Introduction: 1929 Prosperity and Optimism The Stock Market Crash The Great Depression The Economy in Free-Fall The Sources of Disaster Weak banking system Unequal distribution of wealth and income The timing of the downturn Economic orthodoxies Portraits in Gray Uneven impact The under- and unemployed Farmers The Dust Bowl Causes Consequences The Middle and Upper Classes Declining standard of living for many Taking advantage of the downturn Herbert Hoover: The Engineer as President Response to the Depression Intervention by persuasion Embrace of an old orthodoxy Rejection of federal relief for the unemployed Declining Popularity The Bonus Army The Election of 1932 Rejection of Hoover Rejection of Progressive approach to reform Franklin D. Roosevelt: The First Term FDR: The Politician Biography Political style and philosophy Personality and temperament The First Hundred Days Inaugural address Initial steps addressing the banking crisis Economy Act ending Prohibition Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Banking regulations refinancing mortgages Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Glass-Steagall Act Aiding the unemployed Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) National Industrial Recovery Act provisions political compromise Ending the gold standard The First Two Years Assessing the First Hundred Days Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) National Recovery Administration (NRA) Growing criticism of the New Deal conservatives and the American Liberty League progressives Elections of 1934 Democratic gains in Congress Upton Sinclair and End Poverty in California (EPIC) Stirrings on the Left Socialists Communists strikes of 1934 Father Charles Coughlin Dr. Francis Townsend Huey Long public opinion shifts left The Second Hundred Days Schechter Poultry v. the U.S. Aid for the jobless inadequacy of early initiatives Works Projects Administration (WPA) Wagner Act Social Security Act unemployment insurance pensions for the elderly relief to mothers of dependent children Rural electrification Rural Electrification Administration major dam projects The Election of 1936 FDR’s campaign strategy FDR’s landslide victory Reshaping the nation’s political landscape Labor Rising The emergence of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) the limitations of craft unions John Lewis’s vision Initial victory targeting General Motors the sit-down strike public sympathy The movement spreads measures of success reasons for success Roosevelt’s Second Term Taking Aim at the Supreme Court The Court’s threat to the New Deal FDR’s Court-packing scheme Reaction The Court’s shift The Ebbing of Reform Emergence of conservative opposition in Congress Southern Democrats and New Deal policies on race Midterm elections of 1938 Economic downturn of 1937 The Keynesian diagnosis The Social Fabric Demographics Declining birth rate Declining death rate Immigration slowdown Higher rates of education Cultural Trends Advances in Science and Technology Cyclotrons Commercial aviation Ground transportation Agriculture Muddling Through Achievements of the New Deal Role of the federal government New constituencies The social compact Limitations of the New Deal Race Distribution of economic power Charting a "Middle Course"