Stemming from a multitude of circumstances such as the Stock Market Crash of 1929, European war debt, The Dust Bowl, etc, the United States entered an era of mass unemployment and economic failure known as, “The Great Depression”. During the Great Depression, 25% of Americans were out of work, deflation was rampant, businesses, banks, and factories were closing, and many Americans, tired of the economic conditions in their country, fled to join the Soviet Union to help build communism. Amidst a seemingly downward spiral of failure, something had to be done to restore this country to its rightful self. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, he proposed a series of “New Deal Programs” to help rejuvenate the United States, as he promised he would do in his inaugural address. One of these “New Deal Programs” was the Works Progress Administration, which allowed for the development of large-scale public works and infrastructure, in turn creating jobs, as Roosevelt had promised in his inaugural address, stating, “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work”. The end result …show more content…
At its peak, the Works Progress Administration had 3.3 million workers employed, and employed 8.5 million total workers over its eight-year tenure, helping contribute to a 10% decrease in unemployment by 1940 (source). Once employed, workers would receive modest wages depending on factors such as the region of the country, the degree of urbanization, and the individual's skill. Wages ranged from $19 per month to $94 per month, with the average wage being about $52.50—$893.00 in present-day terms. The increased wages were to incentivize increased spending amongst Americans to help stimulate economic growth in an effort to end the depression
The New Deal was a series of federal programs launched in the United Sates by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in reaction to the Great Depression.
The Great Depression era was a dark moment in history for American economic history, however often times we overlook the tremendous response from our federal government. President Roosevelt used the power of the presidency to pass several monumental pieces of economic legislation such as the Emergency Banking Act and the Glass-Steagall Act. Roosevelt’s administration also passed legislation that formulated various social programs such as the Public Works Program and the Federal Housing Authority. These programs were largely focused on providing temporary relief for American citizens. Furthermore, many Americans were employed to construct parks, roads, and bridges. World War II also played a big part in stimulating the American economy during this time period. Citizens at home were able to work on machinery and other military accessories to supply the troops during the war. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration brought America through the most difficult economic time in its history and they ushered in pragmatic progressive economic policies.
“Confidence and courage are the essentials in our plan,” declared Franklin Roosevelt. To what plan was Roosevelt talking about? To the New Deal. The New Deal would end the depravity of the banks, the overproduction of farms, and the level of unemployment.
During the era of Herbert Hoover of 1929, America suffered a great down fall of the Great Depression where the stock market crashed leaving 36% of Americans in unemployment and Bank Runs where Americans withdrew their money from banks before the banks could spend what was left. The suffrage from the Great Depression caused many Americans to dislike Hoover so in the next election of 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt won America over by creating the New Deal Order which consisted of the New Deal Coalition for farmers and the New Deal Liberalism. The New Deal promised the three R’s: relief, recovery and reform for America. Also, it offered government programs such as social security and the Federal Housing Administration to help Americans during the suffrage. One of the greatest successes other than Social Security was the Bank Relief Act which brought America out of the Great Depression and allowed banks to stay open. The only failure from the New Deal order that FDR started was that
From the 1870s to the 20th century, America has underwent many different challenges and changes. History deems the beginning of this period as the era of Reconstruction. Its overall goal was to focus on reviving America to increase the social, cultural and economic quality of the United States. Ideally from the beginning, Americans sought out to be economically independent, as opposed to being economically dependent. Unfortunately the traditional dream of families owning their own lands and businesses eventually became archaic. The government not maintaining the moral well-being of the American society not only caused Americans to not trust the government, but it also created a long strand of broken promises that the government provided to them. Many things support this idea, from an economic standpoint lies the Great Depression, to the social/militant platform of the Cold War, and the cultural/civil issues related to race and women's suffrage. Overall history supports the idea that sometimes democracy
Relief came in the form of public works. Many unemployed people were put to work on government financed public works projects, such as building highways, airports, and bridges. From 1933 to 1935, $3.3 billion was spent on these public projects. Food stamp programs, a welfare program that provides stamps to lower/no income people to allow them to purchase food. FDR believed in the reform and recovery of rural areas would allow for the depression to heal and enacted several groups (i.e. Tennessee Valley Authority, National Youth Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps) and several laws (i.e. the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Rural Electrification Act) in order to combat poverty in rural areas.
Priest Coughlin, once said “Roosevelt or ruin” but at the end he understood it was “Roosevelt and ruin”. After the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929, a period of unemployment, panic, and a very low economy; struck the U.S. Also known as The Great Depression. But in 1933, by just being given presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) would try to stop this devastation with a program, that he named New Deal, design to fix this issue so called The Great Depression.Unfortunately this new program wasn’t successful because FDR didn’t understand the causes of the Great Depression, it made the government had way too much power over their economy and industry, it focused mostly on direct relief and it didn’t help the minorities.
