Dance Marathons
During the Depression, dance halls were both a way of obtaining badly needed money and an escape of the harsh realities of daily life. The dance hall was a place where lonely men could find some companionship. They were also places where controversial dance marathons were held. Famous dance halls of the times included The […]
Hoover’s Failures
President Hoover believed that the economic problems that faced the country after the Wall Street Crash were best solved by private charities and/or local government. Tied to traditional laissez-faire economic concepts, Hoover and the Republican Congress were unable to do much to help the country out of its economic woes. Reflecting the hands-off economic approach […]
The Liberal Reaction and The Popular Front
Capitalism and the laissez-faire economics of conservatives like Hoover were questioned by large segments of the population. (Donaldson, “I Hear America Singing”: Folk Music and National Identity, p. 39.) “[America] was in the midst of an identity crisis as citizens struggled to adapt to the chain of disasters that accompanied the onset of the Depression.…Distressing […]
The Election of 1932
Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was the cousin of Teddy Roosevelt. He graduated from Harvard. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson. He was the unsuccessful vice presidential candidate in the 1920 election. He contracted polio at the age of 39, and he became governor of New York in 1928. FDR campaigned […]
The New Deal – Alphabet Soup Agencies
Roosevelt knew he faced unique problems that demanded new solutions. However, he was not a radical; he was a pragmatist. He was not about to abandon capitalism, but he was willing to make changes in the economic system that Hoover would never consider. (Bindas, p. vii.) His attitude was, “If it fails, admit it frankly […]
The National Recovery Administration (NRA)
The New Deal social works programs were called “alphabet soup agencies.” One of the boldest and most far reaching of those programs was the National Recovery Administration (NRA). The NRA’s symbol was the Blue Eagle, and it was displayed proudly by its supporters in the windows of their businesses. The NRA was an effort to […]
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
The plight of the American farmer during the Great Depression has been discussed above. The basic problem for the farmers was that they produced too much, which lowered crop prices to a level below which they could make a profit and pay for supplies, machinery and mortgages. In order to address the problems of agriculture, […]
The Farm Security Administration (FSA)
The Resettlement Administration was a New Deal agency that later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The FSA had many programs involving agricultural issues and dealt directly with the plight of farmers who were victims of the Dust Bowl disaster. The FSA had a photography division that set out to document the Depression and the […]
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created in early 1933 and was the most popular of all New Deal programs. It was dissolved in 1942. The three goals of the program were job training, conservation work and aid for families. It was administered by the Army and the Forest Service, and provided outdoor, wilderness-type jobs […]
The Civil Works Administration (CWA)
The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was another of the New Deal alphabet agencies. It was created in 1933 and lasted only four and a half months. With a budget of $200,000,000.00 per month, it was designed to get the unemployed through the winter. It employed 4.2 million people building over 300,000 miles of roads, countless […]