DBQ – The New Deal
Although Roosevelt is highly praised as an amazing leader during the great depression, one can argue it was the circumstances that put him in his position that made him famous. The New Deal was only partially successful, not entirely. There were parts of it that just didn’t work as much as they should have. For the most part, in more ways than one, historians argue that Roosevelt was not aggressive enough to help the economy. But what it did bring to the table was an end to purely laissez-faire policies – the US was beginning to shed traditional values in favor of European economic aspects. Sure, conservatives whined that every baby step away from capitalism was a monstrous leap toward socialism and even communism. But a little government intervention, especially in a time of crisis, goes a long way.
Socially, Roosevelt’s New Deal was ineffective for women, but moderately effective for the elderly and disabled. The status of women did not improve at all during this time. In fact, women were quite overworked and underpaid – the majority of women who worked from noon to sun were never done. According to New Masses, the author questions where all the women have gone. “They obviously don’t sleep…yet there must be as many women out of jobs in cities and suffering extreme poverty as there are men”. The answer – women had to support their families. Cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping, as they had been throughout histories, were all womanly concerns. Women were also severely underpaid during this time. For the elderly and disabled, it was a different story, as advertised by the “monthly check to you” poster. Social Security provided welfare and relief efforts to the elderly and disabled, in effort to quiet whiner...
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...ccessful in alleviating the Great Depression. Roosevelt was successful in reducing unemployment one can argue, and data can prove it. But one can also argue that the administration’s bold bumbling in some areas caused the neglect of others. The New Deal was not entirely successful at changing the US economy forever. The moderate nature of Roosevelt’s programs and undecided dabbling here and there led to no large leaps in any economic enclave. FDR took baby steps and instead of making any large kickstart deficits spread the funding in a shy and evenly balanced budget. By the 1940’s Roosevelt had succeeded in preserving America’s trademark capitalism (no pun intended) with a thin veneer of Federal meddling. It was success – but it was a low-quality success. A success filled to the brim with numerous hiccups and blemishes that trickled down into all parts of society.
The Roosevelt administration's response to the Great Depression served to remedy some of the temporary employment problems, while drastically changing the role of the government, but failed to return the American economy to the levels of prosperity enjoyed during the 1920's.
Still, Roosevelt's historical reputation is deservedly high. In attacking the Great Depression he did much to develop a partial welfare state in the United States and to make the federal government an agent of social and economic reform. His administration indirectly encouraged the rise of organized labor and greatly invigorated the Democratic party. His foreign policies, while occasionally devious, were shrewd enough to sustain domestic unity and the allied coalition in World War II. Roosevelt was a president of stature.
President Franklin Roosevelt was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States. He created economic stability when the United States was suffering through the Great Depression. In his first three months of office, known as the Hundred Days, Roosevelt took immediate action to help the struggling nation.1 "In a period of massive unemployment, a collapsed stock market, thousands of banks closing for lack of liquidity, and agricultural prices fallen below the cost of production," Roosevelt passed a series of relief measures.2 These relief measures, known as the New Deal, provided help for individuals and businesses to prevent bankruptcy. Also, the New Deal is responsible for social security, welfare, and national parks. A further reason why Roosevelt is considered a great president is because he was a good role model for being determined in his...
The threat to free enterprise challenged the American economy because up to this point, industry was privately owned and responsible for itself.... ... middle of paper ... ... Franklin D. Roosevelt “cast a long shadow on successors” with his New Deal program. Conservatives were constantly worried about the loss of their capitalist economy, but it is possible that Roosevelt’s greatest New Deal achievement is the fact he never allowed America to completely abandon democracy or turn to socialism or communism.
Through his many programs designed to help the economy, laborers, and all people lacking civil rights, President Roosevelt did not put an end to the Great Depression. However, he did adapt the federal government to a newly realized role of protector for the people. Perhaps Roosevelt’s greatest blunders occurred in his attempts to fix the economy. The Nation claimed that “some [of his programs] assisted and some retarded the recovery of industrial activity.” They went so far as to say that “six billion dollars was added to the national debt.”
President Roosevelt initiated the only program that could pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s New Deal got the country through one of the worst financial catastrophe the U.S. has ever been through. Diggerhistory.info biography on FDR states,” In March 13 million people were unemployed… In his first “Hundred Days”, he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and those in danger of losing their farms and homes”(Digger History Biography 1). Roosevelt’s first hundred days brought relief to the unemployed. He opened the AAA (Agriculture Adjustment Administration) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps.). The administration employed many young men in need of jobs all around the country. Roosevelt knew that the economy’s biggest problem was the widespread unemployment. Because of Roosevelt’s many acts and agencies, lots of young men and women around the country were getting jobs so the economy was healing. According to Roosevelt’s biography from the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, “Another Flurry of New Deal Legislation followed in 1935, including the WPA (Work Projects Admi...
