[Music] what's going down beautiful APUSH people today we're taking a look at the Great Depression and even more importantly the New Deal so in 1932 there is an election for the presidency and the Republican party is running Herbert Hoover he's running for a second term he had the unfortunate luck of being the president when the stock market crashes in October 1929 and for the early part of the depression Hoover favored rugged individualism he did not want the federal government to give direct relief he does eventually support the Reconstruction Finance Corporation based on a trickled down theory of economics and the Democrats though pick Franklin Roosevelt he promises the American people a new deal there is no clear plan laid out no one exactly knows nor does he what he's going to do if elected but in 1932 the unemployment rate is 25% and there was a growing frustration with the limited response under Hoover and the federal government's failure to address the needs of the American people and this brings Franklin Roosevelt the victory so who is this guy Franklin Roosevelt FDR Roosevelt comes from a wealthy privileged family he is a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt he came up in New York politics he was the governor of newor New York in 1928 but important to keep in mind is before that occurred polio had left Roosevelt paralyzed from the waist down and he could not walk uned he needed braces and crutches and very often in private he used a wheelchair it's important you also know about Elanor Roosevelt the wifey she will recreate the position of first lady she's a very active first lady and she is going to be a very vocal advocate for various underserved groups including African-Americans and women Roosevelt is not going to come up with his policies on his own in fact there were a group of advisers very diverse group of people known as The Brain Trust and many of these were very intelligent University professors who will help him as he develops his New Deal programs and as you could see Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins is one of these members of his cabinet and will be the first woman in the presidential cabinet now what is this new deal well it's important to keep in mind it was not a organized or pre-planned set of programs a lot of it was based upon experimentation and in effect the New Deal is nothing more than the laws and programs and agencies created by the federal government and what made the New Deal so popular amongst many Americans was its willingness to experiment the New Deal is characterized by the three Rs make sure you know these relief for the people who are are struggling from the impact of the Great Depression recovery to get the economy back on track and then reform so that this economic crisis would never happen again Roosevelt takes office in March of 1933 at his inauguration he famously says the only thing we have to fear is fear itself the New Deal is going to be oftentimes referred to as the alphabet agencies because the programs are going to be known by their various letters and Roosevelt is going to use the power of the radio is's going to give many Fireside Chats where he uses the radio to communicate directly to the American people and upon taking office you have this period known as the first 100 days this starts on March 4th 1933 Congress at the request of President Roosevelt pass a huge number of laws designed to deal with the Great Depression more laws than in any other period in congress's history and one of the first are that Roosevelt wants to address is the area of banking and Finance in fact well into 1933 many banks were failing depositors had no trust in the banks and they were quickly withdrawing their funds causing thousands of banks to fail so in March of 1933 Roosevelt wants to stop this panic and he declares he calls for a bank holiday he wants to close the banks and restore the confidence of the American people he explains his actions in the fireside chat on March 12th in 1933 and Congress passes the Emergency Banking Relief act which basically said only banks that were financially stable could reopen so the government is going to check them and once they're deemed stable they would be allowed to reopen another law passed in the first 100 days dealing with financed in banking is the glass steagle act this is going to be intended to regulate Banks in fact it restricted how Banks could invest a customer's deposits and the intention of this is to stop that speculation that Banks were taking part in in the 1920s glass deagle act also establishes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation more commonly known as FDIC which says that banks that belong to FDIC the deposits made would be insured and up to $2500 back in 1933 is guaranteed by the federal government and later on in the New Deal another law is passed called the Securities and Exchange Commission where the government would regulate the stock market and it's really intended to stop that speculation that led to the crash the government would watch over the stock market they would audit and hopefully eliminate fraud another part of the first 100 days was intended to deal with the unemployment problem and provide relief in 1933 millions of people remained unemployed roughly 25 % and the New Deal created jobs to provide relief to the unemployed and the idea was there was the hope that this job creation would provide relief and also lead to recovery as people had some money in their pocket they would start spending it and the economy would jump start so during the first 100 days you get the Federal Emergency Relief act this is headed