The Second New Deal and Economic Freedom

1935 – FDR launches the Second New Deal

Although production had risen by almost 30 percent since early 1933, unemployment remained high

Works Progress (later Projects) Administration (WPA)

By the time of its demise in 1943, the WPA had provided employment for 8 million Americans

Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange – perhaps the most famous documentary photograph of the 1930s.

Arts of the West by Thomas Hart Benton

Works Progress (later Projects) Administration (WPA)

Federal One

Federal Art Project (FAP)

Federal Music Project (FMP)

Federal Theater Project (FTP)

Federal Writers Project (FWP)

Harry Hopkins and those who became involved in WPA art projects saw Federal One as a grand opportunity to fuse “high culture” with American democracy

Federal Writers Project

Richard Wright, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, John Cheever, Jack Conroy, Conrad Aiken, Arna Bontemps, and Margaret Walker

WPA State Guidebooks

Slave Narrative Project

Federal Music Project

• Less controversial than other WPA art projects

Charles Seeger and Alan Lomax undertook a remarkable effort to collect and preserve America’s folk music

Federal Art Project

Diego Rivera

Nelson Rockefeller ordered the removal of the Rockefeller Center mural because Rivera included a portrait of Lenin

Clemente Orozco

Subjects of many murals were too labor-oriented to suit conservatives in Congress

Jackson Pollock

William De Kooning

Diego Rivera (1932)

Jerry Mast Painting WPA Mural• Works Projects

Administration artist painting mural at Clare High School, January 27, 1937. The Works Projects Administration was part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, a revolutionary program which aimed to alleviate the massive suffering of unemployed during the Depression by creating jobs through public projects. The WPA lasted from 1935 to 1943, and during this time the administration created thousands of public works projects, as well as fine arts programs. Above, artist Jerry Mast paints one of the thousands of WPA murals that adorn public buildings throughout the country.

WPA Mural (Charleston, Missouri Post Office)

WPA Mural (Jackson, Missouri Post Office)

Federal Theater Project

Hallie Flanagan

Orson Wells, Arthur Miller, Dale Wasserman, John Huston, Joseph Cotton, E. G. Marshall, Will Geer, Burt Lancaster, John Houseman

Cradle Will Rock

Living Newspaper plays

Triple-A Plowed Under

Injunction Granted

Right wing critics charged that such productions were propaganda for the New Deal

Accused Flanagan of trying to “Russianize” the American Stage

In less than four years, 30 million people attended productions of the FTP

Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938)

Martin Dies

FTP budget cut in 1939

WPA limped along until 1943

Social Security Act (1935)

Embodied an expansion of the government’s role in the lives of citizens

Social Security represented a fundamental break with traditional elitist notions that the poor and the unemployed were entirely to blame for their condition

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (1938)

Last major piece of welfare legislation passed during the Second New Deal

Banned child labor in manufacturing industries and established a

nationwide minimum wage

A 1935 poster promoting the new Social Security system

A law is not a social movement – after the passage of the Wagner Act the obstacles to its actual enforcement seemed considerable

Large corporations were so certain of its defeat that they fought the unions and ignored the statute

American Federation of Labor (AFL) had little inclination to organize unskilled and semi-skilled workers

Advocates of industrial unionism join together in the fall of 1935 to form the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

John L. Lewis – United Mine Workers

Sidney Hillman – Amalgamated Clothing Workers

Advocates of industrial unionism saw the government’s move to the left and the Wagner Act as the most promising of times to organize the unorganized

This leaflet distributed by the United Auto Workers (UAW) captured the impact of the Wagner Act on union organizing

CIO organizing drive was closely linked to FDR’s 1936 reelection campaign

Republican’s nominated Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas

Roosevelt focused on class as a campaign issue

Roosevelt benefited from a shift in the loyalties of African-American voters to the Democratic Party

This support came from the fact that despite FDR’s general ambivalence towards civil rights, New Deal programs did make a positive difference for many African Americans

The New Deal and the

Limits of Change

Roosevelt received 60 percent of the popular vote in 1936

Encouraged by the Roosevelt landslide, CIO efforts to organize basic industries, including steel, rubber, meatpacking, autos, and electrical products, climaxed during a six-week sit-down strike at General Motors in the winter of 1937

Flint Sit-Down Strike

Women’s Emergency Brigade

GM caves in and accepted the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on February 11, 1937

Strikers occupying GM’s Fisher Body Plant No. 1 keeping up with news of the strike

While the men occupied the plant, the Women’s Emergency Brigade picketed outside

In 1937, nearly 5 million workers took part in some kind of industrial action and almost 3 million became union members

Unionism is the spirit of Americanism asserted a typical union paper

FDR now made what many considered a serious political miscalculation

Attempted to pack the Supreme Court

In the wake of this failed attempt, however, the Supreme Court suddenly revealed a new willingness to support economic regulation and turned aside challenges to Social Security and the Wagner Act

A cartoon from the Richmond Times-Dispatch commenting on FDR’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court

1937 witnessed a sharp downturn in the economy

With conditions improving, FDR had reduced federal funding for farm subsidies and WPA work relief – the result was a disaster

Unemployment rose to 20 percent by the end of 1937

Even as the New Deal receded, its substantial accomplishment remained

One thing, however, that the New Deal failed to do was to generate prosperity – only the mobilization of the nation’s resources to fight World War II would finally end the Great Depression