...pression. It was this that created Hoover’s conservative image. Moreover, Hoover's opinions changed from being against any government interference in the economy to being in support of the government encouraging employment by creating more jobs. Hoover differed from most presidents represented in Schlesinger's theory because touched upon private interest, transition, and public purpose, all within the one term of his presidency. Roosevelt was falsely credited with ending the Great Depression as a result of the success of his many programs instituted with the purpose of fighting against unemployment. He is therefore recognized by many as the more effective of the two presidents, which would then indicate that liberalism was more effectual than conservative ideas. However, in reality, Roosevelt was little more successful than Hoover in ending the Great Depression.
Assessment of the Success of the New Deal FDR introduced the New Deal to help the people most affected by the depression of October 1929. The Wall Street Crash of October 24th 1929 in America signalled the start of the depression in which America would fall into serious economic depression. The depression started because some people lost confidence in the fact that their share prices would continue to rise forever, they sold their shares which started a mass panic in which many shares were sold. The rate at which people were selling their shares was so quick that the teleprinters could not keep up, therefore share prices continued to fall making them worthless. Also causing many people to lose their jobs as the owners of factories could not afford to pay the workers wages.
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.
The FDR administration responded well to the challenge of the Great Depression. The Depression was on a scale that had never been seen before, and required an unorthodox response. The administration responded with the New Deal, which had some very successful programs, such as the works programs, and other programs which failed miserably, such as the AAA. The New Deal also made the federal government much more involved with the lives of individual Americans, rather than people as a whole, which it had been.
In his presidential acceptance speech in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed to the citizens of the United States, “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” The New Deal, beginning in 1933, was a series of federal programs designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform to the fragile nation. The U.S. had been both economically and psychologically buffeted by the Great Depression. Many citizens looked up to FDR and his New Deal for help. However, there is much skepticism and controversy on whether these work projects significantly abated the dangerously high employment rates and pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression. The New Deal was a bad deal for America because it only provided opportunities for a few and required too much government spending.
Roosevelt immediately gained the public's favor with his liberal ideas. In the first 100 days, Roosevelt stabilized banks with the Federal Bank Holiday. In the New Deal he fought poverty with the TVA, NRA, AAA, CCC, PWA, and CWA. These policies were definitely liberal in the 1930's and because of the new programs, Roosevelt received false credit for ending the Depression. Ironically Roosevelt succeeded only a little more than Hoover in ending the Depression. Despite tripling expenditures during Roosevelt's administration, (Document F) the American economy did not recover from the Depression until World War II.
The era of the Great Depression was by far the worst shape the United States had ever been in, both economically and physically. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and began to bring relief with his New Deal. In his first 100 days as President, sixteen pieces of legislation were passed by Congress, the most to be passed in a short amount of time. Roosevelt was re-elected twice, and quickly gained the trust of the American people. Many of the New Deal policies helped the United States economy greatly, but some did not. One particularly contradictory act was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was later declared unconstitutional by Congress. Many things also stayed very consistent in the New Deal. For example, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and Social Security, since Americans were looking for any help they could get, these acts weren't seen as a detrimental at first. Overall, Roosevelt's New Deal was a success, but it also hit its stumbling points.
One effect of the Great Depression was the way that he was able to change American culture in such a short time. His actions gave the executive branch of the government an amount of power that they hadn’t ever wielded prior. Presidents of the past would usually just sign what came across their desk. His work with congress initiated all kinds of reform, recovery and relief programs. “Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced programs between 1933 and 1938, designed to help America pull out of the Great Depression by addressing high rates of unemployment and poverty. An array of services, regulations, and subsidies were introduced by FDR and Congress, including widespread work creation programs. The cornerstones of the New Deal were the Public Works Administration and the National Recovery Administration.” (Croft Communications,
The New Deal period has generally - but not unanimously - been seen as a turning point in American politics, with the states relinquishing much of their autonomy, the President acquiring new authority and importance, and the role of government in citizens' lives increasing. The extent to which this was planned by the architect of the New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been greatly contested, however. Yet, while it is instructive to note the limitations of Roosevelt's leadership, there is not much sense in the claims that the New Deal was haphazard, a jumble of expedient and populist schemes, or as W. Williams has put it, "undirected". FDR had a clear overarching vision of what he wanted to do to America, and was prepared to drive through the structural changes required to achieve this vision.