by Harry Hopkins and the federal government gave money to States and local governments so that they could provide relief services such as running of soup kitchens another program is the Civilian Conservation Corps the CCC this program employed jobless men young men in reforestation Projects Park maintenance and other kind of conservation roles these young men would live on government run camps and the idea would be they would be doing these important jobs while also sending money home to their families and then you also have the pwa the Public Works Administration in which federal money would be sent to State and local government for Public Works projects so this money would be used to build things like roads Bridges dams and other Public Works another aspect of the first 100 days is industrial and agricultural recovery remember one of the big problems was overproduction to deal with this the National Recovery Act the NRA was created headed by Hugh Johnson and its job was one to produce industrial recovery and two to allow for fair wages and hours for work workers to do this the federal government and business drafted codes for Industries and these codes for example would set production limits so they could limit the possibility of over production there would be codes for wages and hours worked and there was a special section 7A in the NRA which allowed workers to form unions so no more yellow dog contracts and this is one of the first instances of the federal government guaranteeing the rights of workers to form and join unions another important program deals with agriculture this is the agricultural adjustment act the AAA this paid Farmers to cut production so you want to kind of limit production so that prices could increase and the government would pay Farmers Farmers would receive subsidies payments and return for cutting production so both the NRA and the AAA are trying to stimulate recovery in the economy it's important to note we're going to cover this in just a moment both of these acts will be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court keep in mind there was also something called the Dust Bowl going on at this time horrible drought in the 1930s added to the farmers problems on the Great Plains and you have a number of states such as Oklahoma having these severe dust storms known as the dust bow and really this is the result of overuse of the land and high winds causing ing these dust storms and thousands of ois as they were derogatorily called fled to places like California looking for work and a fresh start and this is documented in the famous book The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck you talks about one family's Journey from Oklahoma trying to start over another program in the first 100 days you should know about is the Tennessee Valley Authority the TVA and this is really a government agency which built dams electric power plants and attempted to control flooding and erosion in this Tennessee Valley area and it's as you can see on the map it's not just in Tennessee but a whole area of the country that was very poor and without electricity and this is a huge change from previous policies since the TVA was the Federal Government helping develop a region and selling electricity at very reduced rates and this TVA gave thousands of people people jobs and developed this poor region by providing hydroelectric power it's important to note that in the first couple years of the New Deal the primary focus was on recovery and there was some success the unemployment rate was dropping there was some recovery taking place in some Industries but there still needed to be more done and starting in 1935 the Second New Deal goes further with reform and direct relief and you can really see that with the works progress it made Administration the WPA the WPA spent billions of dollars the federal government is employing millions of unemployed workers and under the WPA instead of unemployed people getting relief from the local and state government this time it's the federal government and workers are building roads Bridges and other Public Works projects the WPA also employs artists writers painters actors photographers under subprograms such as the federal writers project the federal arts project and even the National Youth Administration for young people another program under the second new deal is the resettlement administration this provided assistance really loans to sharecroppers tenant farmers and other small farmers that were left out of assistance in the First new deal and if you recall the AAA actually paid Farmers to take land out of production and this hurt non-land owning Farmers so the resettlement administration seeks to address the plight of those individuals one of the most important programs of the new deal is going to be Social Security and the Social Security Act of 1935 would have the greatest impact on future Generations reason being the Social Security Act established the principle of federal responsibility for social welfare here's what it does money would be taken out from the payroll of employee and employers and people over the age of 65 and above would receive money pensions upon re retirement under Social Security others were eligible for assistance such as mothers with dependent children unemployment insurance for those individuals who lost their jobs or for the disabled and this is a huge program still around today and it provides a safety net for those individuals who need assistance another important program of the second new deal is the National Labor Relations Act or the Wagner Act the Wagner Act guaranteed the rights of