The New Deal V. Roosevelt's 'Digging In'

During the Great Depression, many families were left poor with no income or savings. With manufacturing productions decreasing, prices

To help recover the nation, the New Deal was designed to bring the economy back to its pre-depression levels. It achieved that by deficit spending, dropping the gold standard, and increasing foreign trade. To reform the nation, the New Deal made it possible for the economy to be stabilized. The reform measures that President Roosevelt proposed included the NIRA or the National Industrial Recovery Act, the regulation of Wall Street by the SEA or Security Exchange Act, the AAA or Agricultural Adjustment Act that was intended for farm programs, the FDIC or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that dealt with insurance for bank deposits, as well as the Wagner Act, which dealt with labor-management relations.

The Great Depression was a very influential era in American history, affecting many future generations. One of the most prevalent impacts it had on society was the extreme poverty that swept across the nation, affecting both people in cities and in the country. The main cause for this poverty was the mass loss of jobs among the middle class. Millions lost their jobs and consequently their homes. Families lived out of tents and cars in shanty towns or Hoovervilles. In these camps, many people didn’t have their basic human needs met, children and adults alike starved. They lived in clothes that were caked in dirt and tattered, too small for growing children and too cold for the frail elderly. Government relief programs attempted to help but offered little support to the now impoverished families of the millions that lost everything.

Both era’s had also decided to create a new banking system in order to help the economy and thus the public. Wilson created the Federal Reserve Act/Board which appointed twelve regional reserve districts each with its own central bank. The board was able to create paper money backed by commercial paper in order to make sure the amount of money in circulation could be increased as needed. Franklin Roosevelt similarly established the Glass Steagal Banking Reform Act which spawned the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which insured that there were individual deposits up to $5000. The act had ended the bank failures and saved the money of many unemployed. The two era’s had always attempted to assist the farmers. Wilson made credit available to farmers at low rates of interest with the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, as well as authorized loans on the security of staple crops with the Warehouse Act of 1916. The New Deal had created the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 which made millions of dollars available to help farmers meet their

The New Deal was a specific set of government works programs put into effect by President Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. The New Deal took action to bring fast economic relief as well as improvements in industry, finance, agriculture, housing, the labor force, etc. The traditional American policy of laissez-faire was opposed in the new democratic promise of the “New Deal”. The majority of the New Deal was enacted in the first couple months of FDR’s presidency, which later became known as the Hundred Days. The first objective was to lessen the hardship of the large amount of unemployed workers in the nation. The Works Progress Administration(WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps(CCC) were created to establish short term government aid to temporary jobs. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was created to develop rules to govern trade practices, hours, child labor, wages, and collective bargaining. Also, the New Deal worked to avoid another stock market crash and bank failures.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) gave insurance for bank deposits and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created to protect the people from stock-market companies committing fraud. An agricultural program , the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) attempted to raise prices by providing subsidies to farmers to reduce crop production. The New Deal was filled with government works programs to help pull the country out of the Great Depression but,

To start off I should give a little background to help understand what the new deal was fighting, and I will stick more to the agricultural side of the depression in the interest of brevity. The main culprit that hurt the citizens of the U.S. was unemployment. This came about due to a couple of factors. But in my opinion the most important ones are credit, and deflation due to abundance. Both of these reasons abound in the agricultural sector of the time. With world war one being a catalyst farm size grew exponentially with the need to supply efforts overseas. This lead to the need to take out loans to buy expensive machines to work the larger areas. So when the war was over the farmers were still producing at the same quantities to try and maintain their farms. With all of this excess the prices on farm produce dropped to almost nothing. This is lead to many farms being foreclosed on. This was just one area where this happened similar situations occurred in the industrial sector with many

Families had to split up in search for work and many children got jobs to make extra money for their families. In 1933, when Roosevelt took office, “24.9% of the total workforce or 12,830,000 people were unemployed” according to the FDR Library. This statistic shows just how much the average American was struggling to keep themselves and their families afloat. The FDR Library also states that “drastic drops in farm commodity prices resulted in farmers losing their lands and homes due to foreclosure” and that “gangs of unemployed youth, whose families could no longer support them, rode the rails as hobos in search of work.” The previous excerpts depict America’s loss of stability because the people providing food were out of jobs and parents had to send their children away since they could not afford to care for them any further. Thankfully, President Roosevelt and his administration stepped in soon afterward to correct the

