The New Deal Case Study

Certainly, FDR promised much in his inaugural speech in March 1933, where he made assurances to bring back prosperity and “put people back to work.” The newly elected president hoped that his New Deal implemented in his first 100 days in power would bring about a revival in the nation’s fortunes. In order to judge the New Deal’s achievements, one must look at its aims which came three fold: relief, recovery and reform. Relief aimed to provide short-term to aid the millions suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, and many historians such as McCoy convincingly argue that the “New Deal’s greatest success was in the area of relief.” FDR’s New Deal was also successful in achieving its reform aims, as argued by Hill and many other

However, where the New Deal was less successful was in its attempts at economic recovery. It is generally accepted that were it not for WWII, the USA would have remained in depression for a longer period of time. As a result, it is accurate to say that the New Deal did achieve little of real substance because the primary promise to end mass unemployment and repair the economy was only achieved by the external factor of WWII.

As part of the New Deal, FDR established many programmes known as Alphabet Agencies. For example, targeting relief, the government created FERA which was given “$500 million to help thousands of [penniless and starving] Americans” and Hill correctly praises the effect of the agency by accurately claiming that it “restored hope to millions of men and women.” An article from New Republic magazine in May 1940 emulates this view by describing relief as “indispensible”. FDR also aimed to tackle the banking crisis which arose firstly due to the economic crash and secondly due to public fear that banks were unsafe. Consequently, “savers had withdrawn their loans” meaning money was no longer going into the banks leaving as much as

Leuchtenburg rightfully supports this view praising the New Deal’s accomplishments in ensuring that “they [black people] had been granted relief.” Fiehn et al. concurs with Leuchtenburg and rightly commend the fact that “thousands [of black people] did receive much more relief than ever before.” On the other hand it must not be ignored that true racial equality was not achieved once the New Deal was passed and black people remained second class citizens. Also, black people did not have access to every relief programme, which most pro-New Deal historians fail to acknowledge. They were mostly helped by FERA and CCC with “around 200,000 benefitting” from the latter. However, the fact that so many of the African-American community were able to obtain any relief represents some substance in the New Deal as a beginning of a change in attitude towards race. Furthermore, Cashman is unconvincing by illogically claiming that the New Deal “bypassed black Americans” because as we’ve seen, hundreds of thousands were given relief. Consequently, Leuchtenburg and others were correct in their acclaim of this achievement of the New