Was The New Deal A Success Essay

Imagine that you have a job where you make enough money to support your family. Then you hear that the stock market crashed. The next day your boss calls you in and you are let go. Now you have to find a new job while trying to feed your family. You are losing hope that you will be able to support you and your family. Then you hear about the New Deal in the fireside chat from President Roosevelt. You have a new hope that you can find another job and everything will be alright. This life is what over 8 million Americans went through during the Great Depression. The Great Depression began when the stock market crashed in 1929. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as president in 1932. He presented the First New Deal that was in place from 1933 to 1935. The Second New Deal was in place from 1935 to 1937. The New Deals worked for relief, reform, and recovery (Dallek 785). In my research, I studied the question, “Was the New Deal a success?”. I have studied multiple primary sources about how the New Deal changed the country’s economy after the stock market crash. The New Deal was more of a success, because unemployment rates
went down, needy kids got meals, and Native Americans got more rights. The New Deal gave jobs to people in need which caused unemployment rates to go down. In an unemployment statistics for the time of around the Great Depression, it shows that from 1932 to 1937 unemployment rates went from 22.5% to 9.1% (Smiley 5). One example of the jobs that the New Deal gave was that “the daily service of warm, nourishing food, prepared by qualified, needy women workers” (Woodward 4) was arranged by women who needed jobs. These jobs were given to people in need, which caused unemployment rates to drop dramatically. Some people say that the New Deal did not help as many people as needed, because the New Deal gave “opportunity of employment to one-quarter of a million of the unemployed” (Roosevelt 1) instead of all 8 million Americans that were unemployed. However, to hope that the New Deal would give jobs to every single American is unreasonable and not logical. The New Deal gave jobs to as many people as possible. Unemployment was the whole reason that the New Deal was needed. Because the New Deal gave jobs to people in need, the New Deal was a success. The New Deal gave jobs to children who had no other hot meals. In a speech from the WPA, the assistant administrator pointed out that “the WPA lunch constitutes the only hot meal of the day” (Woodward 4) for many children. The WPA gives meals to children who have little money. “In the past year and a half 80,000,000 hot well-balanced meals have been served at the rate of 500,000 daily in 10,000 schools throughout the country” (Woodward 4). Not only is the WPA giving meals, they are giving well-balanced meals which will help them to be healthy. On the other side, some people may say that because the New Deal did not give meals to adults as well that the New Deal was not successful. However, the WPA gave meals to children, which made it possible for “many underprivileged children of the present to grow into useful, healthy citizens of the future” (Woodward 4). By feeding needy children, their future was brighter than if the New Deal had tried to feed so many people including adults. Children are our future, and they need to have a bright future in order for the country to survive. Therefore, the New Deal was successful in ending the Depression, because starving kids had a brighter and better future through meals given by the WPA. The New Deal was also successful, because it gave Native Americans more rights. Some new rights that were given were “local school districts, hospitals, and social welfare agencies to assist Native Americans” (Stevens 7). The IECP, another New Deal program, also “convinced Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act, which provided money for tribes to purchase new land” (Stevens 7). These new rights were because of the New Deal and they greatly benefited Native American tribes. Some people say that even though Native Americans got more rights, African Americans were discriminated through the New Deal. African Americans were discriminated by most New Deal programs, but that was only because “conservative southern Democrats, who had seniority in Congress and controlled many committee chairmanships” (African Americans and the New Deal 2) would not let bills be passed to help them. This is not to say that African Americans were tossed aside. President Roosevelt did have them in mind. However, the New Deal still gave jobs to African Americans. Just like African Americans got jobs, Native Americans could have tribal corporations. A magazine stated, “About seventy-five of the tribal corporations are now functioning, with varying degrees of success, and the number continues to grow” (Stevens 7). Native Americans could have jobs that were based off of their tribe. These jobs were given through the Indian Emergency Conservation Program. This shows that the New Deal was successful, because Native Americans gained more rights. The New Deal was more of a success than a failure, because unemployment rates decreased, children in need got meals, and Native Americans gained more rights.
The New Deal gave jobs to a lot of people, including needy women, young men, and unmarried men and women. The New Deal also gave hot meals to children in need. This meal was the children’s only meal of the day and they had to walk long distances just to get to the school. Last, the New Deal gave Native Americans more rights, including hospitals, schools, and social welfare agencies. This question matter today, because without the New Deal, the Great Depression wouldn’t have ended. The United States’ economy would be extremely different today. Because of the New Deal, the United States has an even brighter present and future than without it. The New Deal was a success in ending the Great
Depression