Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1941

This is Unit Eleven, part three, on the late New Deal and the two questions every student is asked about it. Part two closed with the Indian Reorganization Act ending allotment, and pointed to what the new policy returned. Carry two questions through this part. Did the New Deal work? And whom did it work for? The recession of nineteen thirty-seven tests the first. The programmes' treatment of Black Americans and women tests the second. The last two entries answer both, each with two halves. By the end you will be able to describe the Indian New Deal. To explain the Roosevelt recession as a test. To hold both truths about the New Deal and Black Americans. To answer whether the New Deal ended the Depression, and name what it left behind. And to explain whom it left out.

One entry on what the new Indian policy returned to the tribes.

The Indian New Deal.

USH2 1547 The Indian New Deal

Collier used the law to win back nearly two million acres the government held and return them to tribes, the anchor records, though rebuilding communal holdings proved hard, and more than eighty-five thousand Native Americans worked in a conservation corps on the reservations, Digital History says. It calls the Indian New Deal the only bright spot in the administration's treatment of minorities.

Two entries on the relapse of nineteen thirty-seven, which tested the whole New Deal, and on its political cost.

The relapse of nineteen thirty-seven.

USH2 1548 The Roosevelt Recession

By nineteen thirty-seven production, wages and profits had returned to their levels of nineteen twenty-nine, the anchor says, and unemployment had fallen from twenty-five percent to fourteen. Reassured, Roosevelt cut government spending, and the economy fell back: the anchor records two million newly out of work and industrial production down by a third; Digital History gives production down forty percent and unemployment up four million. The two measures differ, and both are stated. Advisers including Harry Hopkins and Henry Wallace urged Keynes's argument that deficit spending was needed to maintain employment, and in the spring of nineteen thirty-eight Roosevelt asked for more relief spending. The Yawp judges that it was perhaps too late.

The political cost.

USH2 1549 The Conservative Coalition

The recession and the court-packing fight together let a coalition of southern Democrats and Midwestern Republicans gain ground in the midterm elections of nineteen thirty-eight, the Yawp records, and five conservative senators Roosevelt campaigned against were all re-elected. By nineteen thirty-nine, the Yawp says, Roosevelt struggled even to defend existing agencies.

Five entries on the New Deal and Black Americans: discrimination, displacement, two truths held together, advisers, and a president's words on lynching.

How the programmes treated Black Americans.

USH2 1550 The Negro Run Around

The anchor records overt discrimination in hiring across New Deal programmes, and critics called the National Recovery Administration the Negro Run Around, or Negroes Ruined Again. Digital History describes separate and lower pay scales for Black workers written into industry codes, and adds that the Conservation Corps kept segregated camps.

Black farmers.

USH2 1551 The AAA and Black Farmers

Forty percent of Black workers were sharecroppers and tenant farmers, Digital History records, so the Agricultural Adjustment Administration's acreage reductions fell hard on them, and more than one hundred thousand Black farmers were forced off the land in nineteen thirty-three and nineteen thirty-four. Landlords, it explains, earned more leaving land idle than farming it with tenants.

Two truths about the same programmes.

USH2 1552 Excluded and Employed

Two statements about the New Deal and Black Americans are both true, and each misleads without the other. Social Security's pension programme excluded domestic workers and farmworkers, the job categories Black workers had traditionally filled, and the Yawp records that Roosevelt agreed to the exclusion under pressure from southern politicians. The same government's Works Progress Administration employed about three hundred fifty thousand African Americans a year, nearly fifteen percent of its workforce, the anchor records. The Civilian Conservation Corps shows both at once: quotas and segregated camps, and yet over three hundred thousand African Americans employed. The New Deal neither wholly excluded nor fairly included Black Americans.

Roosevelt's Black advisers.

USH2 1553 The Black Cabinet

Roosevelt relied unofficially on the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, called his Black Cabinet, with Mary McLeod Bethune among its members and the young Harvard economist Robert Weaver, who in nineteen sixty-six became the first Black American to serve in a cabinet, as Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The advisers had influence without office.

Lynching.

