Transcript Document
The Great Depression The Crash > Economy Compared to Television, 1929 The Crash > “It’s so nice to have Daddy home all the time now,” Life, 1930 Unemployment > Deportation of Mexicans, 1931 Unemployment > Jobs Listed by Race, 1939 Poverty > Hooverville, 1933 Hoover > “We can do it!” 1931 Hoover > “Fundamentally, the ship was sound,” New Yorker, 1932 The New Deal > Historiographic Debates • 1952, Herbert Hoover • New Deal failed because it “attempted to collectivize the American system of life.” • 1940s-1960s, “liberal consensus” historians • New Deal was a “pragmatic” revolution that expanded the role of the federal government in American life. • mid-1960s, “New Left” historians • New Deal was fundamentally conservative, it could but failed to redistribute power in American society; it protected American capitalism. • 1970s-2000s, contemporary historians • New Deal could not have done more than it did, because of conservative Congress, the lack of adequate government bureaucracy, and localist and antistatist political culture. The New Deal > Stages • 1932 - FDR elected • First New Deal (“the hundred days”) • 1934 - Strike wave • 1934 - Leftist Democrats win the majority in congressional elections • Second New Deal (“the second hundred days”) • 1935 - Supreme Court unanimously declares NRA unconstitutional • 1936 - FDR reelected in a landslide • 1937 - Court-packing • FDR proposes but fails to implement unpopular Supreme Court reform • 1938 - Republicans and conservative Democrats regain seats in the House • As a reform movement, New Deal is over New Deal > Private FDR Photograph, 1930s New Deal > Public FDR Photographs, 1930s New Deal > FDR Giving a Fireside Chat, 1937 New Deal > Banking Crisis Advertisement, 1931 New Deal > One Hundred Days Cartoon, Lynn Item, 1933 New Deal > One Hundred Days Cartoon, Houston Post, 1933 New Deal > TVA: Big Ridge Dam, TN New Deal > Song from Thanks a Million, 1935 They started up the NRA to keep the big bad wolf away Then FDR began to be a headache to the GOP Now that codes are everywhere we’ve got initials in our hair The farmer’s IOU is O.K. since Congress formed the AAA The CCC chops down a tree and sells it pronto FOB … The RFC and NHA led millions to the AAA The AAA has crops it cuts and all of us are going nuts! --NRA - National Recovery Administration AAA - Agricultural Adjustment Administration CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps RFC - Reconstruction Finance Corporation NHA - National Housing Authority FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt GOP - Grand Old Party FOB - Freight on Board New Deal > NRA’s Blue Eagle Photograph, 1934 New Deal > CCC Worker Photograph, 1930 New Deal > Farm Holiday, 1930 and Archibald Willard, The Spirit of ‘76, 1876 The Dust Bowl > Dust Storm Approaching Startford, Texas, 1930s The Dust Bowl > Map of Erosion and Dust on the Plains The Dust Bowl > Traveling from South Texas to the Arkansas Delta, 1936 FSA > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, March 1936 FSA > Arthur Rothstein, Steer Skull, Pennington County, South Dakota 1936 FSA > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull on dry sun-baked earth FSA > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull, cows grazing in the background FSA > Walker Evans, Burroughs Photographs, Hale County, Alabama, 1936 Second New Deal > Social Security Poster, 1936 Second New Deal > Works Progress Administration poster 1936 Elections > Literary Digest and Gallup polls Literary Digest Final Poll Landon Roosevelt States for Landon States for FDR 57% 43 32 16 January 1936 Gallup Poll By Income Roosevelt Upper third 41% Lower third 70 Reliefers 82 Landon 59% 30 18 A.I.P.O. (Gallup) Final Poll Roosevelt Landon States for FDR States for Landon On the line 55.7% 44.3 40 6 2 Election Results Roosevelt Landon States for FDR States for Landon 61% 49% 46 2 October 1936 Gallup Poll Farmers Roosevelt 52.6% Landon 42.1% Women Roosevelt 51.4% Landon 44.8% Young People (21–24 Years) Roosevelt 57.4% Landon 38.4% Reliefers Roosevelt 78.8% Landon 14.0% 1936 Elections > Percentage vote for Roosevelt in black districts, 1932 and 1936 Labor > Wagner Act, 1935: United Automobile Workers poster addressing Ford workers Labor > Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times, 1936 Labor > A CIO poster quoting FDR Labor > The rise in union membership Labor > Strike