Great Depression DBQ

Beginning with the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24, 1929, the Great Depression was a time in United States history that continued for a much longer period than panics the country had experienced before. Although the unemployment rate vacillated for the following decade, it was highest in the recession of 1937. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the man the people of the United States called upon in order to pick up the copious economic and social problems left behind by Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt had both effective and defeasible responses to these problems that in turn, altered the government greatly. Many of Roosevelt's responses to a number of problems created by the Great Depression increased the size of the federal government.
As shown in document A, Lesueur discusses how the government set up programs that gave out food and had places for men to buy beds at extremely inexpensive prices. One such program was the Civil Works Administration, which provided temporary jobs and also repaired roads and bridges. But because these opportunities were generally only offered to men, this response by Roosevelt failed. The court case, shown in document F, was a controversial case known as Schechter v. United States. In this case, it was declared that there was to be no interstate commerce which allowed it to be controlled by the government. Also, the tenth amendment was referred to during this case because everything not stated in the constitution is up to the states. In document C, the government started to offer more jobs, relief and reform and actually started doing something towards the termination of the Great Depression. As you can see, these are just some of the few examples of how Roosevelt's responses to problems during this time led to the increase of the size of the government. Even though Roosevelt is known as one of the greatest American presidents, many of his reactions towards some problems during his presidency were ineffective. As shown in document B, some people believed that Roosevelt's attempts at curing the depression were instead steps towards socialism and communism, two terms relating to the government that was prevalent during the time of Nazi Germany. People were also saying that many of the steps that Roosevelt was taking was for the increase in the power of the government, and many people began to feel that the government had more power than they should. In a document D, William Garrison explains why he's against the New Deal. He states the term "Utopia", relating to communism which is a type of government almost all Americans are against. Garrison believes that as a result of the New Deal, the government increased negatively and states that they are buying "Utopia" for money. In document I, the government did do a number of things that helped fix the depression but discriminated against certain people. Towns were built but black weren't allowed to live in them and nothing was done to help the African American individuals during this time.
Although Roosevelt did indeed have a number of responses to problems that were ineffective the copious amount of effective responses far outweigh the ineffective ones.
As expressed in document C, Roosevelt utilized his knowledge of Keynesian Economics to come up with many new programs that would help the American people get through this hard time. Some of these programs included: Works Progress Administration which provided long term government jobs building schools and other public works projects, Federal Emergency Relief Act which gave immediate help to those that needed it in the form of cash payments, and the Civil Works Administration which provided temporary jobs repairing roads and bridges. The cartoon shown in document E represents the new idea of social security that Roosevelt promoted. This would be a new means of gaining money for the elderly and would turn out to be a genius idea that would allow the retirement of extremely hard workers instead of the constant working and struggling to survive until death. Document H, expresses how Roosevelt's New Deal is just beginning and that it is far from over with. This response was effective because this promoted more positive changes in the future. In document G, new laws allow workers to create unions so that they are able to take action like demanding wages. Through the Square Deal, the government got involved in labor and management issues and workers were greatly benefited because they could now form unions and stand
up for what they want.
As you can see, Roosevelt had to start his presidency during one of the most difficult times for a president, yet he still managed to get America through the Great Depression and on its way to prosperity. As shown in document J, the chart shows how effective Roosevelt was in his job to lower the rate of unemployment. Even though the rate goes from high to low and back to high, the percent of people that were unemployed dramatically decreased from the beginning of his presidency in 1933 to the end of his presidency in 1945.