Essay about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal

The Impact of the New Deal on the United States The Great Depression, an era of great poverty, misery, and

The United States encountered many ordeals during the Great Depression (1929-1939). Poverty, unemployment and despair clouded the “American Dream” and intensified the urgency for solutions to address and control the nationwide damage. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the New Deal to detoxify the nation of its suffering. It can be argued that the New Deal was ineffective due to the inability to end the Great Depression with its short-term solutions and created more problems, however; it was successful in regards to providing direct relief for the needy, economic recovery and some structural reform for the majority of the general public in the severity of the Great Depression.

Although the New Deal was established about thirty years before the Great Society was, they both embodied similar characteristics. The origins of these two parts of history clearly resemble each other. Also, the goals of the Great Society largely compare to those of the New Deal. Finally, the New Deal and the Great Society prove to be alike through their lasting legacies. The Great Society resembles the New Deal in its origins, goals, and social and political legacies.

Instead, most money was in the hands of a few families and businesses who saved or invested rather than spent their money on American goods. Supply became greater than demand on products. Certain people profited, but many others did not. As a result of this, prices went up and Americans could not spare the money for many goods. While the wealth in America was not being distributed evenly, and overspeculation of the stock market led to a lack of confidence, the United States began to fall into a deep depression that would last until the beginning of World War II (Gupta).

FDR knew that he had to deal with unemployment in New Deal, and he enacted the Works Progress Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Social Security Act, and the Civilian Conservation Corporation. The Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) goal was to provide jobs for the unemployed, building hospitals, schools, parks, playgrounds, airports, and post offices. The WPA also gave jobs to actors, writers, artists and teachers. For example, artists could paint murals on public buildings. Overall, the WPA managed to build 120,000 public buildings, and paint ½ a million miles of road(Source

Many of the New Deal’s relief programs were revolutionary; the federal government was now responsible for relieving the problems of society previously left to individuals, states, and local governments. Work relief programs, such as the popular Civilian Conservation Corps, which offered unemployed Americans a chance to earn wages while working to conserve natural resources, and the Works Progress Administration, which gave unemployed Americans

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 Great Depression was one of the most devastating events in human history. When FDR was president, his administration contributed to the creation of relief programs in order to help solve the problems of the Great Depression such as the effects of the stock market crash. The government was helping the nation get back on it’s feet by being involved more in people’s daily lives. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration created relief programs in order to help Americans after the Great Depression. In Document C, FDR states, “Its evolution, not revolution, Gentlemen”!

Document D states “The New Deal, being both a philosophy and mode of action, began to find expression in diverse forms which were often contradictory. Some assisted and some retarded the recovery of industrial activity.” This quote shows how the New Deal, in fact, did aid the people in relief and reform but failed to recover. Programs such as Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA), Civil Works Administration (CWA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped to relief by providing jobs to the unemployed in order to halt the economic deterioration of America. Programs such as Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were permanent programs made to avoid another depression.

The late 1930s were a time of great suffering and uncertainty in the United States. The country was crippled by effects of the Great Depression; the result was a massive decline in jobs and economic stability that dramatically impacted both rural and urban communities. Millions of Americans were out of work, unable to support their families. State organizations and charities were unable to meet the growing needs of the people and many were left to fend for themselves. The Great Depression brought with it a legitimate, tangible fear about the future of America and its citizens. Upon the outcry of the American people a “New Deal” was struck giving the citizens of America a lifeline of hope in the ever-growing State. The New Deal was a succession of programs, organizations and laws, enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, directly addressing the issues of jobs, welfare and uncertainty through direct federal involvement. The creators of the New Deal worked across party lines to reshape the norms of state involvement whilst making a great legislative effort to turn the declining economy around. The New Deal reshaped the federal government’s relationship with its citizens in a time of economic uncertainty helping to grow the State in a time of peace.

FDR's New Deal programs focused on job-creation through public works[?] projects as well as on social welfare programs such as Social Security. The political coalition of labor unions, minorities, liberals, and southern whites (the New Deal Coalition) allowed the Democrats to control the government for much of the next 30 years, until the issue of civil rights divided conservative southern whites from the rest of the party (see Dixiecrat).

WPA or the Works Progress Administration founded in 1935, was made to help fix up roads and built bridges to gain access to other parts of the state that was destroyed during the Dust Bowl or the Hurricanes that swept the states. It employed many American including ones that wasn’t skilled to enough to work, the WPA gave those who needs jobs to work so they can feed and clothed their families and to make sure that the United States was rebuilt for its people to live in.

Roosevelt started with what hurt us the most: the banks. Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday to allow for time to devise a plan that would work in the short and long term. He then set up the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to give the people confidence in the new banking system. The FDIC insured that the government would reimburse a customer should their bank fail. The next step was for relief to the “forgotten man”. Harry Hopkins, a New Dealer, supported the Federal Emergency Relief Administrations (FERA). FERA gave four to five million households $20-$30 a month, created jobs, and paid laborers to renovate schools, dig sewers, and fix roads and building. Another relief program was Civilian Conservation Corps, which offered young men who were unemployed a chance to work to preserve natural resources. The CCC saw to water erosion, rivers, and planted millions of trees. They also finished the Hoover Dam. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) gave millions of jobless citizens a chance to earn wages by working on government sponsored jobs. The jobs created by the WPA not only helped those without jobs, but also improved our roads, buildings, and cities as a whole. The New Deal also provided rural communities with electricity through the Tennessee Valley Authority by building

The first thing Roosevelt did as part of his New Deal was to pass the

“Black Tuesday” is cited to be the day that the Stock Market Crashed on October 19, 1929, and it is believed to have been the beginning of the Great Depression (Schultz). This led to many catastrophes in the United States economic system that lasted ten years, from 1929-1939 (Schultz). During this time period consumer spending declined, unemployment increased, and a severe drought throughout the U.S led to a reduction in agricultural labor, which resulted in even more unemployment (Schultz). Nevertheless, out of this crisis President Roosevelt created programs, throughout his presidency, in hopes of bettering the United States economy. These programs would eventually be called the New Deal and Second New Deal programs. These programs were