The Works Progress Administration (WPA)
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was one of the most significant of the New Deal programs. It was Roosevelt’s primary attack on unemployment. Under administrator Harry L. Hopkins, the WPA put over three million Americans to work in its first year of operation. By the time the program ended in 1943, unemployment was 1.9 percent. […]
The Public Works Administration (PWA)
The Public Works Administration (PWA) was charged with developing very large public works construction projects. Between 1933 and 1939 PWA invested more than six billion dollars and 4.75 billion man-hours of labor in constructing about 10 percent of all the new transportation facilities (roads, bridges, etc.) built in the United States during the period, 35 […]
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
On May 18, 1933, President Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, as part of the flurry of legislation that marked Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was similar in purpose and scope to the Grand Coulee Dam. Even by Depression standards, the Tennessee River Valley (which includes parts of […]
Social Security
Before the 1930s, support for the elderly was a matter of local government and family concern rather than a federal government concern. The Depression proved that way of approaching the situation was inadequate. So, as part of the New Deal, the Roosevelt Administration created the Old Age, Survivors Insurance program (OASI) through Title II of […]
Opposition to the New Deal from the Right and the Left
By 1934, the New Deal was encountering opposition from both ends of the political spectrum. Conservatives argued that Roosevelt had done too much. FDR’s most powerful conservative opponents, prominent industrialists and financiers such as Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors and the DuPont family, organized the American Liberty League in August 1934 to oppose the […]
Prohibition and Gangsters
The 18th Amendment, Prohibition, became effective in January 1920. Prohibition was hugely unpopular with the average American. It was a failure; and, it spawned bootlegging, organized crime and political corruption. Prohibition was repealed by the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933. “The Alcoholic Blues,” words by E. Laska, music by A. Vontilzer, is sung […]
Pop Culture during the Great Depression: Radio, Movies, Big Bands and Swing Music
Some 104 million records were sold in the United States in 1927 along with 987,000 record players. When the economy crashed, the recording industry crashed with it. Only six million records were sold in 1932, a 95 percent drop in sales. People simply had no money for luxuries like records. On the other hand, radio […]
Introduction
In the early twentieth century, W.E. B. Du Bois wrote a book entitled The Souls of Black Folks in which he analyzed the Black traditions of musical expression. He characterized their songs as generally falling into two categories: “sorrow songs” and “spirituals.” He noted that these songs were not merely music, “…they were an expression […]
The Jim Crow Experience
The Civil War had been fought and won; the 13th amendment (abolishing slavery), the 14th amendment (Negro citizenship and equal protection of the laws) and 15th amendment (Negro males right to vote) to the Federal constitution had been enacted; and, the Civil Rights law of 1866 had been passed. But the Negro still had not […]
Lynchings
The Jim Crow mentality was not only discriminatory, it was also hateful and violent. The Ku Klux Klan was established in the Reconstruction South. But, it was resurrected in the 1920s when it found roots in some northern states, including Indiana and Ohio. It is estimated that the Klan had more than three million members […]