USH2 1554 Roosevelt and Lynching

Roosevelt was the first president to speak publicly against lynching, calling it a vile form of collective murder, the anchor records. Digital History records that he failed to support an anti-lynching bill or the abolition of the poll tax, fearing southern Democrats who controlled key committees.

Three entries on women in the New Deal: a cabinet first, a party organiser, and a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

The first woman in the cabinet.

USH2 1555 Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, was the first woman to sit in a presidential cabinet and one of two original cabinet members to serve through Roosevelt's entire presidency, working on the conservation corps, public works, the NRA and Social Security. The Yawp adds her earlier work in New York for workplace safety and against child labour in factories.

Women in the party.

USH2 1556 Molly Dewson

Mary Dewson, known as Molly, a veteran of the suffrage movement, rose to direct the Women's Division of the Democratic Party, the anchor records, women organising inside a governing party a decade and a half after the Nineteenth Amendment. The Yawp cautions that women failed to receive the full benefits of New Deal programmes, and many employers dismissed married women first.

A concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

USH2 1557 Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial

When the Daughters of the American Revolution barred the contralto Marian Anderson from Constitution Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the organisation and arranged for Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial, and later at a White House state dinner. The Yawp calls the First Lady a major voice for economic and racial justice.

Three entries: what the New Deal changed for good, whether it ended the Depression, and whom it left out.

What the New Deal changed for good.

USH2 1558 Government Out of Sight

Before the First World War the American national state had been, in the Yawp's phrase, a government out of sight; after the New Deal Americans came to see Washington as a potential ally. Digital History lists the lasting legacies, unemployment insurance, old-age insurance and insured bank deposits, and calls that shift in government philosophy the New Deal's greatest legacy.

Whether the New Deal ended the Depression.

USH2 1559 Whether the New Deal Ended the Depression

The sources answer no, while treating the question as too narrow. Digital History states it flatly: the New Deal did not end the Depression, nor did it significantly redistribute income. The record supports that. Employment rose from twenty-four million to twenty-seven by nineteen thirty-five, and by nineteen thirty-seven unemployment had fallen from twenty-five percent to fourteen, but fourteen percent is still a depression. When Roosevelt cut spending in nineteen thirty-seven the economy fell back, and the renewed spending of nineteen thirty-eight came perhaps too late. Two misreadings sit on either side. One says the New Deal failed because it did not restore full employment, and ignores its lasting results: unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, insured deposits, a Wagner Act that reduced violence in labour relations, and a commission protecting small investors. The other says it cured the Depression, which the anchor's own numbers contradict. The course's position is the sources': the New Deal did not end the Depression, and it changed what Americans expected of their government. What came after nineteen thirty-nine belongs to unit twelve.

Whom the New Deal left out.

USH2 1560 Whom the New Deal Left Out

The anchor answers this directly. Social Security excluded domestic and farm workers, leaving many women and African Americans outside its benefits. Programmes showed overt discrimination in hiring, and critics renamed the recovery administration the Negro Run Around. Digital History adds the separate pay scales, the segregated camps, the housing agency's refusal to back mortgages for Black buyers in white neighbourhoods, and the more than one hundred thousand Black farmers forced off the land. Roosevelt, needing southern Democrats, declined to back an anti-lynching bill. Two misreadings sit on either side. One says the New Deal was for white Americans only, which the employment figures, and the shift of about seventy-five percent of Black voters to the Democrats in nineteen thirty-six, contradict. The other says it lifted everyone alike, which the anchor's own exclusions contradict. The course holds both halves: the New Deal gave Americans, in Digital History's words, economic security they had never known before, and drew the edges of that security around occupations and regions in ways that left many Black Americans and women outside.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe the Indian New Deal: nearly two million acres returned to tribes, and a conservation corps on the reservations. You can explain the Roosevelt recession as a test. Spending was cut in nineteen thirty-seven, the economy fell back, and spending returned in nineteen thirty-eight, perhaps too late. You can hold both truths about Black Americans. Social Security's exclusions left many outside, and the Works Progress Administration employed some three hundred fifty thousand a year. You can answer whether the New Deal ended the Depression: it did not, and it changed what Americans expected of their government. And you can explain whom it left out. It gave economic security many had never known, and drew its edges around occupations and regions that excluded many Black Americans and women.