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Terms & Names

MAIN IDEA

WHY IT MATTERS NOW

•Eleanor Roosevelt

•Works Progress

Administration

(WPA)

•National Youth

Administration

•Wagner Act

•Social Security Act

The Second New Deal

included new programs

to extend federal aid and

stimulate the nation’s

economy.

Second New Deal programs

continue to assist homebuyers,

farmers, workers, and the elderly

in the 2000s.

The New Deal 701

One American's Story

The Second New

Deal Takes Hold

Dorothea Lange was a photographer who documented American life

during the Great Depression and the era of the New Deal. Lange

spent considerable time getting to know her subjects—destitute

migrant workers—before she and her assistant set up their cameras.

A PERSONAL VOICE DOROTHEA LANGE

“ So often it’s just sticking around and remaining

there, not swooping in and swooping out in a cloud

of dust. . . . We found our way in . . . not too far

away from the people we were working with. . . .

The people who are garrulous and wear their heart

on their sleeve and tell you everything, that’s one

kind of person. But the fellow who’s hiding behind

a tree and hoping you don’t see him, is the fellow

that you’d better ﬁnd out why.

”

—quoted in Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange

Lange also believed that her distinct limp, the result of a childhood case of

polio, worked to her advantage. Seeing that Lange, too, had suffered, people were

kind to her and more at ease.

Much of Lange’s work was funded by federal agencies, such as the Farm

Security Administration, which was established to alleviate rural poverty. Her

photographs of migrant workers helped draw attention to the desperate condi-

tions in rural America and helped to underscore the need for direct relief.

The Second Hundred Days

By 1935, the Roosevelt administration was seeking ways to build on the programs

established during the Hundred Days. Although the economy had improved dur-

ing FDR’s ﬁrst two years in ofﬁce, the gains were not as great as he had expected.

Unemployment remained high despite government work programs, and produc-

tion still lagged behind the levels of the 1920s.

▼

Dorothea Lange

taking photo-

graphs on the

Texas plains

in 1934.

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 701

Page 1 of 7

Nevertheless, the New Deal enjoyed widespread

popularity, and President Roosevelt launched a second

burst of activity, often called the Second New Deal or

the Second Hundred Days. During this phase, the pres-

ident called on Congress to provide more extensive

relief for both farmers and workers.

The president was prodded in this direction by his

wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, a social reformer who com-

bined her deep humanitarian impulses with great politi-

cal skills. Eleanor Roosevelt traveled the country, observ-

ing social conditions and reminding the president about

the suffering of the nation’s people. She also urged him

to appoint women to government positions.

REELECTING FDR

The Second New Deal was under

way by the time of the 1936 presidential election. The

Republicans nominated Alfred Landon, the governor of

Kansas, while the Democrats, of course, nominated

President Roosevelt for a second term. The election

resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Democrats,

who won the presidency and large majorities in both

houses. The election marked the ﬁrst time that most

African Americans had voted Democratic rather than Republican, and the ﬁrst

time that labor unions gave united support to a presidential candidate. The 1936

election was a vote of conﬁdence in FDR and the New Deal.

Helping Farmers

In the mid-1930s, two of every ﬁve farms in the United States were mortgaged,

and thousands of small farmers lost their farms. The novelist John Steinbeck

described the experience of one tenant farmer and his family.

A PERSONAL VOICE JOHN STEINBECK

“ Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the

hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded ﬁeld, and

the tractor cut through again; the uncut space

was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron

guard bit into the house-corner, crumbled the

wall, and wrenched the little house from its foun-

dation so that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug.

. . . The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air

and the ground vibrated with its thunder. The ten-

ant man stared after it, his riﬂe in his hand. His

wife was beside him, and the quiet children

behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.

”

—The Grapes of Wrath

FOCUSING ON FARMS

When the Supreme Court struck down the AAA early in

1936, Congress passed another law to replace it: the Soil Conservation and

Domestic Allotment Act. This act paid farmers for cutting production of soil-

depleting crops and rewarded farmers for practicing good soil conservation meth-

ods. Two years later, in 1938, Congress approved a second Agricultural

Adjustment Act that brought back many features of the ﬁrst AAA. The second

AAA did not include a processing tax to pay for farm subsidies, a provision of the

ﬁrst AAA that the Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional.

