During the darkest hour of the Great Depression– a time of dire poverty and chaos prevalent through the American land– a promising figure of optimism rose to sweep the nation off its rickety stance and into a new era of change. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ambitious and young governor of New York, was nominated into the White House as president in 1932. Elected with a landslide victory, Roosevelt guaranteed the American people with a very promising future with his multiple plans of altercations to be made in his presidency.
By the time Roosevelt was inaugurated in early 1933, he noticed the nation’s critical loss of confidence from the banking crisis and economic downfall within the stock market. He immediately stepped into action, pushing Congress to put into practice a program he envisioned as the answers to the nation’s dire problems– the New Deal. Promising “a new deal for the American people”, Roosevelt laid out his aims of fulfilling three goals of the New Deal: relief for the people suffering through the Great Depression, recovery of the economy, and reforms that would block similar economic crises in the future. This new era of Roosevelt’s presidency was a time of new opportunities for women and minority groups, also even shaping the popular and artistic culture of the decade. The New Deal, receiving mixed results and responses, however, had unquestionably changed the relationship between the people and the government.
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Some New Deal Programs-
Emergency Banking Act:
In the midst of economic crisis, the United States was found with the unstable state of the nation’s banks. Citizens, in fear of losing their savings in case of the further collapses of banks in this unreassuring state of the economy, swarmed to the banks to withdraw all of their money from their accounts. With such a large-scale bank run, extending within the nation, Roosevelt sought to mend the banking crisis with the Emergency Banking Act.
The Emergency Banking Act was a bill passed during 1933 that called for a four-day mandatory shut down of all US banks for inspections and recovery. Roosevelt insured the American citizens that government officials would thoroughly examine each bank to determine its sound condition to operate, correct any lying problems, and if truly necessary, close it in order to prevent any further issues. Soon enough, banks began to reopen with the federal government’s assurance of stability. People were psychologically soothed and began to trust the national banks once again, putting their money bank into their deposits and ultimately allowing the nation to successfully regain confidence in its financial system.
Civilian Conservation Corps:
The Great Depression was characterized with stark numbers of unemployment and poverty. In order to find a solution to this large-scale joblessness, Roosevelt put forwards his plan of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC.
Established in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps sought to relieve unemployment through providing national conservation work primarily for young unmarried men in the ages between 18 and 25. Living in army-style camps and required to send most of their earnings back to their families, these young workers were paid to work these unskilled manual labor jobs on a variety of different conservation projects and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by the federal, state, and local governments. The CCC, greatly aiding this young generation earn a living in a time that had been struck with such unemployment, received popular support with the maximum enrollment touching as high as 300,000.
Agricultural Adjustment Act:
By the later 1920s, European agriculture, which had been severely disrupted during World War I, had recovered. Farmers of the United States, who enjoyed increased production and prosperity in their markets with their thriving export of food, suddenly faced a dramatic fall in demand. With farmers continuing to produce more food than consumed, a hurtful surplus led to the fall of prices, or deflation of farm products. By the 1930s, the majority of American farmers found themselves in serious financial difficulty.
In order to find recovery for the American farmers, Roosevelt set forth the Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1933, a legislation that would reduce agricultural production through subsidizing farmers to plant less and kill off excess livestock. Through this decrease in crop surplus, the government was able to successfully raise the value of crops. With stability restored back in the markets for farm products, most of the farmers were able to recover from their financial downfalls.
In 1936, however, the Supreme Court declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional, for the money for subsidizing farmers primarily came from a striking increase in taxes on companies that bought and processed farm products. However, the amended Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 remedied these issues, and was able to serve as the basis of the American farming system for the next 70 years to come.
Social Security Act:
The Social Security Act was passed in August 1935 as part of the Second New Deal, or the second stage of the New Deal programs created by President Roosevelt. The primary goal of this legislative act was to limit the issues that many saw arise in the modern American life, such as for the elderly, impoverished, unemployed, burdened widows and fatherless children. This law thus provided financial aid towards those in need, and pensions, or guaranteed, regular payments towards people over the age of 65. Retired workers no longer had to worry about the poverty once they became too old to work. Systems of unemployment insurances were also carried out, aiding workers who recently lost their jobs and were looking for new work.
In order to efficiently carry our Social Security, however, Roosevelt was met with some setbacks with criticisms of huge taxes affecting both workers and employers. In order to avoid the sharp rise in taxes that would harm the general thrive towards economic recovery, the president was forced to leave several– farmworkers, household workers, and government employees– out of the Social Security Act.
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This new era of Roosevelt’s presidency and the New Deal was a time of dramatic, influential public programs that ultimately changed systems of government, national economy, and individual lives– in my personal opinion, for the better. Preceding Roosevelt’s presidency was a time of utter economical and social depression. As a result, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fierce approach towards powerful new programs to dramatically change the nation’s ways of operating was just what the United States and the American people needed. Indeed, this approach was inevitably met with failures at times, but it is the undeniable truth that a vast majority of these projects positively affected the citizens’ lives with immediate action towards solving the major issues of banking crises, unemployment, and social security in the country.
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