The New Deal
In October 1929 the stock market crashed, which started the worst depression in American history. 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt became president of the U.S. When Roosevelt took office in March 4, 1933 he said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. He started a group called the New York Emergency Relief Commission and got Harry Hopkins to run the agency. Later Hopkins gets Frances Perkins to help him; with them Roosevelt help unemployed and old people to work.
The New Deal were programs to help unemployed people to get so money. Well many youngsters like my self-thought that The New Deal solved the Great Depression that where I was wrong. What got the U.S. out of the Depression was World War II thank you Hitler. Well let’s get back to what I was talking about; Roosevelt was also the governor of New York before he became the president. He was seen as a great success as governor, so he easily beat his rival Herbert Hoover who every one hated.
Roosevelt felt that the government should have some say in how business are run. He wanted laws that controlled business and help the people. He called this social legislation, but other people knew it as The New Deal.
Some of first laws he declared a Bank Holiday. All the banks were closed for a short amount of time so they can recover from the big lost. Later Roosevelt goes on the radio in what he called a Fireside Chat. He was asking people to trust the banks again and he also told the people that he closed the banks to help them. Then the bank panic ended.
Roosevelt had three goals for the new deal. He wanted to help the people that got hurt from the Depression (every one but the rice), bring the U.S. out of the depression and make better changes. In the first one hundred days after Roosevelt was in office the Congress passed many of his laws that were need to get the job done. They were:
1. The government lent banks money.
2. Money in banks was insured.
3. The government helped the farmers by lending them money.
4. The government controlled the prices of farm products.
Now don’t get me wrong not everything Roosevelt tried worked. The National Recovery Act (NRA) was one of them. This was to help people to get haired by cutting down the numbers of hours a person could work. The law set a minimum wage. The National Recovery Act also tried to bring the down the princess of goods down. The NRV did not work because there was no way to make limits for production in every business. In 1935 the Supreme Court found The National Recovery Act unconstitutional. Other groups were The Civilian Conservation Crops (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began in 1933 and 1935. The Civilian Conservation offered work to unemployed men between the ages of 18 to 25. They had to plant trees, cleared brush, and they made reservoirs. They were given rooms, food, and a salary of 30 dollar’s a month. So they got it pretty good with a ruff over there head. The Works Progress Administration put people back in to work. They built roads, schools, wrote books, painted pictures and worked for the hospital and libraries. There was one other group that started in 1933; The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA built dams and they also tried to stop floods.
There were also some acts that were passed like The Social Security Act in 1935. This act took care of the sick and the old. Another act was The Unemployment Insurance Act was passed in 1935 also. It made it possible for states to give money to the unemployed people. What really got the U.S. out of the Depression was the Second World War in 1939- 1940. The war got lots of people working again because the army needed guns, some rapier guys, boat builders and some other war stuff.