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

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.

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).

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.

Hopkins's emergency winter program employed around 4 million Americans on short-term public projects between November 1933 and March 1934. Schools, airports, and roads were built.

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.

Created the National Recovery Administration under General Hugh Johnson. Industries drew up codes of fair competition setting minimum wages, maximum hours, and price stabilisation. Around 22 million workers were covered by 1934.

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.

Refinanced around 1 million home mortgages between 1933 and 1936, with around 3 billion dollars in loans, preventing mass foreclosure. The HOLC also originated the practice of "redlining" Black neighbourhoods.

Repealed Prohibition. The Cullen-Harrison Act (22 March 1933, in effect 7 April 1933) had re-legalised 3.2 per cent beer.

(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.

Source A is FDR's first Fireside Chat (12 March 1933). Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain the legislative achievements of the First Hundred Days. [5 marks]