organized lab labor it protected the right to join a union and to bargain collectively and this is a huge change because it is the first time that the federal government is protecting the rights of workers to form unions it creates the National Labor Relations Board to enforce the labor laws and what you're going to see is after 1935 a huge boost to the labor movement you're going to have the rise of the CIO under John L Lewis you're going to have the sitdown strikes in General Motors and labor union membership is going to increase there were challenges to the New Deal um and it's important to note that by 1936 the New Deal did improve the economy but it still remain unstable in spite of these limitations to the New Deal Roosevelt remained enormously popular he easily crushes Alfred Landon in the election of 1936 but still there were critics of Roosevelt and the New Deal one of the most vocal critics were conservatives and business owners they tended to dislike Roosevelt's New Deal programs couple reasons why they did not like the increase of government regulation and the increase in the size of the federal government and they were very critical of deficit spending for Roosevelt and his Brain Trust they Justified these policies um because they were following the policies of British economist John Maynard KES and Keynesian economics says deficit spending was needed during times of economic crisis to stimulate economic growth so you're going to jump start the economy by spending money and running these deficits there were some liberal critics of the new deal they felt that the New Deal was not doing enough for minority communities and the poor and you get the rise of various demagogues who are challenging Roosevelt and the New Deal two of the big ones is Dr Francis Townsen actually before the social Security Act is passed towns and's plan said that every person over the age of 60 would receive $200 a month and that money would have to be spent immediately which would then stimulate the economy while also providing assistance for the elderly and the other big guy is the senator from Louisiana Huey Long who advocated for the program share our wealth this program slogan was Every Man a king and what it would do would tax the wealth and give that money to the poor so it was a redistribution of money and he had a lot of followers but unfortunately for long he will be assassinated in Roosevelt's mind one of the biggest threats to his new deal was the Supreme Court so a little background on the court packing plan remember the Supreme Court ruled two key New Deal programs unconstitutional they also ruled some others but the two that you should know about is the National Recovery Act ruled unconstitutional in 1935 and the agricultural adjustment act and Roosevelt decides that he is going to propose a plan that would allow him to appoint additional judges and under his plan for every judge over the age of 70 Roosevelt would be able to appoint an additional judge so the Supreme Court would go from nine to 15 judges critics accuse him of trying to pack the court this is seen as his court packing plan because it's very clear Roosevelt wants to put people in the Supreme Court who will support who his new deal policies there's a huge amount of opposition from both Republicans and Democrats as they see Roosevelt's Court packing plan as an assault on the principle of checks and balances and Roosevelt suffers a rare political defeat over this issue of the Supreme Court and finally some impacts that are important to know about one is the change that happens politically the New Deal Democratic Coalition of farmers Urban immigrants union members African-Americans and women the Democratic party gets a lot of support because of its New Deal programs from these different groups and key is the change of voting patterns amongst African-Americans all the way back until Lincoln African-Americans tended to support the Republican party this changes under Franklin Roosevelt because of his new deal policies the New Deal established the Federal responsibility for society it created the safety net the welfare state and in spite of the numerous programs the New Deal does not end the Great Depression it would not be until World War II that the Great Depression will finally end but it does provide huge amount of relief to numerous people throughout the 1930s there continues to be a debate about deficit spending and the creation of the welfare state and the growth of the federal government so it opens up these discussions that will not go away in fact in 1937 a recession takes place the so-called Roosevelt recession when reduced government spending on public works and reduction in relief programs causes the economy to decline and remember the idea of kinyan Economics the government's spending helps promote economic growth following the recession in 1937 Roosevelt continues the spending and that boost the economy back up and it's important to note that the New Deal is going to happen have a limited impact on racial and gender issues Roosevelt for example did nothing on the very huge problem of lynching and the reason being is he did not want to jeopardize support for his New Deal programs by coming out in favor of an anti- lynching law he knew if he did that he would lose the support among Southern Democrats so when it came to issues of civil rights Roosevelt was a all right hopefully we got you ready for this next test if the video help help you out at all click like if you haven't done so subscribe tell all your classmates to do the same and if you have any questions post a comment in the comment box have a beautiful day peace