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The Snoot Hawley Tariff Act
A high tariff on imports enacted in 1930, during the Great Depression, that was designed to stimulate American manufacturing. Instead it triggered retaliatory tariffs in other countries, which hindered global trade and led to greater economic contraction. What had served American interests in earlier eras now undermined them. Hoover’s stubborn belief in the philosophy of limited government hampered recovery, and his insistence that recovery was just around the corner made him unpopular. -
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The Dust Bowl
An area including the semiarid states of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, and Kansas that experienced a severe drought and large dust storms from 1930 to 1939. -
The Election of 1932
The Democratic Nominee: new York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Republican Nominee: incumbent (but very unpopular) Herbert Hoover. FDR wins easily, but between winning the election in November and taking office in March of '33, the nation faced the worst of the Depression. The next election, 1936, which FDR won by a landslide, was the first time that a large number of African Americans voted for a Democrat. -
The Glass- Steagall Act
A law that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insured deposits up to $2,500 (and now up to $250,000). The act also prohibited banks from making risky investments with customers’ deposits. And in an important economic and symbolic gesture, Roosevelt removed the U.S. Treasury from the gold standard in June 1933. This allowed the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, which gave farms and businesses an economic lifeline in the form of low-cost loans. -
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
New Deal legislation passed in May 1933 that aimed at cutting agricultural production to raise crop prices and thus farmers’ income. It did briefly stablize the farming industry, but disproportionately helped farmers with large properties, who simply leased fewer small farmers and thus many (majority black) small farmers and sharecroppers only saw a few dollars in relief money. -
The National Recovery Act/ Administration (NRA)
Federal agency established in June 1933 to promote industrial recovery during the Great Depression. It encouraged industrialists to voluntarily adopt codes that defined fair wages, set prices, and minimized competition. -
The Public Works Administration (PWA)
A New Deal construction program established by Congress in 1933. Designed to put people back to work, the PWA built the Boulder Dam (renamed Hoover Dam) and Grand Coulee Dam, among other large public works projects. -
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
cue Loki theme music The TVA was an agency funded by Congress in 1933 that integrated flood control, reforestation, electricity generation, and agricultural and industrial development in the Tennessee Valley area.The TVA’s dams and hydroelectric plants provided cheap electric power for homes and factories and created much-needed jobs in an underdeveloped region reeling from the depression. -
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The Hundred Days
The first 100 days of FDR's administration, where 15 major laws, and 76 laws total, mostly concerning immediate relief for those experiencing the depression, were passed. "A legendary session during the first few months of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in which Congress enacted fifteen major bills that focused primarily on four problems: banking failures, agricultural overproduction, the manufacturing slump, and soaring unemployment." -
National Bank Holiday
FDR declared a national “bank holiday” — closing all banks — and called Congress into special session. Four days later, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act, which permitted banks to reopen once a Treasury Department inspection showed they had sufficient cash reserves. When the banking system partially reopened on March 13, calm prevailed and deposits exceeded withdrawals, restoring stability to the nation’s basic financial institutions. -
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Federal relief program that provided jobs to millions of unemployed young men who built thousands of bridges, roads, trails, and other structures in state and national parks, bolstering the national infrastructure. -
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
A commission established by Congress in 1934 to regulate the stock market. The commission had broad powers to determine how stocks and bonds were sold to the public, and to prevent insider trading. This placed control of interest rates and other money-market policies under a federal agency based in Washington rather than private bankers around the country. Still exists today. -
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and The Federal Housing Act of 1934
Congress created the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) to refinance home mortgages. In just two years, the HOLC helped more than a million Americans keep their homes. The FHA was an agency established by the Federal Housing Act of 1934 that refinanced home mortgages for mortgage holders facing possible foreclosure. Together, the HOLC, the FHA, and the subsequent Housing Act of 1937 laid the foundation for the broad expansion of home ownership in the decades after World War II -
The Wagner Act
A 1935 act that upheld the right of industrial workers to join unions, protected workers from employer coercion, and guaranteed collective bargaining. -
The Social Security Act
created an old-age pension system. It had three main provisions: old-age pensions for workers, a joint federal-state system of compensation for unemployed workers, and a program of payments to widowed mothers and the disabled. It originally included a plan for national health insurance, which FDR dropped because he was convinced it would doom the bill. The Social Security Act was a milestone in the creation of an American welfare state. -
The Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Under the direction of Harry Hopkins, employed 8.5 million Americans between 1935 and 1943. Workers constructed or repaired 651,087 miles of road, 124,087 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, & 853 airports. Promoted cultural programs & the arts, hiring tens of thousands of writers, poets, painters, muralists, & others to create original works of art & to promote the varied cultures of ordinary Americans, from rural southern AA music to urban immigrant folkways in northern cities. -
Schechter v. United States
the Supreme Court unanimously ruled the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional on two fronts: it delegated Congress’s lawmaking power to the executive branch and extended federal authority to intrastate (in contrast to interstate) commerce. Roosevelt could only protest as the conservative-leaning high court struck down other New Deal legislation: the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Railroad Retirement Act, and a debt-relief law known as the Frazier-Lemke Act. -
New Supreme Court Picks
Early into his second term, Roosevelt proposed legislation to "pack the court", so that old, conservative judges wouldn't repeal his laws. This did not pass, but they were old and resigned, allowing him to appoint new judges to the bench. His new appointees — who included the long-serving liberal-leaning jurists Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, and William O. Douglas — viewed the Constitution as a “living document” that had to be interpreted in the light of present conditions. -
Fair Labor Standards Act
New Deal legislation passed in 1938 that outlawed child labor, standardized the forty-hour workweek, mandated overtime pay, and established a federal minimum wage. It would be the last major legislative achievement of the New Deal era.