The New Deal
Three aims, in the CED's order
- Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal attempted to end the Great Depression by using government power to provide relief to the poor, stimulate recovery, and reform the American economy.
- Relief, recovery, reform — three aims on three timescales: immediate, medium, and permanent.
- Attempted again, and 7.10's third bullet will say plainly that it did not end the Depression.
Put the New Deal's three aims in the CED's order.
Three timescales: immediate, medium, permanent.
Pushed from one side, limited from the other
- Radical, union, and populist movements pushed Roosevelt toward more extensive efforts to change the American economic system, while conservatives in Congress and the Supreme Court sought to limit the New Deal's scope.
- The CED puts Roosevelt between two pressures, which is a more accurate picture than a single reforming will.
- The Supreme Court appears as a limiting institution, which 4.2 established could decide what the Constitution permits.
Select both directions of pressure on Roosevelt.
The CED puts Roosevelt between two pressures.
Three legacies, and an honest verdict
- Although the New Deal did not end the Depression, it left a legacy of reforms and regulatory agencies and fostered a long-term political realignment in which many ethnic groups, African Americans, and working-class communities identified with the Democratic Party.
- Did not end the Depression is the CED's own verdict, stated first — an answer must carry it.
- Three legacies: reforms, regulatory agencies, and a long-term political realignment naming three constituencies.
An aim, a pressure, or a legacy?
Sort each element of the New Deal.
The CED states plainly that the New Deal did not end the Depression.
And it puts that first in the sentence.
"The New Deal did not end the Depression" is the CED's own verdict, and it comes first in the sentence. What it did leave was a legacy of reforms and regulatory agencies and a long-term political realignment — an answer that claims the New Deal ended the Depression contradicts the CED directly.
Select all three constituencies in the long-term realignment.
They identified with the Democratic Party.
And people kept moving
- The increased demand for war production and labour during World War II and the economic difficulties of the 1930s led many Americans to migrate to urban centres in search of economic opportunities.
- Two causes, one movement: the difficulties of the 1930s and war production demand both pushed people toward cities.
- So 7.6's wartime pull repeats a generation later, with a depression added to it.
Select both causes of migration to cities in this period.
7.6's wartime pull repeats, with a depression added.
Impact over time
- The objective is how the Great Depression and the New Deal impacted American political, social, and economic life over time.
- Political: a long-term realignment toward the Democratic Party among three named constituencies.
- Social: migration to cities. Economic: regulatory agencies and a limited welfare state — with the Depression not ended by them.
A programme can fail at its stated goal and still change a country permanently, if what it builds outlasts the emergency it was built for. Judging it only by the goal misses most of what it did.
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal attempted to end the Great Depression by using government power to provide relief to the poor, stimulate recovery, and reform the American economy. Radical, union, and populist movements pushed Roosevelt toward more extensive efforts... while conservatives in Congress and the Supreme Court sought to limit the New Deal's scope. Although the New Deal did not end the Depression, it left a legacy of reforms and regulatory agencies and fostered a long-term political realignment in which many ethnic groups, African Americans, and working-class communities identified with the Democratic Party.