How successful was the New Deal?

As with most historical questions, there are two sides to this issue.

On the one hand, it can be argued that the New Deal was a success (the 5Rs).

On the other hand, there are many arguments that it had serious weaknesses and failings (the 3Ds).

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Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Basic accounts from BBC Bitesize

Excellent overviews from Social Studies Help - impact/ challenges/ minorities

How successful was the New Deal - essay

  Essay: “Did the New Deal improve life for African Americans?”

Francis Townsend

Huey Long

Giles Hill - impact of the New Deal

Michael Portillo - myths and reality (excellent)

Hostile Articles

Mythology of the New Deal - Robert Higgs

Ways the New Deal harmed Black people - Jim Powell

YouTube

Mr Portman's History - good overview

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - a tribute

AQA-suggested Interpretations of Roosevelt:

Five Interpretations of FDR

Successes [the 5Rs]

1. Relief

   Millions of people received relief, jobs, help with their mortgage etc.  from the alphabet agencies. 

2. Roads and building work

   The PWA and the TVA provided valuable economic and social infrastructure, such as roads, airports, schools, theatres, dams etc. 

3. Reform

   • Roosevelt's new laws about social security/ minimum wage/ labour relations and trade unions survived and protected ordinary people’s rights and conditions. 
   • One minority group which benefited were the Native Americans.  The Indian Reorganization Act (1934) stopped the loss of tribal lands, promoted tribal self-government and culture, and encouraged economic growth.
   • Although the administration did not pass any civil rights laws, it took advice from the Federal Council of Negro Affairs (the so-called 'Black Cabinet') which included educator Mary McLeod Bethune and economist Robert C Weaver.

4. Restored faith in democracy

   • Trust in democracy survived in America (unlike Italy and Germany).
   • What a democratic state expects from its government was changed wholly and forever.
   • The New Deal became a model of how a democratic government ought to behave – arguably influenced the British Welfare State of 1948.
   • Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the Human Rights Commission which produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
   • In 1998, when the Labour Government of Britain introduced new laws to help poor people, it called it: a New Deal.

5. Roosevelt

   became the people's hero – he was the first and only President elected four times.  Even if it is proved that the New Deal failed, Roosevelt will go down as one of the greatest 'good men' of history.

      

Weaknesses and Failings [the 3Ds]

1. Did not end the Depression

   – indeed, Roosevelt's insistence on a balanced budget, healthy interest rates and ‘sound money’ may have helped to continue it.  Roosevelt had no new ideas how to end the depression – just Hoover’s schemes only bigger.  By 1935 he had failed to end unemployment (which was only down to 10.6 million), and – although unemployment fell to 7.7 million in 1937 – when Roosevelt tried to cut back government expenditure in 1938, it rose again to 10.4 million. 

   (It is not really fair to criticise Roosevelt for this – no one at that time knew how to end the Depression - but the Depression did not end until the Second World War got production going again.)

2. Damaged or did not help Minority Groups and Immigrants

   It is often argued that – apart from the Native Americans – the New Deal did not do enough to help minority groups:

   • It did not do anything to introduce Civil Rights, or end the discrimination minority groups faced.  It did not overrule discriminatory State 'Jim Crow' laws.
   • The AAA's policies to reduce agricultural production led to many unskilled black workers in the South losing their jobs; the NRA allowed racial wage differences; CCC campsites were segregated.
   • New Deal unemployment insurance was not extended to agricultural or domestic workers, but these were the main forms of employment in the South – this excluded 55% of all African American workers and 87 of wage-earning African American women from the most important benefit of the New Deal.
   • The Mexican Repatriations continued until 1937; Latino Americans were excluded from the protections of the National Labour Relations Act.

3. Determined Opposition [BRASS]

   The New Deal was opposed by a wide range of political and economic interest groups:

   • Businessmen hated the New Deal because it interfered with their businesses and supported workers’ rights. 
     Rich people accused Roosevelt of betraying his class. 
     Henry Ford hired thugs to attack his trade union workers.
   • Republicans hated the expenditure, which they said was wasteful (‘boondoggling’ – jobs for the sake of jobs).  It was claimed that the New Deal was 'Socialist'.  After 1938, Republicans took over the Senate, and Roosevelt was unable to get any more New Deal legislation through.
   • Activists – like Huey Long (Senator for Louisiana who started a Share the Wealth’ campaign to confiscate fortunes over $3m) and Francis Townsend (who campaigned for a pension of $200 a month) – said it did not go far enough.
   • State governments opposed the New Deal, saying that the Federal government was taking their powers..
   • The Supreme Court ruled that the NRA codes of employers’ conduct, and the AAA programme, were illegal because they took away the States’ powers. 

     

     Because of this, in 1937, Roosevelt threatened to force old Supreme Court judges to retire and to create new ones; this caused a constitutional crisis with Republicans claiming Roosevelt was trying to 'pack' the Supreme Court make himself a dictator. 
     The crisis was averted when the Supreme Court reversed its decisions.

This cartoon shows New Deal laws throwing Black workers out of a job.

This cartoon shows the AAA driving farm labourers from the land by making farmers cut back production.