitzky pg. 6) Symbolically, this meant that the songs, the fan, would reduce the uncontrollable social protests that the United States government caused with the misleading information that they did not keep their word on, or the flames of discontent. Other folk musicians, such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, traveled around the United States spreading their “message music” and becoming involved in political movements. Guthrie and Seeger were the pioneers of protest music, bringing their folk music to New York City and merging it with urban music. Woody’s songs were about the masses, often identifying problems and offering solutions. While Seeger was cautious about referring to his music as folk music, preferring the term “people’s music,” meaning that not everyone may had the same thoughts, but they all expressed it in their own unique musical sense. For both Woody and Seeger, folk music was a necessity in these protests, when the needs

Pete Seeger is an extremely talented artist who is very well known for his contributions to folk music. Pete Seeger is an absolute inspiration to many people around the world today. Not only was Pete Seeger just a singer/songwriter, he was also an important political activist, the author of several dozen books, an environmentalist as well as a peace advocator. He plays a very significant role in terms of historical influences. As a man of many identities, Pete Seeger will always remain an influential individual in regards to American History. It is definitely worth discussing the many roles Pete Seeger acquired and how each of these roles assisted in impacting American History.

The time period of 1939 to 1945 was a very devastating time for a lot of individuals especially American’s. During this time frame the world was involved in the crisis called World War ll. World Warll had a large negative impact on America’s economy as a whole it affected America’s financial status greatly, American soldiers also suffered a large variety of mental as well as physical health issues during and after World War 2, and many American’s lost their lives for the cause. The major decision to go into war all began on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese forces bombed

This recession came about from the recovery from the Great Depression. Roosevelt began to scale back deficit spending, because he believed that the worst of the Great Depression had passed and because he was receiving pressure from conservatives in Congress (and even from ardent New Dealers in his own cabinet).” The Works Progress Administration were reduced dramatically. This was a way to cut spending by consumers. As the economy started to develop it was known as Roosevelt Recession which led the stock market to crash again in the year of 1937 and prices of products went downhill. The economy was not stable enough to go through on its own. Many people blamed Roosevelt for this problem, which made him look unreliable by putting the blame on others. This resulted in many things, for example losing many seats in the House and Senate during elections of 1938. Republicans made a comeback which diminished the New Deal.