702 C

HAPTER 23

▼

Eleanor Roosevelt

visits a children’s

hospital in 1937.

MAIN IDEA

Summarizing

Why did

Roosevelt launch

the Second

Hundred Days?

A. Answer

Roosevelt

launched the

Second

Hundred Days

based on the

popularity of the

ﬁrst Hundred

Days and the

urging of his

wife.

▼

A poster

promotes the

movie adaption of

John Steinbeck’s

novel The Grapes

of Wrath.

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 702

Page 2 of 7

The New Deal 703

History Through

“Migrant Mother” became one of the

most recognizable symbols of the

Depression and perhaps the strongest

argument in support of New Deal

relief programs. Roy Stryker, who

hired Lange to document the harsh

living conditions of the time,

described the mother: “She has all

the suffering of mankind in her, but

all the perseverance too. A restraint

and a strange courage.”

▼

“MIGRANT MOTHER” (1936),

DOROTHEA LANGE

In February 1936, Dorothea Lange

visited a camp in Nipomo, California,

where some 2,500 destitute pea

pickers lived in tents or, like this

mother of seven children, in lean-tos.

Lange talked brieﬂy to the woman and

then took ﬁve pictures, successively

moving closer to her subjects and

directing more emphasis on the

mother. The last photo, “Migrant

Mother” (at right), was published in the

San Francisco News March 10, 1936.

Lange reﬂected upon her assignment. “I saw and approached

the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. . . .

She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from

the surrounding ﬁelds, and birds that the children killed. She

had just sold the tires from her car to buy food.”

▼

SKILLBUILDER

Interpreting Visual Sources

1. What might the woman be thinking about?

Why do you think so?

2. Why do you think “Migrant Mother” was effective in

persuading people to support FDR’s relief programs?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R23.

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 703

Page 3 of 7

The Second New Deal also attempted to help sharecroppers, migrant workers,

and many other poor farmers. The Resettlement Administration, created by exec-

utive order in 1935, provided monetary loans to small farmers to buy land. In

1937, the agency was replaced by the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which

loaned more than $1 billion to help tenant farmers become landholders and

established camps for migrant farm workers, who had traditionally lived in

squalid housing.

The FSA hired photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker

Evans, Arthur Rothstein, and Carl Mydans to take many pictures of rural towns

and farms and their inhabitants. The agency used their photographs to create a

pictorial record of the difﬁcult situation in rural America.

Roosevelt Extends Relief

As part of the Second New Deal, the Roosevelt administration and Congress set

up a series of programs to help youths, professionals, and other workers. One of

the largest was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed by Harry

Hopkins, the former chief of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.

The WPA set out to create as many jobs as possible as quickly as possible.

Between 1935 and 1943, it spent $11 billion to give jobs to more than 8 million

workers, most of them unskilled. These workers built 850 airports throughout the

country, constructed or repaired 651,000 miles of roads and streets, and put up

more than 125,000 public buildings. Women workers in sewing groups made 300

million garments for the needy. Although criticized by some as a make-work pro-

ject, the WPA produced public works of lasting value to the nation and gave work-

ing people a sense of hope and purpose. As one man recalled, “It was really great.

You worked, you got a paycheck and you had some dignity. Even when a man

raked leaves, he got paid, he had some dignity.”

In addition, the WPA employed many professionals who wrote guides to

cities, collected historical slave narratives, painted murals on the walls of schools

This photograph

by Margaret

Bourke-White

shows people

waiting for food in

a Kentucky bread

line in 1937.

704

▼

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 704

Page 4 of 7

and other public buildings, and performed

in theater troupes around the country. At

the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt, the WPA

made special efforts to help women, minori-

ties, and young people.

