Quick questions on The First New Deal: HSC Modern History USA 1933

Roosevelt was inaugurated on 4 March 1933. (The Twentieth Amendment, ratified 23 January 1933, moved the inauguration to 20 January from 1937 onwards.) The economy was at the bottom. Unemployment was around 25 per cent.

The Emergency Banking Act (9 March 1933). Passed in eight hours, it authorised the Treasury to inspect banks and reopen sound ones, made hoarding of gold illegal, and gave the Federal Reserve power to issue currency on bank assets.

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (12 May 1933). Granted 500 million dollars to states under Harry Hopkins (a former social worker from Iowa). FERA worked through state and local agencies, the constraint that had hobbled Hoover.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (12 May 1933). Paid farmers to reduce production of seven major commodities (wheat, corn, cotton, rice, tobacco, hogs, dairy). The payments were funded by a processing tax on the same commodities. Crop destruction in 1933 (around 10 million acres of cotton, around 6 million piglets) was politically toxic but raised farm prices around 50 per cent by 1936. The Supreme Court struck down the AAA in United States v.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (18 May 1933). A federal corporation building dams, generating power, controlling floods, and electrifying rural homes across seven states (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia) in the Tennessee River basin. By 1945 it operated around 16 dams and generated more electricity than any private utility. It was the New Deal's clearest regional planning success.

Roosevelt drew on a cabinet of academics and lawyers without precedent in American government. The "Brains Trust" included Columbia University law professor Raymond Moley, agricultural economist Rexford Tugwell, and lawyer Adolf Berle. Key administrators included:

Unemployment fell from around 25 per cent (1933) to around 14 per cent (1937). Real GDP rose around 36 per cent from 1933 to 1937. Industrial production regained its 1929 level by 1937. Farm prices rose around 50 per cent from 1933 to 1936.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (The Age of Roosevelt, 3 vols, 1957 to 1960) is the founding liberal interpretation; treats the Hundred Days as the birth of modern American government.

Passed in eight hours, it authorised the Treasury to inspect banks and reopen sound ones, made hoarding of gold illegal, and gave the Federal Reserve power to issue currency on bank assets.

Roosevelt explained on radio (around 60 million listeners) what depositors should expect. Banks reopened on 13 March; by 15 March around 75 per cent of Federal Reserve member banks were operating with public confidence restored.

Imposed federal disclosure on new securities issues. The Securities Exchange Act (6 June 1934) created the Securities and Exchange Commission and regulated trading.

Separated commercial banking from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, insuring deposits up to 2,500 dollars (raised to 5,000 in 1934).

Executive Order 6102 (5 April 1933) banned private holding of gold above 100 dollars in value. The Gold Reserve Act (30 January 1934) devalued the dollar to 35 dollars per ounce, from 20.67. The devaluation increased the dollar value of the gold stock and gave the Treasury room to expand the money supply.

Granted 500 million dollars to states under Harry Hopkins (a former social worker from Iowa). FERA worked through state and local agencies, the constraint that had hobbled Hoover.

Employed young unmarried men (initially 18 to 25) on reforestation, parks, soil conservation, and flood control. The men lived in army camps, received 30 dollars a month (25 sent home to families), and worked under the Army's logistics direction. Around 3 million served over the CCC's life (1933 to 1942); they planted around 3 billion trees.