Chapter Twenty-Four

The Great Depression and the New Deal,

1929–1940

Chapter Focus Questions

1. What were the causes and consequences of the Great Depression?

2. What characterized the politics of hard times?

3. Who was Franklin D. Roosevelt and what were the two New Deals?

4. How did the federal sphere expand in the West?

5. What characterized American cultural life during the 1930s?

6. What were the legacies and limits of New Deal reform?

Sit-Down Strike at Flint:

Automobile Workers Organize a New Union

Sit-Down Strike at Flint

In 1937, the community of Flint, Michigan, went on strike at the General Motors plant. The depression hit this auto-producing town very hard. The United Auto Workers attempted to take advantage of the Wagner Act and organize a union, but GM resisted them. Strikers seized two GM plants and refused to leave. Supported by the governor, the strikers resisted efforts to eject them. The community rallied to support the strikers. GM gave in and recognized the UAW, a move that the other automakers soon followed.

24.1:

Hard Times

A. The Bull Market and the Crash

1. During the 1920s, stock prices rose rapidly. 2. Investors were lured by easy-credit policies like buying

on margin. 3. The market peaked in early September 1929, drifted

down until late October, and crashed on October 29. 4. By mid-November, the market had lost half of its value. 5. Buyers on margin faced paying hard cash to the cover

the loans they received for purchasing stock that sold well below what they had originally paid.

6. Few people predicted that a depression would follow.

Stockbrokers, their customers, and employees of the New York Stock Exchange gather nervously on Wall Street during the stock market crash of 1929. October 29 was the worst single day in the 112-year history of the exchange, as panic selling caused many stocks to lose half their value. SOURCE:Brown Brothers.

B. Underlying Weakness

1. The crash did not cause the depression but revealed the underlying economic weakness.

2. Industrial growth during the 1920s had not been accompanied by comparable increases in wages or farm income.

3. The gap between rich and poor widened, as did that between production and consumption.

C. Mass Unemployment

1. The stock market crash led manufacturers to decrease spending and lay off workers. Weak consumer demand and bank runs turned the slump into a depression.

2. By 1933, nearly one-third of the labor force was out of work.

3. Unemployment took a tremendous personal toll and undermined the traditional authority of the male breadwinner. Chart: Unemployment, 1929–1945

Isaac Soyer’s Employment Agency, a 1937 oil painting, offered one of the decade’s most sensitive efforts at depicting the anxiety and sense of isolation felt by millions of depression-era job hunters. SOURCE:Isaac Soyer,Employment Agency ,1937.Oil on canvas,(87 x114.3cm) 34 1/2” x 45”.Whitney Museum of American

Art,New York.

Dorothea Lange captured the lonely despair of unemployment in White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco, 1933. During the 1920s, Lange had specialized in taking portraits of wealthy families, but by 1932, she could no longer stand the contradiction between her portrait business and “what was going on in the street.” She said of this photograph: “There are moments such as these when time stands still and all you can do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you.” SOURCE:Copyright,the Dorothea Lange Collection,The Oakland Museum of California,City of Oakland.Gift of Paul S.Taylor.

D. Hoover’s Failure

1. The enormity of the depression overwhelmed traditional sources of relief.

2. President Hoover seemed unable to accept the facts of the depression. He vetoed measures to aid the unemployed.

3. His Reconstruction Finance Corporation failed to restore business confidence.

4. Efforts to make government credit available saved banks but did not encourage business growth.

E. Protest and the Election of 1932

1. In 1932, protests erupted throughout the country, including the Bonus Army of veterans in Washington.

2. The Democrats, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, won a massive electoral victory.

MAP 24.1 The Election of 1932 Democrats owed their overwhelming victory in 1932 to the popular identification of the depression with the Hoover administration. Roosevelt’s popular vote was about the same as Hoover’s in 1928, and FDR’s Electoral College margin was even greater.

24.2:

FDR and the First New Deal

A. FDR the Man

1. FDR came from a privileged New York background.

2. His rapid rise in politics came to a halt when he was stricken with polio.

3. The experience changed him, allowing him personally to understand struggle and hardship.

4. He served two terms as governor of New York where he:

a. established a reputation as a reformer

b. put together the “brain trust” to help him implement changes

This New Yorker magazine cover depicted an ebullient Franklin D. Roosevelt riding to his 1933 inauguration in the company of a glum Herbert Hoover. This drawing typified many mass-media images of the day, contrasting the different moods and temperaments of the new President and the defeated incumbent. SOURCE:By Peter Arno,March 4,1933.Franklin D.Roosevelt Library.

B. Restoring Confidence

1. To restore confidence, on his first full day as president, FDR called for a four-day “bank holiday.”

2. In his fireside chat a week later, he told Americans of the steps he had taken, strengthening public faith in his ability to help.

3. Congress passed legislation that strengthened the banking system, helping to avert the immediate banking crisis.

A recruitment poster represents the Civilian Conservation Corps as much more than simply an emergency relief measure, stressing character building and the opportunity for self-improvement. By the time the CCC expired in 1942, it had become one of the most popular of all the New Deal programs. SOURCE:Albert M.Bender,CCC—A Young Man ’s Opportunity for Work, Play,Study,and Health , 1941.© Corbis.

C. The Hundred Days

FDR called a special “hundred days” session of Congress to enact his program to revive industry and agriculture while providing emergency relief.

