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How the New Deal Affected Women, African Americans and Native Americans

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How the New Deal Affected Women, African Americans and Native Americans
Race and the New Deal
In Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term of president he came out with a series of programs in response to the Great Depression that the United States had just gone through. He focused on three main points in this new deal. Relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent another depression. These were called the “3 R’s”. Even though some of it didn’t go the way Roosevelt wanted it to, it helped in some areas.
When this whole “New Deal” began it was primarily set for men because in every family the male was the head of it and was the one that won the money for the family. The women would just be “stay at home moms” caring the young and tending the house by cleaning it and making food. The government soon saw that the women needed help a well to earn a bit more money for the family especially after the depression with just one person in the household working low wages. So in the new deal the first program that was made was the “Works Progress Administration” which hired single women, widows, or women with disabled husbands. Women now started working a real paying job and started bringing more money into the household. Francis Perkins was the first woman appointed to the U.S. cabinet through Roosevelt. She helped a good bit with getting women more involved all throughout the U.S.
African Americans had been going through a rough time with racism, discrimination, and segregation. After the great depression hit the United States the African American community was hit pretty hard taking in consideration that even before the great depression hit they struggled. Roosevelt’s new deal set out to help the African American community by giving them 10% of welfare assisted payments, he also started giving higher rank and higher paying jobs to African Americans such as his so called “Black cabinet”. Even though these benefits were given to the African Americans they were small

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