Social Sciences and History / Unit 2 SSH 0126 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Sorting New Deal Measures: Relief, Recovery, Reform
The idea
The exam asks what a New Deal measure was for, and three purposes cover the field. Relief put money or work into the hands of people in immediate need. Recovery tried to restart industry, agriculture and banking so the economy would grow again. Reform changed the rules so the collapse would not repeat. The Emergency Banking Act examined banks before reopening them: recovery of confidence, with a reform edge. Jobs programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration: relief through work. The Tennessee Valley Authority: recovery by development, flood control and power. The Social Security Act: reform, a permanent structure of pensions and insurance. The Fair Labor Standards Act: reform, rules for wages, hours and child labor.
In practice
Given a question naming a program that paid unemployed young men to plant forests, choose relief. Given one naming a law that created old-age pensions, choose reform. Given one naming a measure that closed and inspected banks, choose recovery. The Supreme Court's striking of the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act removed two recovery measures.
Where people slip
The trap is calling everything relief because the Depression was the context. The anchor's own line is that Social Security and the Fair Labor Standards Act still provide much of the safety net today, which is reform's mark: it outlasts the emergency.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it