Question

Name and describe the purpose of 4 major New Deal programs, agencies, or initiatives, 1933-38.

What were 2 major events that occurred during 1937-38 that blocked Roosevelt’s efforts to pursue new liberal reform?

What new opportunities did the war in war production create for African-Americans and Women between 1942-45?

Answer 1

1.Brain Trust: Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s advisory body that gathered three experts from Columbia University—Raymond Moley; Rexford Guy Tugwell; and Adolph A. Berle, Jr. The three academics greatly contributed to FDR’s initial response to the Great Depression.

2.Second New Deal: The second stage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression. While the programs and reforms introduced in this stage continued the efforts of the first stage of FDR’s agenda, they were envisioned as more long-term solutions with profound consequences on the U.S. economy.

3.3 Rs: A popular way to summarize Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression. His New Deal agenda emphasized relief (direct provisions for the unemployed and the poor), recovery (bringing the economy back to the levels of stability and prosperity), and reform (introducing measures that would prevent a similar economic crisis in the future).

4.First New Deal: The first stage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression. Nearly all the programs and reforms were initiated in the first 100 days of FDR’s presidency.

The nation was hit with a sharp economic downturn, a recession inside the Depression that soon came to be known as the “Roosevelt recession.” The 1937-38 downturn pushed the unemployment rate back near the 20 percent level, and accentuated the question of whether FDR’s economic policies were actually helping or hurting recovery.

During 1937-38, America was also rocked with a series of sit-down strikes and instances of union violence, mostly instigated by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Many Americans associated the surge in aggressive unionism with Roosevelt’s encouragement of unions in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act.

Approximately 350,000 American women joined the military during World War II. They worked as nurses, drove trucks, repaired airplanes, and performed clerical work. Some were killed in combat or captured as prisoners of war. Over sixteen hundred female nurses received various decorations for courage under fire.

Working women, especially mothers, faced great challenges during World War II. To try to address the dual role of women as workers and mothers, Eleanor Roosevelt urged her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt to approve the first US government childcare facilities under the Community Facilities Act of 1942. Eventually, seven centers, servicing 105,000 children, were built. The First Lady also urged industry leaders to build model childcare facilities for their workers. Still, these efforts did not meet the full need for childcare for working mothers.

Minority women faced particular difficulties during the World War II era. African American women struggled to find jobs in the defense industry, and found that white women were often unwilling to work beside them when they did. Although factory work allowed black women to escape labor as domestic servants for a time and earn better wages, most were fired after the war and forced to resume work as maids and cooks.

Social commentators worried that when men returned from military service there would be no jobs available for them, and admonished women to return to their "rightful place" in the home as soon as victory was at hand. Although as many as 75% of women reported that they wanted to continue working after World War II, women were laid off in large numbers at the end of the war.

But women's participation in the work force bounced back relatively quickly. Despite the stereotype of the "1950s housewife," by 1950 about 32% of women were working outside the home, and of those, about half were married. World War II had solidified the notion that women were in the workforce to stay.