When Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) took presidential
office in 1933, nearly twenty five percent of the workforce was
unemployed, so he initiated a number of assistance programs, called
the New Deal. The New Deal consisted of the two stages, the First
Hundred Days/ First New Deal and the Second New Deal, and there
were three goals of the New Deal programs, including relief, recovery,
and reform.
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was one of
the beginning First Hundred Day relief programs and it was only
supposed to be temporary, but it lasted longer than expected.
The FERA was set up in May of 1933 to coordinate and increase
federal unemployment assistance to the states. Harry Hopkins,
Roosevelt's most trusted advisor, ran the FERA from 1933 to 1935,
distributing $500,000,000 through states and to the unemployed.
However, The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 replaced
the FERA with the Works Process Administration (WPA). The WPA
was most important cultural New Deal program and the launch of
the Second New Deal. It was set up to operate a nation-wide program
of "small useful projects" designed to provide employment
for needy employable workers, who built bridges, roads, public
buildings, public parks, airports, and swimming pools.
This program employed more than 8.5 million. Under the direction
of Harry Hopkins the WPA spent more than $11 million in employment
relief before it ended in 1943. The WPA employed women along with
men, in the areas of sewing, bookbinding, caring for the elderly,
nursery school, and recreational work.
The Federal Project One was a separate section of the WPA, which
included five major divisions: the Federal Art Project (FAP),
the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal
Writers Project and the Historical Records Survey. At its height
in 1936, the FAP employed 5,300 visual artists and it funded creation
of 2,566 murals and 17,744 pieces of sculpture that decorated
public buildings nationwide. A former conductor of the Cleveland
Symphony directed the Federal Music Project, which employed around
16,000 musicians at its peak. The Federal Theatre Project employed
12,700 theater workers at its peak, and presented more than 1,000
performances each month. The Federal Writers Project employed
6,686 writers at its peak in April 1936, with active projects
in all 48 states. In fact, John Steinbeck wrote in California
for the Writers Project.
One important administration that began in
The First Hundred Days was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
At the end of its nine years of existence, the CCC had ultimately
employed 2.5 million young men on conservation and restoration
projects. It paid young men to work on environmental projects
such as replacing forests, draining swamps, creating firebreaks
and reservoirs, clearing beaches and campgrounds, and restoring
national parks.
The program had great public support, with young men flocking
to enroll. A poll of Republicans supported it by 67 percent, and
95 percent of all Californians liked it. A Chicago judge thought
the CCC was largely responsible for a 55 percent reduction in
crime by the young men of that day.
The impact of mandatory, monthly $25.00 allotment checks to families
was felt in the economy of the cities and towns across the nation.
The men were working hard and eating well while improving millions
of acres of federal/state land. By the end of 1935, there were
over 2,650 camps in operation in all states with 505,782 men enrolled.
The second goal of the New Deal was the recovery
programs. National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) tried to make
a basic change in the relationship between the government and
economic life of the country. The NIRA laws regulated the size
of businesses and industries to assure economic competition. The
NIRA set up the better-known Nation Recovery Administration (NRA),
which drew up codes specifying maximum hours of labor, minimum
wages, and standards of fair business practice that specific businesses
had to comply with. As time went on, specific codes were made
for all different industries, and one code even abolished child
labor. The NRA was established with excitement and great publicity
and a fierce looking eagle served as the symbol, saying, "We
do our Part" soon became a familiar sight in the 30s. All
employers who signed to the codes were allowed to display the
Blue Eagle posters and stickers. The NRA at first seemed to be
a large success. At the high point, unemployment was cut by about
2,000,000 but efforts to enforce the codes were unsuccessful.
The NIRA also included Public Works Administration (PWA), which
was mainly a recovery agency that helped construct and rebuild
many public projects. The PWA rebuilt city halls, courthouses,
sewage plants, bridges, hospitals, schools, military airports
and public housing in the 1930s. Its purpose was to stimulate
economy, not by directly creating jobs, but by constructing facilities
that would need large amounts of machinery and would provide jobs
for thousands of workers in the built facilities. However, the
Supreme Court declared the NIRA and NRA as unconstitutional in
1935.
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal politics had
profound effects on the US government. On August 14th, 1935, FDR
and Congress signed the Social Security Act. It established a
federal was most widely known for the old-age assistance, in which
workers reaching sixty-five years old were eligible for retirement
benefits depending upon how much they had contributed in taxes
over their lifetimes. Many believe that Social Security was the
New Deal's most important legacy. It established for the first
time that the federal government had a social responsibility for
the welfare of its citizens.
During the time of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt also
gave entertaining talks called 'Fireside Chats', which showed
the federal government's closeness to the people. These talks
were informal radio talks that were staged during dinnertime,
used to boost the nation's confidence, support in the New Deal,
and in the new programs. Roosevelt was the first president to
master the technique of reaching people over the radio. Roosevelt
talked of serious politics, such as bank closures and unemployment
in a light and entertaining way. The fireside chats changed the
federal government into an institution that was directly experienced.
People now believed the government was interested in their welfare,
as it was a source of relief payments, served food, and taxed
for Social Security. As the role of the government shifted, so
did people's interests and views about it.
Works Cited
Images:
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Text:
Kennedy, David, M. Freedom From Fear, The American
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