1. The New Deal’s Impact on Society

3. New Deal Constituencies
& the Broker State
• Civilian gov’t employees increased by 80%
• # of gov’t employees in Washington, DC doubled
in 10 years
• Power of federal gov’t increased drastically
• Acted as a broker state
– Gov’t acted as mediator in national marketplace
– Elevated & strengthened new interests
• Organized labor, women, African Americans, & other groups
joined the coalition the Democrats started to build

4. Organized Labor
• Huge arena for federal intervention
• Factors that led to growth of labor movement
– Inadequacy of welfare capitalism
– New Deal legislation; example=Wagner Act
– Rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO); est. 1936
• Growing militancy of rank & file workers
• By 1940, unionized workers=9 million
– 23% of the non-farm workforce

5. Organized Labor
• CIO promoted all workers, skilled & unskilled,
into one union
– Accepted women, blacks, & Mexican Americans
– John L. Lewis, once leader of United Mine
Workers, helped form CIO
– Competed w/ AFL; more militant
– Allied w/ Democratic Party
• Scored a victory with United Auto Workers &
GM (1936-1937)
– GM & other auto producers recognized the UAW

6. Organized Labor
• Steel workers struggled in battle for
unionization
• Memorial Day Massacre (1937), South Chicago
• Marching peacefully, fired upon, 10 killed &
90 wounded
• Strike failed
• 1937—4,720 strikes & 80% favored unions

7. Women & the New Deal
• Gains in government:
– Frances Perkins, 1st
female in cabinet
– Molly Dawson, head of Women’s Division of the
DNC
– Nellie, Tayloe Ross, 1st
female director of the mint
– Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the 1st
prominent First
Ladies
• The “conscience of the New Deal”
• Setbacks:
– Low wages

8. Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933
Sec. of Labor Frances Perkins

9. Blacks & the New Deal
• New Deal did little to battle racial
discrimination
• CCC segregated blacks & whites
• NRA codes did not protect black workers
• FDR repeatedly refused to ban lynching
– Said it would antagonize southern members of
Congress
• Their support was needed for New Deal measures

10. Blacks & the New Deal
• 18% of WPA recipients were black
• Resettlement Administration was set up to
help small farmers buy land
• Mary McLeod Bethune hired to run Office of
Minority Affairs
• Eleanor Roosevelt was a champion of equal
rights
• The belief that the White House was
concerned for African Americans shifted
voting

11. Politicization of Mexican
Americans
• Benefited from labor policies
– But agencies paid at different rates based on race
– Tension & conflict between whites & Hispanics in
CCC camps
• Increasingly identified with US rather than
Mexico
• Democrats made it clear that they welcomed
Mexican Americans

12. Indian Reorganization Act
• Native Americans continued to be among the
nation’s most disadvantaged minorities
• Average annual income in 1934=$48!
• IRA reversed Dawes Act of 1887 by promoting
extensive self-government; tribal councils &
constitutions
• Tribal lands & agricultural profits both increased
greatly
• New Deal helped preserve Native languages, arts,
traditions

13. The New Deal & the Land
• TVA was the biggest New
Deal environmental
undertaking
• 1933: task was to develop
region’s resources under
public control
• CCC & WPA created
several attractions

14. New Deal & the Arts
• Federal Art Project gave work to many of 20th
century’s leading painters, muralists, sculptors

15. New Deal & the Arts
• Federal Music Project
employed 15K musicians
• Federal Writers Project
employed 5K writers
• Federal Theatre Project,
most ambitious, reached 25-
30 million in 4 years
– Terminated in 1939 over fears
of Communist influence

16. Legacies of the New Deal
• Set in motion far-reaching changes
• Growth of a modern state of significant size
• People experienced fed. gov’t as a part of
everyday life for first time
• In 1930s, over 1/3 of Americans received
direct gov’t services from fed. programs, from
Social Security, farm loans, relief work, etc.

17. Legacy of the New Deal
• Gov’t made a commitment to intervene in
economy when private sector could not
guarantee stability
• Stock market regulation, Fed. Reserve
reformed
• Accelerated pattern begun by Progressive of
using regulation to bring order to economic
life

18. Problems with the New Deal
• Social Security Act did not include national
health care
• Welfare system did not reach a majority of
American workers, including domestics & farm
workers
• Discriminated against women in terms of jobs
& wages
• Did not end Depression, only short-term fixes

19. Problems with the New Deal
• Forced FDR to be unable to challenge
marginalization of blacks in the South
• Needed white southern vote
• Court-packing scheme, recession of 1937,
Republican success in 1938 elections, &
inevitability of WWII—combined to bring end
to the New Deal

20. Successes
• Great political move;
gained support for
Democratic Party from
various groups
– 84% of those on relief
voted for FDR in 1936
– Middle class voters also
moved to Democratic
side
– Stay w/ Democrats for
years to come