New Deal Legislation

1932
Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Granted Emergency Loans to Banks, Life

Insurance companies, and Railroads

1933
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)

Employed Youth in reforestation, road

construction, and flood control projects
Direct payments to farmers to reduce
production
Created independent public corporation
to construct dams and power projects in
the rural South
Established fair competition codes

1934
Federal Housing Authority (FHA)

Insured Home loans

1935
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Social Security Act
National Labor Relations Act

Employed 8 million people on public

works projects
Established unemployment
compensation and old age insurance
Created National Labor Relations Board
to prevent unfair labor practices

1937
National Housing Act

Authorized low rent public housing

projects

1938
Fair Labor Standards Act

Established a minimum wage of

$0.40/hour and a 40 hour work week

Source: Senate Committee on Manufactures, 1932

Opposing views on the Great Depression

I want to tell you about an experience we had in Philadelphia when our private funds were exhausted and
before public funds become available. . . .
One woman said she borrowed 50 cents from a friend and bought stale bread for 3 and a half cents per
loaf, and that is all they had for eleven days except for one or two meals. . . . One woman went along the
docks and picked up vegetables that fell from the wagons. Sometimes the fish vendors gave her fish at
the end of the day. On two different occasions this family was without food for a day and a half. . . .
Another family did not have food for two days. Then the husband went out and gathered dandelions and
the family lived on them.

Source: Herbert Hoover, 1932

The proposals of our opponents (FDR) will endanger or destroy our system. . . . I especially emphasize
that promise to promote "employment for all surplus labor at all times." At first I could not believe that
anyone would be so cruel as to hold out a hope so absolutely impossible of realization to these
10,000,000 who are unemployed. . . . If it were possible to give this employment to 10,000,000 people by
the government, it would cost upwards of $9,000,000,000 a year. . . . It would pull down the employment
of those who are still at work by the high taxes and the demoralization of credit upon which their
employment is dependent. . . . It would mean the growth of a fearful bureaucracy which, once established,
could never be dislodged.
Source: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932
We have two problems: first, to meet the immediate distress; second, to build up on a basis of permanent
employment. As to "immediate relief," the first principle is that this nation . . . owes a positive duty that no
citizen shall be permitted to starve. . . . In addition to providing emergency relief, the Federal Government
should and must provide temporary work wherever that is possible. You and I know that in the national
forests, on flood prevention, and on the development of waterway projects. . . . tens of thousands, and
even hundreds of thousands of our unemployed citizens can be given at least temporary employment. . . .
Finally . . .we call for a coordinated system of employment exchanges, the advance planning of public
works, and unemployment reserves.
Source: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, 1933
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them
with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the
time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing
conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will
prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding
and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give
that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only
material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen;
government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in
the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets
for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

Opposing views on the Great Depression

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great
number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.