The New Deal from 1933 to 1941

New Deal 1933-1941

Chapter 27, entitled The New Deal, chronicles Franklin Delano Roosevelt's plan for extricating the United States from the Great Depression through policies that came to be known as 'The New Deal.' The chapter focuses on Roosevelt's early and more controversial plans before the events of World War II propelled America into European and Asian affairs and stimulated the economy into a rapid state of mobilization after a time of initial, cautious clinging to isolationism.

The first hundred days of the Roosevelt Administration, given Roosevelt's desperation to stimulate the American economy, oversaw an alphabet soup of government created industry and administrative bodies, and eventually took the form of such noteworthy organizations as: The National Recovery Administration (NRA), The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), and The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) the last of which brought electricity to areas of the United States that had never enjoyed such power. The TVA proved to be one of the most popular and successful embodiments of the so-called New Deal Spirit and optimism that gripped the hearts of dispirited Americans of the time. Roosevelt even made outreaches to disenfranchised Native Americans during this tumultuous and formative period of 20th century American history.

One need look no further than works of literature as The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck to see how deeply the unemployment rate had impacted the American spirit of economic expansiveness and optimism of the 1920's. The New Deal infused Americans with much needed confidence and hope in the future. The chapter, however, also chronicles the rise of the so-called social extremists of the era, including the dominating, controlling Governor Huey Long of Louisiana and the conservative Catholic radio priest Father Coughlin, as well as the more radical socialists of the era. Many politicians and advocates tried to dominate either politics or the media to serve their own personal or extremist ends. The collective although different examples of extremity of such men as Long and Coughlin can seen as embodying the desperation of the times.