It was the end of the 1920’s, and modern America as we know it was in full swing; Consumerism was booming and everyone- from business tycoons to janitors- poured their savings into stocks. Once the stock market peak was matched with a decline of production and a rise in unemployment, stock prices were left costing much more than their actual value. This turbulating cycle continued until America reached an all time economic low which we today consider the stock market crash of 1929. The stock market crash led the nation into a Great Depression which left nearly twenty five percent of Americans unemployed. The New Deal can easily be described as a set of government programs intended to mend the national economic wounds inflicted by the Great Depression and prevent any further depressions. During his campaign for the presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) proclaimed that it was the government’s responsibility to guarantee every man a right to make a comfortable living. Though he never explicitly said how he planned to follow this through, this promise earned him his presidency. The New Deal continues to be studied today as a monumental deviance from previous American economic reform attempts. In Jefferson Cowie’s, The Great Exception, Cowie explains his reasoning for believing that the New Deal is unique in its kind.
From how its effects compare to earlier reform movements to what made the New Deal possible, it truly is a “great exception”. The New Deal was unlike any other economic or social reform movements that the nation had ever seen. Cowie states that “the political era between the 1930s and 1970s marks what might be called a “great exception”- a sustained deviation, an extended detour- from some of the main contours of American political practice, economic structure, and cultural outlook”. During this time, the FDR administration used its significant resources in a methodical and organized, thought not consistent, fashion in order to benefit the economic interests of lower and working class Americans in ways that it had not done before or since. Obvious and extreme realignments of American politics and class relations were forced by the weight of the depression and the calamity of World War II; however, those changes were less a clear victory of the welfare state than the product of very specific, and short-lived, historical circumstances. American liberalism has had many ever-changing and fluid forms, but the version generated by the extensive crisis of the Depression and World War II proved noteworthy because instead of morality, individual rights, or regulation alone, it was about collective economic rights.
The power of labor liberalism in this time period proved prominent and commanding, but also extremely short and delicate. “The “fragile juggernaut”, a phrase coined by the historian Robert Ziegler to describe the industrial labor movement of the day, might be the best description of the combination of power and vulnerability inherent in the political alignments that burst upon the national stage during the 1930s and 1940s”. The New Deal alliances seemed to come together in an all-powerful force capable of implementing progressive liberal policies with limited regard for conservative opposition. Yet when challenged, this same juggernaut crumbled, its internal contradictions, pushed to the breaking point by the compromises it made with the very complexities of American history and politics.ьLike previously stated, the New Deal was a unique social and economic reform movement that was unlike any other reform movement the United States had ever seen. One reform movement that differs tremendously from the New Deal is the Progressive Era. The Progressive Era and the New Deal differ in causes, goals, methods, leaders, and success. The Progressive Era was caused by too much industrialization causing disorganization, but was also caused by an economic depression in 1893. During this time, there were abuses of the industrial age.
It was the first nationwide reform movement, and it strived to ensure survival of American way of life. It attempted to improve the United States economy after the depression of 1893, and it was pushed by middle class. During this time, a new middle class emerged due to the industrial revolution; however, industrialization caused more immigrants to flood to the United States, so wages lowered and hours raised which resulted in poverty. In contrast, the New Deal was caused by the Great Depression. It strove to provide recovery and relief to the unemployed and poor. The goals of the Progressive Era differ greatly than the goals of the New Deal. The Progressive Era aimed to purify the government, promote social justice, ensure equal opportunity, preserve democracy, and search for order and efficiency in a place of major urban growth. In addition to these, the Progressive Era strove to protect social welfare, expand economic reform by changing the unequal balance of wealth, expand economic efficiency, and promote moral improvement by implementing prohibition. This would improve the poor by improving behavior. The New Deal, however, aimed to bring relief by pushing programs to stop Americans’ suffering like Federal Emergency Relief Association (FERA), bring recovery by means of the National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA) to help business, raise prices, control production, and get people working again, and bring reform so that the depression would never happened again and citizens would be secure.
