New Deal- Historiography and Key Questions
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- Created on: 19-05-17 21:12
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- New Deal -Historiography and Key Questions
- Historians and the New Deal
- Break with the past? Conservative critics AND liberal defenders
- Liberals 1950s-60s - 'halfway revolution'
- Conservatives 1970s- ND makes situation worse
- Radical/ new left 1960s- 'capital resource operation'
- Why were cultural projects part of the New Deal?
- Enormous levels of unemploy-ment among painters, actors, and musicians due to movie/ sound industries
- The New Deal: The Depression Years 1933-40, Anthony J Badger
- Modern American political economy still bears imprint of New Deal
- e.g. welfare payments from social security system set up 1935
- Conservatives
- Post-war - condemned Roosevelt for introducing socialism
- Historians have spent more time praising or criticising than explaining ND
- Post-war - condemned Roosevelt for introducing socialism
- Liberals
- Post-war - applauded Roosevelt for extending responsibility of federal government
- Most historians identified with liberalism
- 50s and 60s= many aspects of ND appealing
- Change in historio-graphy
- 50s= focused largely on Roosevelt himself and clash of ideas between policy makers
- 60s= began to study ND programmes in action and look at impact at a local level
- Roosevelt
- Envisaged his 'Great Society' as completing the unfinished business of the ND
- In civil rights, healthcare, education, and rural/urban poverty
- Conservative critics/liberal defenders believed he had instituted massive break with the past
- Rarely acknowledg-ed that any ND experiment had failed, even when certain policies were abandoned
- Envisaged his 'Great Society' as completing the unfinished business of the ND
- Radicals 1960s
- Believed ND sustained hegemony of corporate capitalism
- Argued it was a tool of leaders of largest corporations/ financial institutions
- Saw ND years as tragic- did not nationalise banks or discipline businessmen
- Threat of radical protest diffused by allowing potentially threatening groups into system
- Measures designed to help large commercial farmers came at expense of rural poor
- Welfare/relief measures for unemployed were shrewdly calculated
- Limited concessions undercut radicalism's appeal
- Believed ND sustained hegemony of corporate capitalism
- 1970s
- Ideologues of the right challenged notion that ND change was minimal
- Instead argued that ND set political economy on the wrong course
- Ideologues of the right challenged notion that ND change was minimal
- Modern American political economy still bears imprint of New Deal
- The New Deal:
America's Response to the Great Depression
- 1936- most Americans recognised ND as an important turning point in nation's history
- Public held very strong
opinions about Roosevelt / ND
- Many were supportive, others hated reforms.
- Political divisions over ND- established new meanings 'liberal' / 'conservative'
- Many who lived through GD saw ND as a great national achievement
- Liberal commitment expressed in ND programmes- social
security pension / unemploy-ment
benefits.
- Supporters believed these programmes were necessary / inviolable
- Since 70s, republican conservatives have undermined popular
confidence in ND beliefs
- Dismissed ND as outdated /wasting tax-payers' money
- Most Americans losing touch with ND
- Less people alive who remember it well
- Historians and the New Deal
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