Another program, the National Youth

Administration (NYA), was created specif-

ically to provide education, jobs, counseling,

and recreation for young people. The NYA

provided student aid to high school, college,

and graduate students. In exchange, stu-

dents worked in part-time positions at their

schools. One participant later described her

experience.

A PERSONAL VOICE HELEN FARMER

“ I lugged . . . drafts and reams of paper

home, night after night. . . . Sometimes I

typed almost all night and had to deliver it

to school the next morning. . . . This was a

good program. It got necessary work done. It gave teenagers a chance to work for

pay. Mine bought me clothes and shoes, school supplies, some movies and mad

money. Candy bars, and big pickles out of a barrel. It gave my mother relief from my

necessary demands for money.

”

—quoted in The Great Depression

For graduates unable to ﬁnd jobs, or youth who had dropped out of school,

the NYA provided part-time jobs, such as working on highways, parks, and the

grounds of public buildings.

Improving Labor and Other Reforms

In a speech to Congress in January 1935, the president declared, “When a man is

convalescing from an illness, wisdom dictates not only cure of the symptoms but

also removal of their cause.” During the Second New Deal, Roosevelt, with the

help of Congress, brought about important reforms in the areas of labor relations

and economic security for retired workers. (See the chart on page 706.)

IMPROVING LABOR CONDITIONS

In 1935, the Supreme Court declared the

NIRA unconstitutional, citing that the federal government had violated legislative

authority reserved for individual states. One of the ﬁrst reforms of the Second New

Deal was passage of the National Labor Relations Act. More commonly called the

Wagner Act, after its sponsor, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York, the act

reestablished the NIRA provision of collective bargaining. The federal government

again protected the right of workers to join unions and engage in collective bar-

gaining with employers.

The Wagner Act also prohibited unfair labor practices such as threatening work-

ers, ﬁring union members, and interfering with union organizing. The act set up the

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hear testimony about unfair practices and

to hold elections to ﬁnd out if workers wanted union representation.

In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set maximum

hours at 44 hours per week, decreasing to 40 hours after two years. It also set min-

imum wages at 25 cents an hour, increasing to 40 cents an hour by 1945. In addi-

tion, the act set rules for the employment of workers under 16 and banned haz-

ardous work for those under 18.

The New Deal 705

▼

The NYA helped

young people,

such as this

dental assistant

(third from left),

receive training

and job

opportunities.

MAIN IDEA

Evaluating

Do you think

work programs like

the WPA were a

valid use of

federal money?

Why or why not?

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Issues

Why was the

Wagner Act

signiﬁcant?

B. Possible

Answers Yes:

they provided

an income to

people in need,

while producing

public works;

No: private

business, rather

than the federal

government,

should provide

jobs.

C. Answer

The Wagner Act

gave the federal

government

power to protect

and aid workers.

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 705

Page 5 of 7

706 C

HAPTER 23

EMPLOYMENT PROJECTS PURPOSE

1933 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Provided jobs for single males on

conservation projects.

1933 Federal Emergency Relief Administration Helped states to provide aid for the

(FERA) unemployed.

1933 Public Works Administration (PWA) Created jobs on government projects.

1933 Civil Works Administration (CWA) Provided work in federal jobs.

1935 Works Progress Administration (WPA) Quickly created as many jobs as

possible—from construction jobs to

positions in symphony orchestras.

1935 National Youth Administration (NYA) Provided job training for unemployed

young people and part-time jobs for

needy students.

BUSINESS ASSISTANCE AND REFORM

1933 Emergency Banking Relief Act (EBRA) Banks were inspected by Treasury Department

and those stable could reopen.

1933 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Protected bank deposits up to $5,000. (Today,

(FDIC) accounts are protected up to $100,000.)

1933 National Recovery Administration (NRA) Established codes of fair competition.

1934 Securities and Exchange Commission Supervised the stock market and eliminated

(SEC) dishonest practices.

1935 Banking Act of 1935 Created seven-member board to regulate the nation’s

money supply and the interest rates on loans.

1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDC) Required manufacturers to list ingredients in foods,

drugs, and cosmetic products.

