THE NEW DEAL

I. The Election of 1932:
Herbert Hoover vs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

II. THE NEW DEAL
--RELIEF, RECOVERY, REFORM—

A. RELIEF:
1. work relief:

1935--1943
WPA --employed 8.5 million americans
--spent $10.5 billion
--constructed 651,087 miles of roads
--125,110 public buildings
--8192 parks
--853 airports
-- built or repaired 124,087 bridges

2. direct assistance

B. RECOVERY:
1. industry:
2. agriculture:

C. REFORM:

1. Social Security Act:
2. Emergency Banking Act:

Was the New Deal Successful?

III. OTHER RESPONSES TO THE DEPRESSION:
A. Cultural Responses
B. Political Responses from the Left:
1. Huey Long, "Share Our Wealth"

2. Dr. Townsend, "Old Age Revolving
Pension"
3. Father Coughlin, "Social Justice"
C. Political Responses from the Right:
1. Father Coughlin turns Right

2. William Dudley Pelly's "Silver Shirts"

IV. SIGNIFICANCE:
A. desperate times require desperate policy
B. changing expectation of govt. involvement


"It is my contention that no one should be allowed to write about FDR who did not experience that era. It really is one of those cases of you had to be there. Roosevelt may be a myth...today, but 60 years ago that myth looked more like hope. In his fireside chats, he turned our Philco radios into shrines, and when he said that America could not afford to live with one-third of a nation ill-housed and ill-fed, we thought he would do something about it. And he did."

Daniel Schorr, "The FDR 'Myth': You Had To Be There," Christian Science Monitor, 25 October 1996