New Deal in United States
President Franklin Roosevelt’s Radio Address unveiling the second half of the New Deal (1936)
In this radio address, President Franklin Roosevelt announced a second set of measures to combat the Great Depression, which become known as the Second New Deal. These included a series of new relief programs such as the Works Progress Administration.
In this campaign speech delivered at Madison Square Garden on October 31, 1936, Roosevelt responded to considerable criticism that the New Deal had not done enough by emphasizing his administration’s continuing plans for relief, reform, and recovery. Historians have often referred to this initiative as the Second New Deal. The major legislation that came out of the so-called Second New Deal was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, the Social Security Act, and the Wealth Tax Act, which brought about a sudden increase in taxes on the wealthy and created new and larger taxes on excess business profits, inheritances, large gifts, and profits from the sale of property.
The Works Progress (later “Work Projects”) Administration promoted both relief and reform. The WPA built streets, highways, bridges, airfields, and post offices and other pubic buildings and facilities; restored forests; developed parks and recreation areas; built reservoirs; and extended electrical power to rural areas. Over its 7-year history, the WPA employed about 8.5 million Americans.
In addition to developing America’s infrastructure, the WPA worked to promote American culture. The Federal Theater, Arts, Music, Dance, and Writers’ Projects brought music and drama to even the smallest communities, sponsored public sculptures and murals, and commissioned noted American writers such as John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, John Cheever, and Claude McKay to write regional guidebooks and histories of the American people. This was the first time that the Federal Government had taken the responsibility to support and promote American art and culture.
Within a week of the delivery of this speech, FDR was reelected to a second term as President of the United States. In the Presidential campaign of 1936, Roosevelt led the Democratic Party in building what came to be called the “Roosevelt Coalition.” While Republicans were still relying on their traditional support base (big business, big farmers, and conservatives), the Democrats, armed with FDR’s Second New Deal, broadened their base of support by appealing to small farmers of the Midwest, urban political bosses, ethnic blue-collar workers, Jews, intellectuals, African Americans, and Southern Democrats. The most dramatic shift to the Democratic Party was seen in the voting patterns of African Americans.
The Republican Party nominated Alfred M. Landon, the relatively liberal Governor of Kansas, to oppose Roosevelt. Despite all the complaints leveled at the New Deal, Roosevelt won an even more decisive victory than in 1932. He took 60 percent of the popular vote, with a winning margin of 10 million votes, and carried every state except Maine and Vermont. The campaign speech shown here reflects FDR’s continued commitment to economic reform for an America still suffering from the pains of the Depression.
Source: The People’s Vote, National Archives of the United States.
New Deal (Constitutional Significance)
United States Constitution
According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled NEW DEAL (Constitutional Significance) the new deal era was a time of extraordinary constitutional ferment, witnessing significant constitutional change in a strikingly wide variety of areas. Just as the Supreme Court was evincing increasing solicitude for civil rights and civil liberties,
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New Deal
United States Constitution
According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled NEW DEALDuring the New Deal years, from 1933 to the end of world war ii, the nation experienced an era of protracted economic crisis and social dislocation, a dramatic change in national political alignments, and then mobilization for total war. A society contending with changes and emergencies of
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Democratic Party The New Deal
Introduction to New Deal
In the mid-20th century the basic character of the Democratic appeal began to change, first slowly and then rapidly. In the 1930s and 1940s the Democrats became a party of vigorous government intervention in the economy and in the social realm, willing to regulate and redistribute wealth and to protect those least able to help themselves in an increasingly complex society. The urban political machines had brought to the party a commitment to social welfare legislation in order to help their immigrant constituents. At first resisted by Southern Democrats and the other limited-government advocates of the party’s traditional wing, the new look began to win out in the late 1920s. The Great Depression after 1929 and the coming to power of Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his New Deal, solidified and expanded this new commitment.
Increasingly, under Democratic leadership, the government expanded its role in social welfare and economic regulation. Given the economic situation, this proved to be electorally attractive. Traditional Democrats surged to the polls, new voters joined, and the party won over groups, such as the blacks, who had been Republicans for generations-at first haltingly, then enthusiastically and overwhelmingly. The result was the New Deal coalition that dominated the country for more than 30 years. More people than ever before identified themselves as Democrats. Roosevelt became an even more powerful symbol than Jackson had been, winning four successive terms. In addition, Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition of southern populists
and northern liberals laid the base for the Democrats to control Congress in all but four of the 48 years between 1933 and 1981. Despite defections on the left and right, President Harry Truman won reelection in 1948 running on the New Deal record. Although the war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower easily won the presidency in 1952 and 1956, the Democrats ran Congress for six of his eight years in office.” (1)
New Deal in the U.S. Legal History
Summary
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s program designed to bring about economic recovery and reform during the Great Depression.
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about New Deal in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to New Deal
In this Section
Democratic Party, Jacksonian Party, History of the Democratic Party (in the North-South Conflict period), Democratic Party in the Lincon Administration, Democratic Party Divisions, Wilsonian Era, New Deal, Democratic Party After Eisenhower, Democratic Party in the Carter Administration, Democratic Party in the Reagan Administration, Democratic Party in the Clinton Administration, Al Gore, Democratic Party in the Bush Administration, Barack Obama.
U.S. House of Representatives: History of the U.S. House of Representatives: The Great Depression and the New Deal
Introduction to New Deal
The stock market crash of 1929 presented the country with an unprecedented economic crisis of unemployment, sagging consumer demand, and bank failures-the Great Depression. Republicans controlled the House, and their laissez-faire economic doctrine led them to refrain from intervening in the crisis. Republican president Herbert Hoover and the Republican-dominated Senate also favored letting the market follow its course. The downturn continued, and voters ousted the Republicans from control of the House in 1930 and the Senate in 1932.
Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt replaced Hoover in 1933 and embarked on the New Deal, the most ambitious program of governmental expansion ever seen in the United States. The House generally supported Roosevelt’s legislative initiatives to spur job growth through increased government spending on housing, roads, rural electrification, and other public works. Both the House and the Senate opposed Roosevelt’s efforts to increase presidential power. The president proposed legislation in 1937 to increase executive control over federal agencies, but Congress rejected the plan. Undaunted, a few weeks later Roosevelt sought to control the Supreme Court by increasing the number of judges, which would have allowed him to fill the new positions with his allies. Congress also rejected this proposal.” (1)
New Deal in the U.S. Legal History
Summary
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s program designed to bring about economic recovery and reform during the Great Depression.
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about New Deal in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia