The Second New Deal: HSC Modern History USA 1935-1938

A 15-mark "explain" needs three or four developed strands and a synthesis.

Thesis

The Second New Deal was the product of pressure from the left (Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Francis Townsend) and reaction against the right (the Liberty League and the Supreme Court). It was more redistributive than the First.

The radical left

Senator Huey Long of Louisiana proposed Share Our Wealth (February 1934) capping personal fortunes at 5 million dollars and guaranteeing every American family 5,000 dollars; his organisation claimed 7 million members. Father Charles Coughlin of Royal Oak, Michigan, broadcast to an estimated 30 million weekly listeners and founded the National Union for Social Justice (November 1934). Dr. Francis Townsend's Old Age Revolving Pensions Plan (January 1934) proposed 200 dollars a month to every American over 60 with the requirement to spend within the month; the Townsend clubs reached around 2.2 million members.

The conservative right

The American Liberty League (August 1934) included Al Smith, John W. Davis, the Du Ponts, and J.P. Morgan partners; it spent around 1.5 million dollars in the 1936 election. The Supreme Court struck down the NRA (Schechter, 27 May 1935) and the AAA (Butler, 6 January 1936).

The Second New Deal

Pressure from both sides produced the Wagner Act (5 July 1935) protecting union organising and creating the NLRB; the Social Security Act (14 August 1935) creating old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and Aid to Dependent Children; the WPA (8 April 1935, around 8.5 million employed over its life); the Revenue Act of 1935 (the Wealth Tax Act, 31 August 1935) raising top marginal income tax to 75 per cent; and the Banking Act of 1935.

The 1936 election

Roosevelt won 523 to 8 electoral votes, the largest electoral landslide since 1820. He took 60.8 per cent of the popular vote.

A 3-mark "outline" wants three distinct, correctly identified measures, each in a sentence.

The Wagner Act (5 July 1935)

The National Labor Relations Act protected union organising and created the NLRB to enforce collective bargaining.

The Social Security Act (14 August 1935)

Established old-age pensions, federal-state unemployment insurance, and aid to dependent children.

The WPA (8 April 1935)

A direct federal employment program under Harry Hopkins that put around 8.5 million Americans to work.

Marking criteria

1 mark each for three distinct, correctly dated measures; do not simply list "the New Deal" or repeat the First New Deal agencies (CCC, AAA).

A 4-mark "explain" needs a cause-and-effect chain with specific detail.

The threat

By 1935 Huey Long's Share Our Wealth claimed 7 million members, Father Coughlin reached up to 30 million radio listeners, and Townsend's pension clubs reached around 2.2 million members - a populist movement that could split the Democratic vote in 1936.

The political logic

Roosevelt needed to draw these voters back. The Second New Deal answered their demands in moderate form: Social Security met the call for old-age pensions (Townsend); the Wagner Act and the Wealth Tax Act met the appeal to labour and the poor (Long, Coughlin).

The effect

The 1935 legislation was more redistributive than the First New Deal, and Roosevelt's landslide in 1936 (523 to 8) showed the strategy worked; the Union Party (Lemke) took under 2 per cent.

Marking criteria

1 mark for identifying the three critics and their scale; 1 mark for the electoral threat; 1 mark for linking a specific measure to a specific demand; 1 mark for the outcome.

A 5-mark "explain ... using the source" wants the source decoded, then linked to own knowledge.

Decode the source

The editorial voices the business-conservative case: the Revenue Act of 1935 ("Soak the Rich", top rate 75 per cent) and the Wagner Act ("forced unionism", the NLRB) were seen as redistribution and an attack on property, not recovery.

Own knowledge

The organised face of this opposition was the American Liberty League (founded August 1934 - Al Smith, John W. Davis, the Du Ponts, J.P. Morgan partners), which spent around 1.5 million dollars backing Alf Landon in 1936. The Supreme Court was the other front: it had already struck down the NRA (Schechter, May 1935) and the AAA (Butler, January 1936), and conservatives hoped it would dismember the Second New Deal too.

The outcome

The opposition failed at the ballot box - Roosevelt won 523 to 8 in 1936 - but the Court remained a threat, which is what drove the court-packing plan of 1937.

Marking criteria

1 mark for decoding the source (tax + labour as "class war"); 1-2 marks for the Liberty League with specific detail; 1 mark for the Supreme Court strand; 1 mark for the outcome (1936 result and the link to court-packing).

A 6-mark "assess the usefulness" question rewards perspective plus own knowledge, ending in a judgement.

Perspective

Source B reflects Ira Katznelson's argument (Fear Itself, 2013, and earlier work on "affirmative action for whites") that the New Deal welfare state was structurally compromised by Southern Democratic power. It is useful because it corrects a purely celebratory reading.

Corroboration from own knowledge

The record supports it: the Social Security Act (14 August 1935) initially excluded farm workers and domestic servants - around two-thirds of African American workers in the South - and old-age coverage was contributory, so the poorest gained least. Roosevelt depended on Southern committee chairs to pass any legislation, which set the limits.

Limitation

Stressing the holes can understate what was achieved: Social Security created the first permanent federal old-age and unemployment system, the NLRB transformed labour, and Alan Brinkley shows the Second New Deal entrenched a welfare state no later government dismantled. The exclusions were later closed (coverage extended from 1950).

Judgement

Highly useful for explaining the limits and the racial politics of the Act, but it must be read alongside the genuine institutional achievement; the Act was both compromised and foundational.

Marking criteria

1 mark for identifying the Katznelson perspective; 2 marks for own knowledge corroborating the exclusions (who, how many, why); 1-2 marks for a limitation (the lasting achievement, Brinkley); 1 mark for a judgement on usefulness.

This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that addresses "to what extent" directly and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

• Thesis. Opposition shaped the Second New Deal more than any other single factor, but in two opposite ways: pressure from the radical left (Long, Coughlin, Townsend) drove its redistributive content in 1935, while conservative opposition (the Liberty League and, decisively, the Supreme Court) shaped its limits, its caution after 1937, and its collapse. Opposition was the engine of the reform and the brake that stopped it.
• Argument 1 - The left drove the 1935 content. The Share Our Wealth movement (7 million claimed members), Coughlin (up to 30 million listeners) and Townsend (2.2 million) threatened FDR's 1936 vote. The Second Hundred Days answered them: Social Security (Townsend), the Wagner Act and the Wealth Tax (Long, Coughlin). Evidence: the legislation clustered in June-August 1935 as the threat peaked.
• Argument 2 - The right shaped the limits and the timing. The Liberty League and the Court were the brake. Schechter (May 1935) and Butler (January 1936) struck down the First New Deal and threatened the Second; Southern Democrats won the exclusion of farm and domestic workers from Social Security. Evidence: the contributory, exclusionary design of the welfare state (Katznelson).
• Argument 3 - Opposition broke the New Deal after 1937. The court-packing fight (5 February 1937), though it "won" through the switch in time (Parrish, Jones and Laughlin), split the Democrats and built the conservative coalition that, with the 1938 midterms (Republicans +81 House seats), ended major reform.
• Historiography. Alan Brinkley (Voices of Protest, 1982) is the standard study of the left critics and (The End of Reform, 1995) traces the turn from structural reform to compensation after 1937; Ira Katznelson (Fear Itself, 2013) stresses the Southern Democratic veto that shaped the limits; Jeff Shesol (Supreme Power, 2010) treats the Court fight as the decisive turning point; James Patterson (Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal, 1967) traces the conservative coalition.
• Judgement. Opposition shaped the Second New Deal to a very great extent - left pressure made it redistributive, right and judicial pressure made it limited and short-lived - but FDR's own choices (the 1937 spending cuts, the court-packing gamble) converted opposition into defeat. Most important factor, yes; the sole factor, no.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 1)

The clearest sign that opposition drove the Second New Deal is the timing and content of the 1935 legislation, which answered the radical critics point for point. By early 1935 Roosevelt faced a populist insurgency to his left: Huey Long's Share Our Wealth Society claimed 7 million members and promised every family a guaranteed income, Father Coughlin reached as many as 30 million radio listeners through the National Union for Social Justice, and Dr Francis Townsend's pension clubs, some 2.2 million strong, demanded 200 dollars a month for the old. A composite of these movements threatened to split the Democratic vote in 1936. The Second Hundred Days of June to August 1935 met each demand in moderate, durable form - the Social Security Act (14 August 1935) created the old-age pensions Townsend wanted; the Wagner Act and the Revenue Act ("Soak the Rich", top rate 75 per cent) answered Long's and Coughlin's appeal to labour and the poor. As Alan Brinkley argues in Voices of Protest, these figures mattered less as movements that could win than as pressures that pushed Roosevelt left; the 1936 landslide of 523 electoral votes to 8, with the Union Party taking under 2 per cent, shows the strategy of co-option worked.

Marker's note. A band-6 response keeps "to what extent" in view throughout - ranking opposition against FDR's own agency and the wider context, not just describing the critics - distinguishes the two kinds of opposition (left as engine, right as brake), anchors every claim in dated evidence, sets at least two historians in genuine tension (Brinkley on the left critics vs Katznelson or Shesol on the limits and the Court), and reaches a graded judgement. Narrating Long, Coughlin and Townsend in turn without weighing their influence caps the response in the middle bands.

This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that addresses the proposition directly and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

• Thesis. The court-packing plan was a serious political mistake - it squandered the 1936 mandate, split the Democrats and built the conservative coalition - but calling it the "greatest" mistake overstates it, because the substantive goal (saving the New Deal from the Court) was achieved and the 1937 recession did comparable damage. It was a self-inflicted political wound more than a policy failure.
• Argument 1 - The case that it was a grave mistake. The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill (5 February 1937) looked like a constitutional power grab; it was sent back to committee on 22 July 1937, a humiliating defeat at the peak of FDR's power. It permanently split the party between Northern liberals and Southern conservatives and emboldened the conservative coalition that blocked reform after 1938.
• Argument 2 - Why the verdict must be qualified. The plan arguably achieved its real aim. The "switch in time that saved nine" - Owen Roberts upholding a minimum wage in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (29 March 1937), then the Court upholding the Wagner Act (NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin, 12 April 1937) and Social Security (Helvering v. Davis, May 1937) - removed the judicial threat. Van Devanter's retirement (June 1937) let FDR appoint Hugo Black, and five more retirements gave him the most extensive remake of the Court in US history.
• Argument 3 - A rival candidate for "greatest mistake". The 1937-38 "Roosevelt recession" - caused by premature spending cuts and the Fed doubling reserve requirements - sent unemployment from 14 to 19 per cent and did at least as much to discredit the New Deal as the Court fight. The greatest-mistake claim is contestable.
• Historiography. Jeff Shesol (Supreme Power, 2010) is the standard study and presents the plan as a costly miscalculation that nonetheless coincided with victory on the substance; Alan Brinkley (The End of Reform, 1995) sets both the Court fight and the recession within the broader exhaustion of reform after 1937; William Leuchtenburg (the classic account of the "constitutional revolution") stresses that the Court did change course.
• Judgement. A major political mistake, yes - it cost FDR his command of Congress; the "greatest" mistake, only arguably, because it won on the substance and the 1937 recession is a serious rival. The fairest verdict: a political defeat that paradoxically secured a policy victory.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 2)

The charge that court-packing was Roosevelt's greatest mistake must be qualified by the fact that it largely achieved its underlying purpose. Roosevelt's real fear was that a Court which had already destroyed the NRA (Schechter, 1935) and the AAA (Butler, 1936) would dismember the Second New Deal as well. Within weeks of the bill, that danger evaporated: in the "switch in time that saved nine", Justice Owen Roberts changed sides to uphold a state minimum wage in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (29 March 1937), and the Court then upheld the Wagner Act in NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel (12 April 1937) and Social Security in Helvering v. Davis (May 1937). The retirement of the conservative Willis Van Devanter in June 1937 let Roosevelt appoint Hugo Black, and five further retirements by 1941 gave him the most thorough remake of the Court in American history. As Jeff Shesol argues in Supreme Power, Roosevelt lost the bill but won the war over the constitutionality of the New Deal - which is why "greatest mistake" is too strong: the gamble failed in Congress while succeeding on the very ground it was meant to secure.

Marker's note. A band-6 response interrogates the value-laden word "greatest" rather than just narrating the Court fight - it sets the plan against a rival candidate (the 1937 recession), weighs the political cost against the substantive win, deploys at least two historians in genuine tension (Shesol on the paradox, Brinkley on the wider decline), and reaches a defended judgement. Simply describing the bill and the switch, without evaluating the "greatest" claim, caps the response in the middle bands.