Methods of the Progressive Era include political reform on the national, state, and local levels, governmental reform by making the government more democratic, economic reform by striving for upward mobility and better working conditions, social reform by cleaner and more suitable conditions. Methods of the New Deal include the CCC-Civilian Conservation Corporation which worked with preservation on parks and roads to provide jobs, the NIRA-National Industrial Recovery Act which was a cooperation with management and labor for fair competition and minimum wage, and the TVA-Tennessee Valley Authority which was the most controversial entity which sold electricity & fertilizer to promote flood control and land reclamation. Leaders of the Progressive Era were the emerging middle class who saw problems and had some education to solve it, muckrakers who criticised government and corruption, Upton Sinclair who wrote the Jungle and exposed corrupt meat packing, John Dewey who promoted ‘learn by doing’, Florence Kelly who promoted abolition of child labor, Margaret Sanger who promoted birth control, Woodrow Wilson who was a democratic, and highly educated president. The leader of the New Deal was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was Democratic and pioneered the New Deal reform movement. And finally, successes.
The Progressive Era include the 19th amendment which promoted women’s suffrage, the 18th amendment which instilled prohibition, the Federal Reserve Act which was the first reorganization of the banking system since the Civil War, and Plessy vs. Ferguson which promoted the separate but equal ideology. The successes of the New Deal include relief programs which helped people start to work again, provided infrastructure, social security, and minimum wage. Roosevelt became U.S. hero because he restored hope and implemented programs that helped the impoverished. And finally, the 21st amendment which repealed prohibition; this helped create jobs but didn’t end the depression.N When considering the successes of the New Deal, one must recognize the factors that made the New Deal possible. I believe that the New Deal was made possible by the government’s and the American peoples’ drive to pursue economic and social reform. When Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental New Deal projects and programs, such as the CCC, the WPA, the TVA, the SEC and others, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans.
Roosevelt’s New Deal fundamentally and permanently changed the federal government’s relationship to U.S. citizens. Roosevelt asked Congress to take the first step toward ending Prohibition – one of the more divisive issues of the 1920s – by making it legal once again for Americans to buy beer. This would increase large amounts of tax revenue that the government needed. In May, he signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act into law, creating the TVA and enabling the federal government to build dams along the Tennessee River that controlled flooding and generated inexpensive hydroelectric power for the people in the region. That same month, Congress passed a bill that paid commodity farmers (farmers who produced things like wheat, dairy products, tobacco and corn) to leave their fields fallow in order to end agricultural surpluses and boost prices. Despite the best efforts of President Roosevelt and his cabinet, however, the Great Depression continued – the nation’s economy continued to wheeze; unemployment persisted; and people grew angrier and more desperate. So, in the spring of 1935, Roosevelt launched a second, more aggressive series of federal programs, called the Second New Deal. In April, he created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide jobs for unemployed people.
WPA projects weren’t allowed to compete with private industry, so they focused on building things like post offices, bridges, schools, highways and parks. The WPA also gave work to artists, writers, theater directors and musicians. In July 1935, the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, created the National Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections and prevent businesses from treating their workers unfairly. In August, FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935, which guaranteed pensions to millions of Americans, set up a system of unemployment insurance and stipulated that the federal government would help care for dependent children and the disabled. Many aspects of American economy and society changed after the New Deal. The New Deal was a watershed in the operations and size of government in the United States, and its legacy lived on for years – indeed, right down to the present day. The post-war era witnessed a strong continuity with the New Deal despite the coming of the Eisenhower Administration in the 1950s and even the addition of more New Deal-type programs under the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations in the 1960s.
The post-1975 era, on the other hand, brought a considerable roll-back of New Deal programs under the banner of the Reagan and Bush Administrations. The attack on New Deal policies was an intended result of the anti-government, free-market ideology of the Neo-Conservatives. The cutbacks on everything from corporate taxes to bank regulations have lent more recent times the name of “Neo-Liberalism”. Postwar Era witnessed the completion of river basin projects, the interstate highway system, expansion of state and local infrastructure, re-establishment of a food stamp program, expansion of subsidized housing, expansion of parks and conservation programs, medicare and medicaid, minimum wages and aid to the poor. The Neo-Liberalism Era saw banking and financial deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and corporations, no rise in, minimum wage and cuts in aid to the poor, efforts to reduce or privatize social security, failure to invest in infrastructure, and efforts to sell TVA.
In conclusion, it’s no wonder why the New Deal continues to be studied today as a monumental deviance from previous American economic reform attempts. From how its effects compare to earlier reform movements to what made the New Deal possible, it truly is a “great exception”. The New Deal remains a staple unique reform movement in American history. It differs dramatically from all other reform movements that the nation has or will ever see, making it the “great exception”. It greatly differed from earlier reform movements like Progressivism, it was made possible by the unwavering dedication of President Roosevelt and the American people, and the nation was forever positively changed by its economic and social policies. The efforts of the FDR administration during the New Deal laid the groundwork for economic and social policy as we know today.
