HIS 122 - Outline #3
IX. Depression and a New Deal
A. The Great Depression
1. Causes
a. Overspeculation, visible in 1925 Florida real estate collapse
b. Overextension of credit, visible in 1927 housing market collapse
c. Overconsumption, visible in rising warehouse inventories by 1928
d. All of the above, visible in the 1929 collapse of the stock market
e. Economic nationalism, visible in severe international trade imbalances
f. Herbert Hoover?
2. The depression's depths
B. FDR
C. The New Deal (or the "1st New Deal", or the "Hundred Days") - 1933
1. AAA
2. FDIC
3. CCC
4. TVA
5. NRA
D. The 2nd New Deal (or the "2nd Hundred Days", or FDR's "Shift to the Left") - 1935
1. New AAA
2. Expanded TVA
3. Social Security
4. WPA
5. NLRA (Wagner Act)
6. Bill to reform (or "pack") the Supreme Court
E. The Election of 1936
1. Criticisms of FDR
a. Critics from the right
b. Critics from the left
(1) Organized leftists
(a) Socialists
[1] Reasons for resurgence (900,000 votes in 1932)
[a] Desperation
[b] Charismatic leadership (Norman Thomas)
[2] Reasons for resumed decline (186,000 votes in 1936; only 7000 members in SPA by 1938)
[a] Appeal preempted by FDR
[b] Appeal preempted by Communists
(b) Communists
[1] Sources of strength
[a] Desperation
[b] Humanitarian appeals by international movement, creation of "popular fronts"
[c] Rise of facism in Europe
[d] Russia's apparent economic expansion
[2] Reasons for collapse
[a] Unstable membership
[b] Deceit in international movement, revealed in Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939
[3] Accomplishments
[a] Erstwhile members set up for persecution in McCarthy era
[b] Preemption of left before self-destruction destroyed what was left of left
(2) Individual leftist demagogues
(a) Dr. Francis Townshend
(b) Fr. Charles Caughlin
(c) Huey Long (All the King's Men)
2. Outcome (Electoral College)
FDR - 523; Landon - 8
3. Long-term significance: Creation of a coaltion that would make the Democratic Party dominant for the next generation, including
a. Labor
b. Farmers
c. African-Americans
F. FDR's 2nd term - Did the Second New Deal work?
No, largely because Roosevelt failed fully to embrace Keynesian economic theory. Only World War II, with the massive deficit spending it required finally (and immediately) ended the depression, prompting some historians to conclude that the New Deal did least for those who needed most, and most for those who needed least. If this is true, then
G. What was new about the New Deal?
1. Another look at New Deal programs
a. AAA
b. FDIC
c. CCC
d. TVA
e. Social Security
f. WPA
g. NLRA
(1) Reasons for labor's plight in 1920s
(a) "Red Scare" discredited movement, robbed it of leadership
(b) Prosperity; rising real wages for workers made unions seem unnecessary
(c) Depression at decade's end enabled employers to lay off union sympathizers
(d) Conservative leadership (Samuel Gompers and the A.F. of L.), which admitted only skilled workers organized by craft
(2) Labor's coming of age
(a) John L. Lewis and the C.I.O., targeting skilled and unskilled workers in these industries:
[1] Steel
[2] Textiles
[3] Auto - The GM Strike of 1936
(b) NLRA's Clause 7(a), which guaranteed workers' right to join a union, and bringing
[1] New stability to American economy and society
[2] Economic stimulus by enabling workers to become more active consumers
2. What did these programs have in common?
All called on the government to expand its role in Americans' lives, not to serve as an arbiter between society's contending forces, but actively to take the side of the underdog, protecting the victims and potential victims of an economic system that could suffer a great depression.
X. World War II
A. U. S. foreign policy between the wars
1. Americans' perception that World War I had been a mistake reflected in 1930s Neutrality Acts
2. FDR's efforts to push for preparedness through isolationist 1930s
B. Pearl Harbor
1. Charges of U. S. foreknowledge of attack
2. Evidence of intelligence failures if not complicity
C. American industrial response - World War II as a contest between industrial capacities
D. The Home Front
1. Economic concerns
2. Social issues
3. Minorities' plight
a. Women
b. African Americans
c. Hispanic Americans
d. Japanese Americans
(1) "Justifications" for internment
(a) "Protective custody"
(b) "Preventive detention"
(2) Legacy of the experience
XI. The U. S. since World War II
A. The Cold War
1. The atomic bomb
2. McCarthyism
3. American motives
a. Humanitarianism
b. Ideology
c. Economics
B. Domestic life
1. Individual American dreams
a. Mobility (cars)
b. Stability (homes)
c. Entertainment (TVs)
2. Challenges to middle calss (material) values
a. Youth culture
(1) 1950s beatniks
(2) 1960s student activists
(3) 1970s counterculture
b. The Civil Rights Movement