patterns Labor > Sit-down strike in Flint, MI Labor > UAW organizers Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen pose for press photographers, River Rouge Plant, May 26, 1937 Labor > They were approached by Ford Service Department men Labor > Ford men attacked Labor > Reuther and Frankensteen immediately after the incident Labor > Women’s sit-down strike in a Goody Nut Shop, 1937 Labor > Sit-down strike cartoon, New York World-Telegram, March 1937 Labor > CIO photomagazine, Photo-History, July 1937 Backlash > Memorial Day Massacre, May 29, 1937 Backlash > The Hilo Massacre, August 1, 1938 Court Packing > Schecter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 1935 • A small company - small firms objected the most to limits on hours and wages • Charles Evans Hughes for the majority: “Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional power.” • Congress cannot relegate power to the executive branch, even in an emergency • NRA infringes on “freedom of contract,” through industrial price and wage codes Court Packing > “Fall In!,” Richmond Times Dispatch, 1937 Court Packing > “He Just Ain’t Fast Enough,” Brooklyn Citizen, 1937 Court Packing > “Qualifying Test,” New York Herald Tribune, 1937 Court Packing > “Step by Step,” Buffalo News, 1937 New Deal > Anti-Roosevelt cartoon, 1938 FDR’s Critics > Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin • Populist critics of President Roosevelt • Long - Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator; the rich should “share wealth” • Coughlin - Catholic priest, • Both used radio effectively • Long - the rich should “share wealth” (as Kingfish from Amos’n’Andy show) • Coughlin - sermons, attacked “money changers,” but also socialists • Both had large following in the early 1930s • Long - 8 million members of Share Our Wealth Clubs • Coughlin - 40 million listeners in 1930 • At first support FDR, then disillusioned • Long - till 1933 as U.S. Senator (Democrat) • Coughlin - till 1935 through sermons on the radio • Long shot in 1935, used for the main character in Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men • Coughlin turned anti-semitic and conservative after FDR’s reelection in 1936, ordered by his bishop to cease all political activity in 1940 FDR’s Critics > Huey Long, My First Days in the White House (1935) Migration > John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath • Novel published in 1939 • Film in 1940 (closely follows the novel) • Reinforced the belief that migrants fled the dust storms • In fact, they fled for varied reasons, including drought, falling agricultural prices, and mechanization of agriculture • 16,000 farmers fled dust storms • 400,000 migrated, from a larger area in the Southwest • Famous scene: farmer confronts a man who is about to level his house, used the plight of farmers to convey a sense of unfocused outrage shared by many others during the Depression - people couldn’t figure out who was to blame for the disaster Politics and Movies > Screwball comedies My Man Godfrey, 1936 Frank Capra, Meet John Doe, 1941 Politics and Movies > The Marx Brothers, Duck Soup, 1933 Politics and Radio > Orson Welles, “War of the Worlds,” 1938 Popular Front > Artists who were affiliated with the movement Orson Welles Dorothea Lange Charlie Chaplin John Steinbeck Frank Capra Duke Ellington Popular Front > Scottsboro March announcement, Daily Worker, 1934 Disney Strike > “Walt Disney as the men who work for him see him. They portray him as unhappy because the strike is successful.” PM (1941) Disney Strike > “Under the mask of the American Society of Screen Cartoonists, strikers claim is a company union,” PM (1941) Disney Strike > “How a guy feels the first time he pickets. Most strikers were never union members before.” PM (1941) Disney Strike > “The striking screen cartoon guild follows the difficult road of union organization, leaving alleged company union behind.” PM (1941) Disney Strike > “Here is the artist’s version of an ideal picket. The Disney workers make the ideal striker; there are mighty few labor disputes in which just about every striker can make his own picket sign.” PM (1941) Disney Strike > Life of an animator, as the public imagines it and in reality, without union protection. PM (1941) Disney Strike > “It’s OK for the seven dwarfs to whistle while they work, but not the girls who work for Disney. Discipline is strict. PM (1941)