DBQ: Explain why or why not the New Deal was effective in American society during the Great

Depression.
Document 1
Source: New Deal Cartoon, 1936, Photograph by Granger.

Document 2
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Global Insight, 2009

Document 3
Source: Excerpt from The New Deal, a speech delivered by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt to the
Democratic National Convention, 1932
Throughout the Nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government
of the last years look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the
distribution of national wealth.

On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of
our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and of thought have not gone
forever. Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain.

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled
constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a
political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in
this crusade to restore America to its own people.

Document 4
Source: Excerpt from Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Harper and Row. New York, 1963
The New Deal, in a certain sense, merely introduced types of social and economic reform
familiar to many Europeans for more than a generation. Moreover, the New Deal represented the
culmination of a 1ong-range trend toward abandonment of "laissez-faire" capitalism, going back
to the regulation of the railroads in the 1880s, and the flood of state and national reform
legislation introduced in the Progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

What was truly novel about the New Deal, however, was the speed with which it accomplished
what previously had taken generations. Many of the reforms were hastily drawn and weakly
administered with some actually contradicting others. During the entire New Deal era, public
criticism and debate were never interrupted or suspended; in fact, the New Deal brought to the
individual citizen a sharp of interest in government.
Document 5
Source: Excerpt from Politics in FDRs New Deal, Shmoop 2016
Economic progress under the New Deal was painfully, brutally slow. (The country's gross
national product wouldn't match its 1929 level until 1941 [source].) Under Roosevelt,
unemployment declined from its 193233 peak, but still remained shockingly high. (The
unemployment rate, which peaked at 25% just as FDR took office, still hovered above 20% as
late as 1935, and never dropped below 14% until World War II [source].) Throughout Roosevelt's
first term, despite the New Dealers' best efforts, the American economy remained broken. And it
wasn't like they could just go out and get another one.

The continuing economic malaise inspired a number of radical (and, to many minds, dangerous)
alternatives. Louisiana's populist Senator Huey Long proposed simply taking money from the
rich and giving it to the poor (source), la Robin Hoodalthough probably with fewer
longbows. A California doctor named Frances Townsend proposed to spend nearly half the
national wealth to fund a generous state-funded retirement plan for the elderly. Socialist writer
Upton Sinclair almost won the governorship of California on a platform of collectivized
production. Communists organized unions of the urban unemployed, teaching class
consciousness.

Document 6
Source: WPA Artwork in Non-Federal Repositories, Dec 1999

Document 7
Source: Excerpt from An Evaluation of the New Deal, ushistory.org, owned by the Independence
Half Association in Philadelphia, 2008-2014
The New Deal itself created millions of jobs and sponsored public works projects that reached
most every county in the nation. Federal protection of bank deposits ended the dangerous trend
of bank runs. Abuse of the stock market was more clearly defined and monitored to prevent
collapses in the future. The Social Security system was modified and expanded to remain one of
the most popular government programs for the remainder of the century. For the first time in
peacetime history the federal government assumed responsibility for managing the economy. The
legacy of social welfare programs for the destitute and underprivileged would ring through the
remainder of the 1900s.

Laborers benefited from protections as witnessed by the emergence of a new powerful union, the
CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS. African Americans and women received
limited advances by the legislative programs, but FDR was not fully committed to either civil or
women's rights. All over Europe, fascist governments were on the rise, but Roosevelt steered
America along a safe path when economic spirits were at an all-time low.

However comprehensive the New Deal seemed, it failed to achieve its main goal: ending the
Depression. In 1939, the unemployment rate was still 19 percent, and not until 1943 did it reach
its pre-Depression levels. The massive spending brought by the American entry to the Second
World War ultimately cured the nation's economic woes.