USH Weekly Blog 2-20/2-24

Monday: Continued going over the 1930's presentation and started on the new deal

All notes for the 1930's are on last weeks blog so they are all together

  • Relief, Reform, and Recovery 
    • Relief for the needy 
    • Economic recovery 
    • Financial reform 
  • How did the New Deal Help...
    • Unemployed people 
    • Young people 
    • Banks 
    • Stock Market
    • Factory Workers 
    • Farmers
    • Homeowners 
    • Elderly 
    • Consumers 
    • Native Americans 
  • Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)-1932
    • Gave loans to banks, state and local govt's and business' to create projects/jobs for people 
    • Gave states loans for emergency relief needs 
    • Started under Hoover 
    • Dissolved in 1946 after WWII
  • Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 
    • Passed in 1933 during the "One Hundred Days"
    • The CCC was limited to young me age 18 to 25 whose fathers were on relief 
    • 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
    • The U.S. Army operated the camps 
    • Planted trees, fought forest fired, stopped soil erosion
    • Helped construct military bases during WWII 
    • Funding stopped in 1942 
    • Their slogan was "We can take it!"
  • National Youth Administration (NYA)
    • Established in 1935 and was a part of the WPA 
    • Pushed heavily by Eleanor Roosevelt 
    • 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 that included job training 
    • Unlike the CCC, it included you women
    • The youth normally lived at home, and worked on construction or repair projects 
  • Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) 
    • Enacted in 1933 
    • FERA distributed more than 20 million dollars in direct aid to the unemployed 
    • This in turn would help the unemployed to fin 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 1933 and 1939, the PWA funded the construction of more than 34,000 projects including: 
      • Airports 
      • Dams 
      • Aircraft carriers 
      • 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 the unemployed 
    • The CWA created construction jobs-building bridges, schools, playgrounds, laid sewer pipes
    • In just one year, the CWA cost the government over $800 million and was cancelled 
  • 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 road, 78,000 bridges, 125,000 buildings, and 7000 miles of airport runways 
    • It presented 225,000 concerts and produced almost 475,000 works of art
  • Emergency Banking Relief Act (EBRA) 
    • Passed five days after taking office- March 1933
    • Passed in response to the thousands of banks that closed downs 
    • Passed four days after FDR announced the Bank Holiday in his Fireside Chat, which closed banks down temporarily 
    • The EBRA would close down the bank, reorganize it and then reopen the bank when it was stable 
    • When banks reopened on March 13, 1933, many people put their money back into the banks 
    • Within a couple of weeks, more than half of the money that people withdrew from banks was put back into banks 
    • Generally ended the bank runs that was commonplace from 1929-1933
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
    • Created by the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933 
    • Insured people's money in banks up to $1000 (today up to $250,000)
    • Passed in response to the bank failures after the stock market crash 
    • Insures money in savings and checking accounts, money market accounts and CD's
  • Federal Securities Act 
    • Passed in 1933 
    • Made the stock market a safer place for people to invest their money 
    • Two goals: 
      • "Required that investors receive significant information regarding securities being offered for public sale" 
      • "Prohibited deceit, misrepresentation, and other fraud in the sale of securities to the public"
  • Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 
    • Established in 1934 and is still around today 
    • This organization regulates the stock market
      • Made the market more secure and safer for people's money 
  • National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) 
    • 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 to enforce codes 
    • The NRA tried to make voluntary agreements with business' dealing with hours of work, rates of pay, and the fixing of prices 
    • Businesses which voluntarily complied could display the Blue Eagle 
    • The NIRA also helped create jobs for unemployed workers (building schools) 
    • Section 7A guaranteed workers the right to unionize 
    • Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court 
  • National Labor Relation Act/Board (NLRA(B) 
    • Established in 1935 
    • Conducts elections for unions 
    • Stresses collective bargaining 
    • Investigates and fixes unfair labor practices 
    • Governed by a five-person board whose members are appointed by President 
  • Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) 
    • Established a national minimum wage- 40 cents/hour
    • Established the 40 hour work week 
    • Guaranteed time and a half for overtime in certain jobs 
    • Prohibited most child labor 
    • Still exists today 
  • Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) 
    • Established in 1933 
    • Restricted production 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 AAA oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing crops and livestock in an attempt to 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 
    • 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 governments to pay farmers to reduce production so as to "conserve soil" and prevent erosion 
    • It was a piece of legislation passed in response to the Supreme Court's declaration that the Agricultural Adjustment Act was unconstitutional 
    • Educated farmers on how to use their lands without damaging them 
    • Took immediate action to contain the dust bowl's effects by planting trees and native grass 
    • Three years after the Act was adopted, soil erosion had dropped 65%
  • Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 
    • Created to generate electric power and control floods in a seven state region around the Tennessee River Valley 
    • FDR signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act cred the TVA on May 18, 1933 
    • The agency still exists and has grown to become America's largest public power company 
    • Some criticized the TVA for only helping a specific region not the whole country 
  • Rural Electrification Administration (REA) 
    • The REA was created (1935) 
    • The REA provided farms with inexpensive electric lighting and power and eventually telephone services 
    • The brought all the electrical appliances that the cities had since the 1920's 
    • The REA made long-term loans to state and local governments, to farmers' cooperatives, and to nonprofit organizations to do work 
    • By 1939 rural households with electricity had risen to 25% (up from 10% 7 earlier 
    • The administration was abolished in 1994 and its functions assumed by the Rural Utilities Service 
  • 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 
  • Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC) 
    • The typical home loan in 1930 required a 50% down payment and had to be paid off withing 5-7 years at an interest rate of 6 to 8 percent 
    • Buyers paid the entire interest charge at the end of the payback period in one large payment 
    • Often they had to take out a second mortgage, at rates of up to 18% just to cover this final payment 
    • The HOLC was established in 1933 to refinance home to prevent foreclosure 
    • It was usually used to extend loans from shorter, expensive payments of the 15 years to the lower payment of the 30 year loans
  • Federal Housing Administration (FHA) 
    • The Federal Housing Administration was created in 1934 
    • Insured loans made by banks and other private lenders for home building and home buying 
    • The goals of this organization are to improve housing standards and conditions and to provide and adequate home financing system 
    • In 1965, the Federal Housing Administration became part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is still around today 
  • United States Housing Authority (USHA) 
    • Created in 1937 
    • It was designed to lend money to the states or communities for low-cost home construction 
    • Homes were design for low-income and homeless people 
    • The USHA was absorbed by the National Housing Agency in 1942
  • Social Security Administration (SSA) 
    • Established in 1935 
    • Provides retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits 
    • To qualify for these benefits, most American workers pay Social Security taxes on their earnings 
    • Future benefits are based on employees' contributions  
    • Each person is given a Social Security Number 
  • Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) 
    • Passed in 1938 
    • Gave the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate these industries 
    • Mandated a review of the safety of all new drugs before going to market 
    • Banned false therapeutic claims in drug labeling 
    • Authorized factory inspections and expanded enforcement powers by the FDA 
    • Set new regulatory standards for foods and cosmetics 
  • Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) 
    • Passed in 1934 
    • Abolished the Dawes Act and allowed Native American to govern themselves on a tribal basis 
    • Allowed Native Americans to manage and keep their own land 
    • Included provisions to help create job opportunities on Indian Reservations. This had led to many casinos on Indian Reservations 
    • The Act is still around today 

Tuesday: Continued going over the new deals and different groups along with it.... All notes up above

Wednesday: Continued going over the New Deals

Thursday: Finished the New Deal and reviewed for the 1920's test

Friday: No school 

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