January 26 - Today we started presenting our videos.
January 27 - Watched more videos and took notes.
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January 29 - Watched more videos and took notes.
January 30 - Watched more videos and took notes.
Background of Herbert Hoover
- Born in West Branch, Iowa
- Both of his parents died by the time he was ten
- Moved to Oregon with his aunt and uncle
- Went to Stanford University
- Graduated with a degree in Geology
- Became a mining engineer
- Head of the food administration in WWI
- Headed the victory garden campaigns
- Was a humanitarian for helping the Belgians get food during WWI
- Secretary of Commerce during Harding's presidency
- Elected President in 1928
- Platform
- Efficiency in Government
- Republican record of prosperity
- Pro-business
- Promised to improve conditions for farmers
- Reform immigration laws
- Maintain America's isolationist foreign policy
- Supported Prohibition - an "experiment noble in purpose"
What did Hoover do?
- Generally believed to have done nothing - not true
- Encouraged people to be patient
- Federal Farm Board
- Stabilize prices and to promote the sale of agricultural products
- Norris - La Guardia Act
- Strengthened labor unions
- Hoover Moratorium
- One year halt on German war payments to France
- One year halt on war payments from Great Britain and France to the US
- Mexican Repatriation
- Mexican immigrants were encouraged or forced to go back to Mexico
- Revenue Act of 1932
- Increased taxes so the US government had money
- Hawley-Smoot Tariff
- Raised tariffs to record levels
- Tried to get people to buy American products
- Bonus Expeditionary Force
- WWI Veterans struggling because of the Great Depression
- They were supposed to get a pension from fighting in the war
- Wanted it sooner
- It was voted to not give them the money early
- Eventually they would not leave
- Hoover brought in military to force them out of the city
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation
- RFC
- 1932
- Gave loans to banks, state and local governments and businesses to create jobs for people
- Gave state loans for emergency relief needs
- Started under Hoover
- Not as successful as Hoover had hoped
- Dissolved in 1946 after WWII
FDR
- Married his fifth cousin
- Was US state senator for New York in 1910
- In WWI was assistant secretary of the Navy for Woodrow Wilson
- After WWI he ran for Vice President - Lost to Harding
- Came down with polio and became handicapped
- Became governor of New York - late 20's early 30's
- Won presidential election of 1932
Unemployment
- Federal Emergency Relief Act - FERA
- Enacted in 1933
- Main function was to create the Federal Relief Administration
- FERA distributed more than 20 million dollars in direct aid to the unemployed
- This in turn would help the unemployed to find new jobs
- FERA had three primary objectives
- Direct relief measures
- Provide work for employable people
- Provide many different types of relief programs
- Public Works Administration - PWA
- Established in 1933
- Created as many jobs as possible in many different varieties
- Great example of FDR's "Priming the pump"
- Between July 1933 and March 1939 the PWA funded the construction of more than 34,000 projects including airports, dams, aircraft carriers and bridges
- Was responsible for 70% of the new schools and 33% of the hospitals built between 1933-1939
- Civil Works Administration - CWA
- Established in 1933 to create jobs for millions of unemployed
- The CWA created construction jobs, mainly improving or constructing buildings and bridges
- In just one year the CWA cost the government over $800,000,000 and was cancelled
- So much was spent on this administration because it hired 4 million people and was mostly concerned with paying high wages
- Works Progress Administration
- Established in 1935
- Largest and most comprehensive New Deal Agency
- The WPA was a "make work" program that provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression
- WPA projects primarily employed unskilled workers in construction projects across the nation
- The WPA built 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, 125,000 buildings and 7,000 miles of airport runways
- It presented 225,000 concerts and produced almost 475,000 works of art
- Federal Project No. 1 - Federal One - of the WPA was developed to give artistic and professional work to the unemployed who qualified
- Emergency Banking Relief Act - EBRA
- Passed five days after taking office - March 1933
- Passed in response to the thousands of banks that closed down
- Passed four days after FDR announced
Stock Market, factory workers and labor unions
- Securities and Exchange Commission - SEC
- Established in 1934 and is still around today
- The organization regulates the stock market therefore making the market more secure and safer for people's money
