the new deal - evaluation

• the new deal - successes - relief

  Millions of people received relief, help with their mortgage, jobs etc. from the alphabet agencies.
• the new deal - successes - roads and buildings

  The PWA and the TVA provided valuable economic and social infrastructures, such as roads, airports, schools, theatres, dams etc
• the new deal - succeses - reform

  Roosevelt's new laws about social security/ minimum wage/ labour relations and trade unions survived and protected ordinary people’s rights and conditions. Democracy survived in America (unlike Italy and Germany)
• the new deal - succeses - roosevelt

  became the people's hero - he was elected four times.
• the new deal - succeses - reprecussions

  Democracy survived in America (unlike Italy and Germany).   The New Deal became a model of how a democratic government ought to behave - arguably influenced the British Welfare State of 1948.   And in 1998, when the Labour Government of Britain was trying to introduce new laws to help poor people, it called it: a New Deal.
• the new deal - weaknesses and failings - did not end the depression

  • Roosevelt's adherence to a balanced budget and 'sound money' may have prolonged the Depression.
  • His strategies mirrored Hoover's, only on a larger scale, without fundamentally new ideas.
  • Unemployment remained high at 10.6 million by 1935, briefly dropping to 7.7 million in 1937 before rising again to 10.4 million in 1938.
  • The Depression persisted until the economic stimulus of World War II production.
• the new deal - weaknesses and failings - damaged blacks and immigrants

  • many were laid off as a direct result of the New Deal’s attempts to give workers rights.
• the new deal - determined opposition - BRASS - what it stands for

  businessess men, republicans, activists, state government, the supreme court
• the new deal - determined opposition BRASS (B)

  Businessmen hated the New Deal because it interfered with their businesses and supported workers’ rights.   Rich people accused Roosevelt of betraying his class.   Henry Ford hired thugs to attack his trade union workers.
• the new deal - determined opposition BRASS (R)

   Republicans hated the expenditure, which they said was wasteful (‘boondoggling’ – jobs for the sake of jobs).  CWA had to be abolished in 1935, though immediately replaced by the PWA.   After 1938, Republicans took over the Senate, and Roosevelt was unable to get any more New Deal legislation through.
• the new deal - determined opposition BRASS (A)

   Activists like Huey Long (Senator for Louisiana who started a Share the Wealth’ campaign to confiscate fortunes over $3m) and Francis Townsend (who campaigned for a pension of $200 a month) said it did not go far enough.
• the new deal - determined opposition BRASS (S)

  State governments opposed the New Deal, saying that the Federal government was taking their powers.
• the new deal - determined opposition BRASS (S)

  The Supreme Court ruled that the NRA codes of employers’ conduct, and the AAA programme, were illegal because they took away the States’ powers.   Because of this, in 1937, Roosevelt threatened to force old Supreme Court judges to retire and to create new ones; the crisis was averted when the Supreme Court reversed its decisions.