FARM RELIEF AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT

1933 Agricultural Adjustment Administration Aided farmers and regulated crop

(AAA) production.

1933 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Developed the resources of the

Tennessee Valley.

1935 Rural Electriﬁcation Administration (REA) Provided affordable electricity for

isolated rural areas.

HOUSING

1933 Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) Loaned money at low interest to

homeowners who could not meet

mortgage payments.

1934 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Insured loans for building and

repairing homes.

1937 United States Housing Authority (USHA) Provided federal loans for low-cost public housing.

LABOR RELATIONS

1935 National Labor Relations Board Deﬁned unfair labor practices and established the

(Wagner Act) National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to settle

disputes between employers and employees.

1938 Fair Labor Standards Act Established a minimum hourly wage and a maximum

number of hours in the workweek for the entire country.

Set rules for the employment of workers under 16 and

banned hazardous factory work for those under 18.

RETIREMENT

1935 Social Security Administration Provided a pension for retired workers and their

spouses and aided people with disabilities.

New Deal Programs

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 706

Page 6 of 7

The New Deal 707

THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT

One of the most important achievements of the

New Deal was creating the Social Security system. The Social Security Act,

passed in 1935, was created by a committee chaired by Secretary of Labor Frances

Perkins. The act had three major parts:

• Old-age insurance for retirees 65 or older and their spouses. The insurance was a

supplemental retirement plan. Half of the funds came from the worker and

half from the employer. Although some groups were excluded from the sys-

tem, it helped to make retirement comfortable for millions of people.

• Unemployment compensation system. The unemployment system was funded

by a federal tax on employers. It was administered at the state level. The ini-

tial payments ranged from $15 to $18 per week.

• Aid to families with dependent children and the disabled. The aid was paid for

by federal funds made available to the states.

Although the Social Security Act was not a total pension system or a complete

welfare system, it did provide substantial beneﬁts to millions of Americans.

EXPANDING AND REGULATING UTILITIES

The Second New Deal also includ-

ed laws to promote rural electriﬁcation and to regulate public utilities. In 1935,

only 12.6 percent of American farms had electricity. Roosevelt established under

executive order the Rural Electriﬁcation Administration (REA), which ﬁnanced and

worked with electrical cooperatives to bring electricity to isolated areas. By 1945,

48 percent of America’s farms and rural homes had electricity. That ﬁgure rose to

90 percent by 1949.

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 took aim at ﬁnancial cor-

ruption in the public utility industry. It outlawed the ownership of utilities by

multiple holding companies—a practice known as the pyramiding of holding

companies. Lobbyists for the holding companies fought the law ﬁercely, and it

proved extremely difﬁcult to enforce.

As the New Deal struggled to help farmers and other workers overcome the

Great Depression, it assisted many different groups in the nation, including

women, African Americans, and Native Americans.

Second New Deal

Group How Helped

MAIN IDEA

Drawing

Conclusions

Whom did

Social Security

help?

MAIN IDEA

2. TAKING NOTES

Create a chart similar to the one

below to show how groups such as

farmers, the unemployed, youth,

and retirees were helped by Second

New Deal programs.

Which group do you think beneﬁted

the most from the Second New

Deal? Explain.

CRITICAL THINKING

3. EVALUATING DECISIONS

Why might the Social Security Act

be considered the most important

achievement of the New Deal?

Think About:

• the types of relief needed in the

1930s

• alternatives to government

assistance to the elderly, the

unemployed, and the disabled

• the scope of the act

4. INTERPRETING VISUAL SOURCES

Many WPA posters were created to

promote New Deal programs—in

this case the Rural Electriﬁcation

Administration. How does this

poster’s simplistic design convey

the program’s goal?

•Eleanor Roosevelt

•Works Progress

Administration (WPA)

•National Youth

Administration

•Wagner Act

•Social Security Act

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its signiﬁcance.

D. Answer It

helped retirees

and their spous-

es, the unem-

ployed, families

with dependent

children, and

the disabled.

p0701-707aspe-0623s2 10/17/02 9:06 AM Page 707

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