- Still around today
- National Industrial Recovery Act - NIRA
- Set up the National Recovery Administration - NRA
- Established "codes of fair competition" aimed at supporting prices and wages and stimulation economic recovery from the Great Depression
- The law created a National Recovery Administration - NRA - to enforce codes
- The administration tried to make voluntary agreements dealing with hours of work, rates of pay and the fixing of prices
- Firms which voluntary complied could display the Blue Eagle
- Also helped create jobs for unemployed workers - building schools
- Section 7A guaranteed workers the right to unionize
- Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court - 1935
- National Labor Relations Act/Board - NLRA(B)
- Established in 1935 through passage of the National Labor Relations Act - Wagner Act
- Conducts elections for unions
- Stresses collective bargaining
- Investigates and fixes unfair labor practices
- Governed by a five person board whose members are appointed by the President
- Fair Labor Standards Act - FSLA
- Established a national minimum wage - 40 cents per hour
- Established the 40 hour work week
- Guaranteed time and a half for overtime in certain jobs
- Prohibited most child labor
- Still exists today
Farmers
- Agricultural Adjustment Ad - AAA
- Established in 1933
- Restricted production during the New Deal by paying farmers to reduce the amount of crops planted
- Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus so prices would go up
- The farmers were paid by the federal government for leaving some of their land untilled
- The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to carry out law
- The AAA oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing crops and live stock in an attempt reduce surpluses
- For example, six million pigs and 220,000 sows were slaughtered in the AAA's effort to raise prices
- Cotton farmers plowed under a quarter of their crop
- Due to the nature of the Great Depression, many United States citizens saw the AAA as cruel
- While people in the cities were starving, the federal government was destroying crops and livestock in the country
- Farm prices more than doubled - 1933-35
- The AAA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1936 because it taxed one group - food processors - to pay another
- The second AAA was passed in 1938
- The second AAA was funded from general taxation, and therefore acceptable to the Supreme Court
- Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
- Allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production as to conserve soil and prevent erosion
- It was piece of legislation passed in response to the Supreme Court's declaration that the Agricultural Adjustment Act - AAA - was unconstitutional
- Educated farmers on how to use their lands without damaging them
- REA
- Brought electricity to the farms
- Farm Security Administration
- FSA
- Granted small farmers and tenant farmers money to purchase farms
- The Dust Bowl forced a lot of farmers off their farms
- Many farmers bought tractors with money from the AAA thus forcing tenant farmers off the land
- The FSA provided relief to these people
Young people
- Civilian Conservation Corps - CCC
- Passed in 1933 during the One Hundred Days project
- CCC members worked 40 hours a week and were paid $30 a month, with the requirement that $25 of that be sent home to family
- Members lived in camps, wore uniforms and lived under military discipline
- Planted trees, fought forest fires, stopped soil erosion
- Helped construct military bases during WWII
- Funding stopped in 1942
- The slogan of the CCC was "We can take it!"
- National Youth Administration - NYA
- Established in 1935 and was a part of the WPA
- Pushed heavily by Eleanor Roosevelt - ER
Served 327,000 high school and college youth, who were paid $6 to $40 a month for "work study" projects at their schools - It allowed thousands of young people to stay in school
- Another 155,000 boys and girls from relief families were paid $10 to $25 a month for part-time work
Energy
- Tennessee Valley Authority - TVA
- Created to generate electrical power and control floods in a seven state region around the Tennessee River Valley
- FDR signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act creating the TVA on May 18, 1933
- The agency still exists and had grown to become America's largest public power company
- Some criticized the TVA for only helping a specific region not the whole country
- Still exists today
- Rural Electrification Administration - REA
- Brought electricity to the country side
- Created in 1935
- Provided farms with inexpensive electric lighting and power and eventually telephone services
- This brought all the electrical appliances that the cities had since the 20's
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