By 1929, America was also suffering from the Great Depression that struck the world, which led to a tremendous increase in poverty and unemployment, and which battered the economy. The United States needed a way to solve it; Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a solution to end it and get the Americans back on their feet: the New Deal. Nonetheless, this measure might have not been enough.
“The Great Depression was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world.” (The Great Depression)
Coming into the 1930’s, the United States underwent a severe economic recession, referred to as the Great Depression. Resulting in high unemployment and poverty rates, deflation, and an unstable economy, the Great Depression considerably hindered American society. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was nominated to succeed the spot of presidency, making his main priority to revamp and rebuild the United States, telling American citizens “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people," (“New” 2). The purpose of the New Deal was to expand the Federal Government, implementing authority over big businesses, the banking system, the stock market, and agricultural production. Through the New Deal, acts were passed to stimulate the economy, aid banks, alleviate environmental problems, eliminate poverty, and create a stronger central government (“New”1).
Roosevelt, Roosevelt enacted the New Deal, a series of programs and initiatives that assisted many Americans in bringing stability back to the American economy and society. The First New Deal was launched in 1933. As many Americans lost their homes, jobs and life savings due to the Great Depression, the First New Deal focused on economic recovery (Foner, 815). President Roosevelt believed it was the government’s responsibility to guarantee every man the right to make a comfortable living (Foner, 810). Successively, he created many governmental jobs to assist the unemployed. In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created (Foner, 805). This program set young men up to work on forest preservation projects, flood control, and improving national parks and wildlife (Foner, 805). This program helped over 3 million American men, by paying governmental wages to the workers (Foner, 805). Following the CCC, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was formed (Foner, 806). This program contracted with private construction agencies to build useful infrastructure around the United States, and was appropriated $3.3 billion to carryout the plan (Foner, 806). Trailing the PWA, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was constructed. This program was much like the PWA, instead of contracting with private businesses, the CWA directly hired workers for construction projects (Foner, 806). These programs worked to get men back to
The stock market crash of October 1929 brought the economic prosperity of the 1920s to an abrupt halt. For the next ten years, the United States was thrown into a deep economic depression. By 1933, the unemployment rate had soared to 25%, up from 3% in 1929. Industrial production declined by approximately 50%, and international trade plunged 30%. This period in history is known as The Great Depression. The Great Depression plunged the American people into an economic crisis unlike anyone had ever experienced in history. Millions of hardworking individuals fell into poverty. Many lost their homes and lived on the street. Many more suffered from mass starvation. Overall, people lost their sense of pride and national spirit for America. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, when the economy was in a time of complete failure. Right away, Roosevelt took to not only helping the economy but also reviving the American morale after this tough era. Roosevelt implemented a series of executive actions, creating programs and new Federal agencies to help revive the economy. Together this was called The New Deal. One of the agencies that was created was called The Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was created in order to put millions of unemployed Americans to work through governmental projects. Over a period of 8 years, the WPA spent over 3.3 billion dollars on public projects, some of which are still used today. Simultaneously as the United States struggled valiantly to climb out of the Great Depression, the threat of another crisis, a World War, loomed over the US. In June of 1939, the United States army only had 185,000 men enlisted. The need for a stronger, m...
Several of the policies created to specifically help the jobless during that time were, Emergency Relief Appropriations Act (1935) run by the Public Works Administration (PWA), designed for the construction of public building, roads, dams and other projects. Federal Project No. 1, also run by PWA, gave jobs to writers, musicians, and artist.
14 million Americans unemployed and unable to provide for their family or themselves. Starving children lined the streets, while men were out desperately searching for any means of pay. The Great Depression hit America hard in 1929. The President at the time was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and many claim that he was the perfect man to help America out of the financial mess it was buried deep in. Mr. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 to create jobs for the millions of unemployed Americans. As head of WPA, Roosevelt chose his close and trustworthy friend, Harry J. Hopkins, to be in charge of the program. Even though the WPA had it’s fair number of critics, it helped employ millions of poor, low class families during the Great Depression which not only made it a successful program that benefitted society as a whole, but truly united America.
With the 1930's came The Great Depression followed soon after with the election of Franklin Deleno Roosevelt as U.S. President. His administration was responsible for many reform programs designed to help Americans get back on their feet again. President Roosevelt called it the "New Deal". As part of the New Deal, a program called the WPA was created. When I asked my mother what that stood for she replied "I can't remember the real name, we called it "We Poke Along". In my research, I uncovered the real name - Works Progress Administration. It was created in 1935 to combat unemployment at a time when it was at an all time high of 25%. The WPA employed 9 million people in various public works projects between l935 and 1943 of which my grandfather was one. They built roads, schools, dams, etc., which did a lot to improve their communities in those days; in addition, it provided a means to put food back on the table. My mother remembers little from these early days except that there was not a lot to eat then, potato soup and beans being the constant staple. She and others who survived The Great Depression wanted t...