The New Deal: Directly After The Great Depression

Dylan Zack
Block 6
April 23, 2015
New Deal Essay I
Title
Directly following the Roaring 20's was a long and severe recession in the economy known as the Great Depression. It started with a stock market crash that left investors with nothing and resulted in bank suspensions, unemployment, and a huge margin of the population in poverty. American people turned to Franklin D. Roosevelt to alleviate stress that the depression was causing and put in place a New Deal, that can be explained in two parts. The First New Deal aimed to recover stability and abundance to the American people and the economy. The Second New Deal, more aggressively, set out to create jobs with the help of federal programs. Overall, The New Deal set out to provide relief,
A day after his inauguration, Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Emergency Banking Act to stop civilians from withdrawing their money from unstable banks. This gave federal investigators time to open solvent banks with the Reconstruction Finance Cooperation's guidance and loans. In another effort to provide relief, FDR signed the Tennessee Valley Act that permitted the federal government to construct dams along the Tennessee River. These dams helped control flooding and created inexpensive hydroelectric power for the people inhabiting the areas near by. Just proceeding, Congress passed a bill called the Agricultural Adjustment Act which encouraged farmers to stop growing crops in order to end the agricultural surpluses so prices could increase. It also paid the farmers back for the profit they were losing. Another successful Administration put in place by Roosevelt was the National Labor Relation Board, allowing workers the right to form and be a part of unions to negotiate for better working conditions along with higher wages. It also put the might of federal law behind appeals of labor
Even though, the efforts to revive the economy were less successful than the success in efforts to provide relief. Roosevelt helped a lot with restoring the economy by implementing the Works Project Administration (WPA) which employed 8.5 million people in eight years. More people having jobs lead to more people buying things and therefore the economy improved significantly in the following three years. This caused the GDP to grow at average rate of 9% annually. This all worked for a little while until a intense recession hit in 1938 caused by the government reducing spending. This recession prolonged the Great Depression for about another three years, while the New deal continued to face setbacks. Although there was some success in the efforts to improve the economy, it didn't really work in the long run. Especially considering that none of Roosevelt's programs can take credit for eventually ending the Great Depression. In the end it was the World War II effort that urged positive progress in American Industry that finally brought the Great Depression to an