Depth Study: New Deal

Pros

• Robert Weaver Special Advisor on Economic Status of the ***** 1934
• Later head of PWA and granted $45 killion on AA workers house building projects
• Poor relief and job creations by FERA and WPA
• 1/4 given literacy and employment training by National Youth Adminstration
• Roosevelt spoke out against lynching and Eleanor disaproved of segregation
• NAACP membership grew in late 1930s

Cons

• 200,000 sharecroppers evicted, couldn't pay rents
• Federal programmes paid farmers for not producing food, but none to AAs
• Domestic and agricultural labour excluded from attempts to improve conditions
• Social Security Act provisions didn't apply to most AA work
• Wagner Act not that beneficial as many AAs not in unions
• CCC camps and TVA segregated and AAs recieved worst work

Pros

• NIRA 1933 and NRA series of codes on production, wages, hours
• Wagner Act 1935 - could collective bargain and join unions
• Weekly wage established by FLSA 1938
• General Motors recognised United Automobile Workers Union 1936 and US Steel recognised Steel Workers Committe 1937
• Growth in membership from 3.7 million 1933 to 9 million 1938
• CIO established 1937 - encouraged ethnic groups

Cons

• Ford didn't recognise NIRA or Wagner Act
• NIRA declared unconsitutional by Supreme Court 1935
• Some employers still using violence to break strikes
• Women still not paid equal
• Job security limited, many happy just to be in work

Pros

• Howard-Wheeler Act 1934 (Indian New Deal) - NAs had role in administrating reservations
• Allowed to practise their own religions and cultural identity
• Stopped sale of NA land and recovered unallocated land
• NA children could attend local schools
• Led by tribal councils again
• Training to help improve farming, better medical facilities

Cons

• Continuation of assimilation
• Undermined by Termination, short lived
• Asked to vote, but most didn't agree with democracy, 75/245 tribes rejected the act
• Insufficent funds to buy back former reservation lands, especially due to WW2

Pros

• Eleanor Roosevelt a role model for women, speaking for women's groups
• Molly Dawson head of Democratic Women's Organisation
• Frances Perkins Secretary for Labour
• AA Mary McLeod Bethune director of National Youth Adminstration
• Florence Allen first female Appeal Court Judge
• FLSA 1938 and NRA limited hours and established minimum wages
• Welfare benefits from SSA 1935
• 1930-40 300% rise in unionised female labour

Cons

• Many believed women's wages shouldn't be equal
• Women in domestic work didn't benefit
• Based on getting men back to work
• Roosevelt appointed female ambassadors but mainly adivising on social policy and family matters