Roosevelt responded to the great depression by creating the new deal. The new deal “set out to relieve the suffering of the unemployed and impoverished” during the great depression (New Deal Gale Encyclopedia). This means that through the new deal, Roosevelt was attempting to alleviate some of the burden that the great depression was placing on Americans. Roosevelt’s first move under the new deal “ was to restore confidence in the nation’s banking system” (New Deal Gale Encyclopedia). During the great depression a lot of people had lost faith in banks and withdrew all of their money. This hurt the banks and had a negative effect on the American economy so Roosevelt recognized that it was a problem that needed addressed. After the banking situation was handled, Roosevelt and “Congress turned [their] attention to the farm sector” (New Deal Gale Encyclopedia). This was done by passing the Agricultural Adjustment Act which provided subsidies to farmers who reduced crop production, thus raising the value of U.S. agricultural goods. Through these different acts and ideas Roosevelt attempted to address the great

Just this one person took many intersting jobs, and these are just a few; sold iron cords, picked peaches, worked the strip mines, cut boys hair, hung wallpaper, sold coal orders, and worked on the WPA. This was only one person, in a family of three. That family before was rich, but during these hard times, they lived off of pennies and dimes. They had gotten rid of milk delivery, ice delivery, most of their gas range, evening paper, and they had sold their car. The only reason they survived the Great Depression was because of the father's willingness to take any job, and the mother's ability to stretch every penny as far as it could

The era of the Great Depression was by far the worst shape the United States had ever been in, both economically and physically. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and began to bring relief with his New Deal. In his first 100 days as President, sixteen pieces of legislation were passed by Congress, the most to be passed in a short amount of time. Roosevelt was re-elected twice, and quickly gained the trust of the American people. Many of the New Deal policies helped the United States economy greatly, but some did not. One particularly contradictory act was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was later declared unconstitutional by Congress. Many things also stayed very consistent in

“It was not so much a matter of finding a job as of filling in with odd jobs whatever you could, and most “jobs” were those you made for yourself.” The Great depression was a time in the early 1930’s that closed many banks and left thousands of people out of business, which led to a depression to many. During the depression there wasn’t water, if it did rain it was very little and wasn’t enough to support the crops. Farmers weren’t able to grow many crops which lead to citizens not having a big enough food supply, however many kept trying to grow crops and didn’t give up. Not only did to many people get unemployed rising but also many people couldn’t find a new job.

Roosevelt passed three acts right in a row: the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, a bill that paid farmers to abandon their farms to end agricultural surpluses and to boost prices, and the National Industrial Recovery Act allowed workers to try to push for higher wages. FDR was trying to satisfy the poor and not just the wealthy (Staff, History.com, “The Great Depression”). According to Michael P. Johnson, FDR said that it may seem that people are giving up but they shouldn’t be because the country is just going through a process of change (160-161). In his Speech to the Commonwealth, FDR said that his New Deal plan would help the US get out of the depression that they have been set into.

“This Nation asks for action; and action now” (pg.92). Referring to the New Deal, included was living standards and to prevent future crisis. A goal was to get people back to work. One of the groups that were hit the hardest due to the Great Depression was Farmers. There was an overproduction of products and not enough people consuming or buying their products. Around World War I, prices of crops were very low and the farmers were not making any income, leaving the farmers in trouble when the depression rolled around. With the New Deal, FDR established Agricultural Adjustment Act and prices of crops were raised.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act in Great Depression Era in 1933 was a the United States federal law, part of the New Deal, which reduced agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus in order to effectively raise the value of crops. This act represented a transformation about government’s role playing in the country. Before the period, the government only taxed import or export; it didn’t touch economy. But the AAA showed that government started to have power to change its economy.

The new production caused an increase in the need of workers, thus causing the unemployment rate to decrease. One way the New Deal was able to give jobs to the jobless was via the Civilian Conservation Corps. This program gave jobs to civilians between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; they were planting trees, building dams, and stopping the erosion of the soil. By August of 1933, 300,000 men were at work. Roosevelt also aided the farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This act helped farmers meet their mortgages, which went hand in hand with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. Through these acts the government used millions of dollars to try to relieve farmers' economic crises. But by doing this, Roosevelt caused an increase in the national debt.