Essential New Deal Legislation

First New DealRecovery: RFC – holdover from Hoover*approx. $2 billion in loans to big business, banks, farm mortgage assoc.**“the Millionaire’s Dole”***$2 billion to state/local governments for public works (Hoover feared “collectivism”)

AAA (1933, 1938)• Provided subsidies for cutting production

– Goal: raise farm prices, restore parity– Declared unconstitutional (processing tax)

• Contentious relationship between FDR & Court• 2nd AAA provided low-interest loans, stored crops in

federal warehouses until prices went up• Interracial Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union emerged in

Ark. behind Socialist leadership– AAA hurt landless farmers & migrants– Resettlement & Farm Security Admin. started to provide loans,

land & relief for tenants, sharecroppers, & migrants– REA created to provide power to rural America

Mississippi Delta Children (1936),Photographer Dorothea Lange worked for the FSA

TVA

• Hydroelectric power to the TN River Valley– Economic/social

development• Cheap power, flood

control, rec. facilities• Soil conservation,

eventually advocated nuclear energy

• Criticized as “creeping socialism”

Sec. of the Interior Harold Ickes and the PWA

• $3.3 billion for public works (NIRA)

• Started slow but responsible for such major landmarks as the Grand Coulee Dam, the Triborough Bridge, and the Lincoln Tunnel.

• “Honest Harold” was the only member of the cabinet who could rebut John L. Lewis of the UMW

Relief: CCC

Reform

• Federal Securities Act & SEC– Corporations had to

inform FTC on stock offerings

• Curbed “margin buying”• SEC: “watchdog”

agency

Second New Deal (1935-1938)

• Influence of more progressive advisors (Rexford Tugwell, Adolph Berle, Harry Hopkins, Robert Wagner, Francis Perkins, Mary McLeod Bethune)

• Broad relief of the WPA (Hopkins, who had also headed FERA & short-lived CWA)

Although Hopkins believed in a balanced budget, he supported deficit spending in order to deal with rocketing unemployment rates

WPA

NLRA (Wagner Act) replaced Section 7a. of NIRA

Guaranteed collective bargaining for labor unions, permitted closed shop, outlawed blacklisting

NLRB dealt with labor law violations; Fair Labor Standards Act (38) banned child labor, set fed. min. wage (40 cents/hr.), & 40 hours max

Revenue Act of 1935 (“Soak the Rich”)• Raised taxes on corporations, well-to-do,

gifts, estates

• "Our revenue laws have operated to the unfair advantage of the few, they have done little to prevent an unjust concentration of wealth and economic power." -FDR

• Wealthy conservatives labeled FDR a traitor to his class and conservatives criticized the New Deal for diminishing individual liberties

The three most famous critics: