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New Deal Program
The Great Depression hit America in ways that affected everyone, from the richest of the country's society, to the poorest of the urban and rural inhabitants. The stock market crashing left many rich society folk with no wealth, the farmers found themselves without any consumers to buy their overabundance of too-expensive products, and the urban families found themselves precariously scrounging for means of survival, oftentimes going hungry for days on end. This situation certainly set forth the cause for governmental involvement, and by 1933, the FDR administration sought to remedy this catastrophe by constructing the New Deal.
The number of the unemployed before the stock market crashed in 1929 was as low as 4%; however, by 1933, this rate had skyrocketed to around 25%. One in four of the working class could not find work, and thus could not support the livelihoods of their families or themselves. Businesses were floundering, and "unemployed Americans scraped together meager dinners of flour and water and skipped many meals" (Moran, 2011)....
Corporations began to crumble, and many found themselves turning to the government for help, as opposed to the usual capitalistic tendencies of corporate handouts. However, there were downsides to this leaning-to, considering the laws passed by the government seemed to be more detrimental to groups than they were helpful.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal took form in three different stages. In 1933, the administration sought to "stop the economic panic that had engulfed the nation" (Brinkley, 1991); in early 1935, the same administration tried to bolster the first program with another set of reforms; by 1937, a "less productive period of activism" (Brinkley, 1991) commenced and "searched for ways to make the federal bureaucracy more efficient" (Brinkley, 1991). Intending to restore economic demand -- and therefore boost up the American economy -- the government placed laws that ordered farms to steady their prices by plowing the crops and ridding their overstock of pigs. Another set of laws -- as created and authorized by the newly formed National Recovery…
Resources
Bertelli, A. (2010). Congressional Ideology and Administrative Oversight in the New Deal Era. Historical Methods, 43(3), 125-137.
Brinkley, Alan (1991). The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Greider, W. (2011). The End of New Deal Liberalism. (Cover story). Nation, 292(4), 18-23.
Moran, R. (2011). Consuming Relief: Food Stamps and the New Welfare of the New Deal. Journal Of American History, 97(4), 1001-1022.
Thus, when stricter regulations should have been implemented, they were not, and the avoidable became utterly unavoidable. The president Hoover's initial reaction was to allow the market to fix itself, thus going alongside his lassiez-faire beliefs. Yet, he was forced by Congress to act, but did so minimally (Wilkison 1). Thus, it was not long before the nation was in demand of a more hands on president who was
Weak governmental intervention and stubborn responses by overzealous investors led to the stock market crash in October of 1929. Non-existent money artificially inflated the prices of stocks traded on the market and caused firms to produce more than they could sell. When reality hit, it was too late to prevent the market from crashing. President Hoover reacted by stimulating construction and public works projects. Urging firms to keep wages steady
New Deal Assistance President Roosevelt's New Deal Program failed to do enough for those hit hardest by the Depression: Impoverished Afro-American and white citizens working in the rural areas of the U.S., the elderly, and the working class. There are several reasons why these constituents remained outside the reach of the New Deal program. First, there had been in general very little focus on the needs of these constituents. The New
The excessive use of margin had encouraged speculation. Poor governance on the part of banks and brokerages allowed for a market failure where investors were not making rational decisions, resulting in a bubble. A variety of new taxes were created to offset Roosevelt's social programs. The American psyche had been scarred by the abject poverty of such a wide proportion of the population. There was palpable fear and desperation. This
Slavery was more than an economic institution; it had completely radicalized the nation. Identity was inextricably tied up with race; even after emancipation, blacks were not truly free, and were certainly not equal. Even in the North, African Americans were second-class citizens, but it was in the South where racism truly flourished. Jim Crow was the most notable manifestation of official policies that preserved racist institutions for generations. When the
Great Depression refers to the serious economic decline that started in the United States towards the end of 1929 and spread to most industrial countries of the world, lasting until the early 1940s. The period saw sharp declines in the production and sale of goods and a sudden, severe rise in unemployment. Numerous businesses and banks closed down or went bankrupt, people lost their jobs, homes, and savings, and large