Station 1: Major Goals of the New Deal
The New Deal was the set of federal programs launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after taking office in 1933, in response to the calamity of the Great Depression.
It had four major goals and achievements:
1. Economic Recovery: The New Deal stabilized the banks and cleaned up the financial mess left over from the Stock Market crash of 1929. It stabilized prices for industry and agriculture, and it aided bankrupt state and local governments. And it injected a huge amount of federal spending to bolster aggregate incomes and demand.
2. Job Creation: One in four Americans was out of work by 1933. The New Deal created a number of special agencies that provided jobs for millions of workers and wages that saved millions more in their desperate families. It also recognized the rights of workers to organize in unions.
3. Investment in Public Works: The New Deal built hundreds of thousands of highways, bridges, hospitals, schools, theaters, libraries, city halls, homes, post offices, airports, and parks across America—most of which are still in use today.
4. Civic Uplift: The New Deal touched every state, city, and town, improving the lives of ordinary people and reshaping the public sphere. New Dealers and the men and women who worked on New Deal programs believed they were not only serving their families and communities, but building the foundation for a great and caring society.
Station 2: Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
The U.S. Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 was a federal law, a farm bill, of the New Deal era. The purpose of the legislation was to provide relief for farmers and other agricultural workers during the Great Depression. The farm program was organized by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Due to high production in the years leading up to the Great Depression, prices for agricultural commodities such as staple crops and livestock were extremely low. The 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act paid farmers not to grow more than a certain amount of crops and reduce populations of pigs and cattle in order to raise prices. The beef and pork resulting from the slaughter of excess livestock were then distributed through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
Facts about the Agricultural Adjustment Act:
- The Great Depression hit the farmers hard as total farm income fell by two-thirds between 1929 and 1932. Prices of staple crops and livestock were extremely low and 60% of farms had to be re-mortgaged and by 1932 many farms were foreclosed and sold at auction.
- The AAA was signed into law by FDR on May 12, 1933. The purpose of the law was to help farmers by reducing production of crops, and in so doing, raising farm prices and encouraging more diversified farming.
- Under the AAA farm program the government proposed to pay farmers not to grow crops such as cotton, tobacco, wheat and corn. The government would also pay farmers not to raise certain type of livestock such as sheep, cattle and hogs
- The problem was that by the time the AAA was implemented and organized the farmers had already planted their crops and had begun raising the season's livestock. Therefore, an emergency action was required to address the problem. The agency therefore oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing crops and livestock in an attempt to reduce surpluses.
- Over 6 million hogs and sows were slaughtered in the AAA's effort to raise prices, at a cost of over $30,000,000. Cotton farmers were paid $100 million to destroy 25% of their cotton crop. 2 million head of cattle were slaughtered from the Texas herds alone
Station 3: Civilian Conservation Corps
Formed in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, was one of the first New Deal programs. It was a public works project intended to promote environmental conservation and to build good citizens through vigorous, disciplined outdoor labor. Close to the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC combined his interests in conservation and universal service for youth. He believed that this civilian “tree army” would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth “off the city street corners.”
The CCC operated under the army’s control. Camp commanders had disciplinary powers and corpsmen were required to address superiors as “sir.” By September 1935 over 500,000 young men had lived in CCC camps, most staying from six months to a year. The work focused on soil conservation and reforestation. Most important, the men planted millions of trees on land made barren from fires, natural erosion, or lumbering—in fact, the CCC was responsible for over half the reforestation, public and private, done in the nation’s history. Corpsmen also dug canals and ditches, built over thirty thousand wildlife shelters, stocked rivers and lakes with nearly a billion fish, restored historic battlefields, and cleared beaches and campgrounds.
In less than 10 years, the Civilian Conservation Corps built more than 800 parks and planted nearly 3 billion trees nationwide. Although professing a nondiscriminatory policy, the CCC failed to give a fair share of work to blacks, especially in the South where local selection agents held sway. But in spite of rigid segregation and hiring quotas, black participation reached 10 percent by 1936. In all, nearly 3 million young men participated in the CCC The army’s experience in managing such large numbers and the paramilitary discipline learned by corpsmen provided unexpected preparation for the massive call-up of civilians in World War II.
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Station 4: Rural Electrification Act (REA)
Although nearly 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only ten percent of rural dwellers did. Private utility companies, who supplied electric power to most of the nation's consumers, argued that it was too expensive to string electric lines to isolated rural farmsteads. Anyway, they said, most farmers were too poor to be able to afford electricity. The Roosevelt Administration believed that if private enterprise could not supply electric power to the people, then it was the duty of the government to do so. Most of the court cases involving TVA during the 1930s concerned the government's involvement in the public utilities industry.
In 1935 the Rural Electric Administration (REA) was created to bring electricity to rural areas like the Tennessee Valley. Many groups opposed the federal government's involvement in developing and distributing electric power, especially utility companies, who believed that the government was unfairly competing with private enterprise. By 1939 the REA had helped to establish 417 rural electric cooperatives, which served 288,000 households. The actions of the REA encouraged private utilities to electrify the countryside as well. By 1939 rural households with electricity had risen to 25 percent.
When farmers did receive electric power their purchase of electric appliances helped to increase sales for local merchants. Farmers required more energy than city dwellers, which helped to offset the extra cost involved in bringing power lines to the country. The government also made an agreement with companies that supplied appliances to get electric ranges, refrigerators and water heaters to farmers at reasonable prices. Rural electrification was based on the belief that affordable electricity would improve the standard of living and the economic competitiveness of the family farm. But electric power alone was not enough to stop the transformation of America's farm communities. Rural electrification did not halt the continuing migration of rural people from the country to the city. Nor did it stop the decline in the total number of family farms.
Station 5: Social Security Administration
The Social Security Act of 1935 that created the Social Security Administration (SSA), later the FSA, was one of the most important, and expensive New Deal programs. FDR wanted legislation that would provide “security against the hazards and variations of life” for unemployed workers and the elderly through social insurance. FDR, his Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and her team spent months preparing the bill. The bill became law on August 15, 1935 and established an unemployment insurance system, a national pension fund, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, and a public assistance program for dependent mothers and disabled people.
Facts about the Social Security Act of 1935:
- The United States of America was the only modern industrial country where people faced the Great Depression without any national system of social security.
- On January 4, 1935 FDR's message to Congress called for legislation to provide assistance for the unemployed, the aged, destitute children and the physically handicapped.
- Following the furor surrounding the "Court Packing Plan" the Social Security Act was upheld by the Supreme Court in April 1937. The bill became law on August 15, 1935 with provisions for an unemployment insurance system, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, a national pension fund, and a public assistance program for dependent mothers and disabled people.
- Social Security is a program of public provision in which the government provides money to people who are unable to work because they are unemployed, old or disabled
- Social security tax is used to pay for the program. Under the 1935 Act, the federal government began collecting the Social Security tax from workers in 1936 and began making payments in 1940.