24.3:

Left Turn and the Second New Deal

A. Roosevelt’s Critics 1. Critics from the right lambasted the New Deal as being

socialistic. 2. More troublesome for FDR were critics who claimed the New

Deal had been too timid including:a. Upton Sinclair lost the California gubernatorial election race in

which he called for a government-run production system. b. Francis Townsend called for providing $200 monthly payments

to all persons over 60. c. Huey Long, who served as governor and then as senator for

Louisiana, called for a “Share Our Wealth” program to redistribute wealth. Long’s assassination in 1936 ended his probable third-party candidacy.

3. Strikes and street demonstrations added to the pressure.

B. The Second Hundred Days

FDR responded by shifting leftward.

C. Labor’s Upsurge: Rise of the CIO

1. A militant group within the AFL formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), later the Congress of Industrial Organizations, to organize mass-production workers.

2. Led by John Lewis of the United Mine Workers, the CIO drew upon communists and other radicals to engage in the dangerous task of building industrial unions.

3. The success at the Flint GM plant led to victories in other industries.

4. The reinvigorated labor movement took a place as a key power broker in FDR’s New Deal coalition.

Philip Evergood, American Tragedy (1937). A classic example of the social realism characteristic of much depression-era art, this painting depicts the police violence against strikers at the Republic Steel Mill. Evergood was one of many artists who found work in the Federal Art Project, painting murals in public buildings. SOURCE:American Tragedy ,1937,oil on canvas, 29 1/2” x 39 1/2”. Private Collection,Terry Dintenfass Gallery.Photo by Philip Evergood.

D. The New Deal Coalition at High Tide

1. FDR easily won re-election in 1936. 2. His supporters included:

a. traditional white southern Democratsb. big-city political machinesc. trade unionistsd. depression-hit farmerse. ethnic voters

24.4:

The New Deal in the South and West

A. Southern Farming and Landholding

1. In 1930, less than ½ of all southern farmer owned their land; over ¾ of the region’s African-American farmers and nearly ½ of its white farmers were sharecroppers or tenants.

2. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) was able to boost prices by paying farmers to “plow under—take their land out of production.

3. Many of the subsidies went to large landowners who used the money to buy labor-saving machinery, which put many out of work.

4. Those who were put out of work were forced to migrate to industrial centers such as Memphis, Chicago, Birmingham, and Detroit.

B. The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl, caused by farmers’ methods that stripped the landscape of its natural vegetation and left nothing behind to hold down the topsoil, swept through parts of the region.

MAP 24.2 The Dust Bowl, 1935–40 This map shows the extent of the Dust Bowl in the Southern Great Plains. Federal programs designed to improve soil conservation, water management, and farming practices could not prevent a mass exodus of hundreds of thousands out of the Great Plains.

Years of Dust. This 1936 poster by the artist and photographer Ben Shahn, served to publicize the work of the Resettlement Administration, which offered aid to destitute farm families hit hard by the Dust Bowl. Shahn’s stark imagery here was typical of the documentary aesthetic associated with Depression-era art and photography. SOURCE:The Granger Collection.

C. The Government and the Dust Bowl

1. Farmers were encouraged to plant soil-enriching crops. 2. The Soil Conservation Service provided assistance to

farmers engaged in conservation work. 3. The AAA provided subsidies to farmers who reduced

their acreage. 4. As landowners reduced acreage by evicting their tenants

and sharecroppers, these families became part of a stream of “Okies.”

5. Responding to rising racial hostility, officials carried out an aggressive deportation campaign against Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

24.6:

The Limits of Reform

A. Court Packing

1. By 1937, the New Deal was in retreat. 2. FDR became frustrated when the Supreme Court

overturned several key New Deal programs.3. He asked Congress to allow him to appoint a

number of new judges. 4. New Deal sympathizers feared this would disrupt

the constitutional balance and blocked the effort. 5. In time FDR got a more sympathetic court, but

the battle cost him heavily.

B. The Women’s Network

1. The New Deal brought significant changes for women.

2. Women who had been engaged in reform work increased their influence.

3. Eleanor Roosevelt promoted a number of reforms, particularly around issues pertinent to women.

4. The New Deal saw the first female Cabinet member, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, a long-time reformer.

5. New Deal agencies opened up spaces for many women, particularly in social welfare programs.

C. A New Deal for Minorities?

1. The New Deal did not directly combat racism. 2. NRA codes allowed for lower wages for black workers. 3. Blacks were among the people left unprotected by the

gaps in New Deal reforms, such as Social Security. 4. FDR banned discrimination in WPA projects, leaving

African Americans to find jobs. A “Black Cabinet” led by Mary McLeod Bethune advised FDR on black issues and got a number of second-level positions opened up.

5. By 1936, a majority of black voters supported the Democrats.

6. The New Deal did little to help Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt rides with miners in a flag-decorated car during a visit to the mining town of Bellaire, Ohio in 1935. Mrs. Roosevelt was more outspoken than the President in championing the rights of labor and African Americans, and she actively used her prestige as First Lady in support of social justice causes. SOURCE:AP Wide World Photos,New York.

E. The Roosevelt Recession

1. By 1937, FDR had become convinced that the federal deficit had grown too large.

2. He cut spending, creating a severe recession that increased unemployment and weakened popular support for the New Deal.

3. The 1938 elections increased Republican strength and made further reforms nearly impossible.