What is the New deal?
“The present condition of our national affairs is too serious to be viewed through partisan eyes for partisan purposes" (9). After World War II, America faced the Great Depression with huge debts. The president at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt came up with economic programs, collectively known as the New Deal, to improve America’s diminishing economy. He focused on three R’s: relief, recovery and reform. Relief was for taking immediate action to stop the economy from getting worse such as programs as Bank Holiday, Emergency Banking Act, Federal Emergency Relief Act, Civil Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps; recovery was to restart the economy using temporary programs through Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, Home Owners Loan Corp, Works Progress Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority; and reform was for permanent programs to avoid another depression through Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Social Security Administration, National Labor Relations Act and National Labors Relations Board, and Soil Conservation Act. Citizens of America were desperate for a change from the economic depression and were largely relying on the president. As soon as FDR became the president of the United States, he took actions immediately and called on Congress to start “Hundred Days” which was a special session to launch his New Deal programs. Congress ratified every single law that FDR requested, making FDR the first president to enact as many laws in history.
In FDR's radio address, he introduced the New Deal:
These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the
indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the
top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Obviously,
these few minutes tonight permit no opportunity to lay down the ten or a dozen closely related objectives of a plan to
meet our present emergency, but I can draw a few essentials, a beginning in fact, of a planned program (9).
In FDR's radio address, he introduced the New Deal:
These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the
indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the
top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Obviously,
these few minutes tonight permit no opportunity to lay down the ten or a dozen closely related objectives of a plan to
meet our present emergency, but I can draw a few essentials, a beginning in fact, of a planned program (9).
The main purpose of the New Deal was to get the United States out of the Great Depression; to get people employed, keep the economy in the United States flowing, and make the value of a dollar stronger. In his speech, he referred to "the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid" as the people who were usually unrecognized in the society. For example, the Mexican Americans were the ones who were at the very bottom of the economic pyramid. They were the foundation to the American economy because they worked for inexpensive wages. Often, only rich people were recognized and others were left being unemployed. He talked about bringing up the population from the bottom to up, which meant to include not only the higher class of people but other races and lower classes of people. FDR aimed to provide an equal opportunity and beneficial programs for all the range from children to elderly and the poor to the rich.
Even though the New Deal programs tried to improve economic opportunity for Americans, it ended up leaving certain groups of people such as African Americans, Native Americans, migrant workers, low-income families, and women at a disadvantage, and with less opportunities than before.
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
We have created this website that discusses the disadvantages, as well as the lowering of opportunity that was forced upon several groups of people due to certain act and programs created by the New Deal. Under the disadvantages tab, you can navigate your way through these discussions to see exactly how these groups of people were negatively affected during this period of time.
