Sonia Gutierrez

HIST 1700
11/21/2015
Programs of the New Deal
The United States of America, the land of opportunity and freedom, a place where one
can start over and succeed. Except between the years 1929-1941, otherwise known as the Great
Depression. Once thriving banks found themselves closing door. Businesses found themselves
filing for bankruptcy or firing workers in droves. Men and women found themselves without a
job or enough money to get his or her family through the week. The government at the start of
the Depression did little to alleviate the strain on the economy until 1933 when Franklin Delano
Roosevelt becomes President.
In his first inaugural address Roosevelt stated that the, greatest primary task is to put
people to work and intended to accomplish that by, treating the task as we would treat the
emergency of a war (Franklin); and that is exactly what he did. During his first term in office,
Roosevelt created more than a dozen new programs to help relieve the economy and improve
peoples lives. Some of the programs Roosevelt created included the Civilian Conservation
Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, the Civil Works Administration, the Agricultural
Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and the Securities Act.
The first action that Roosevelt took to fight the declining economy was declare a Bank
Holiday on March 5, 1933 in response to failing banks. The Holiday lasted for four days and
closed banks down in an effort to keep people from withdrawing money and draining banks of
what little money they had left. During this time, Roosevelt signed and passed the Emergency

Banking Act allowing the Federal Reserve Banks to produce and distribute currency to solvent
banks and help the banks that were struggling or on the brink of collapse (Emergency). The Act
also placed banks into four different categories: banks fit to reopen, banks permitted to allow
only a certain percentage of its deposits to be withdrawn, banks permitted to only accept
deposits, and banks that were too weak to remain in business. On March 12, 1933, the President,
through one of his Fireside Chat radio broadcasts, assured the public that the banking crisis
was over and urged them to return their savings to the banks. The next day banks were opened
and Americans deposited more money than withdrew and by the end of the month a billion
dollars were back in the system (Bank Holiday).
Roosevelts next program for the New Deal was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
This program focused on proving jobs mostly for young unmarried men where they would do
conservation work. The work consisted of working mainly in parks and national forests, building
flood barriers, planting trees, fighting forest fires, repopulating rivers and lakes with fish,
cleaning campgrounds and many other duties (History.com Staff). The young men worked under
the military and, lived in work camps under a semi-military regime (Editors, CCC)), they were
provided with medical care, food and a $30 allowance. The CCC provided work for about
3,000,000 people in total, built over 800 parks, and planted more than 2.5 billion trees. One
major issue that existed in the program was discriminating against blacks and not giving jobs to
them, especially in the South. Despite of the difficulties, nearly 10 percent of participants in the
CCC in 1936 were Blacks (History.com Staff).
In May 12 of 1933, Congress passed the Federal Emergency Relief Act that later created
the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) with the purpose of distributing money to
the impoverished. Under the leadership of New York social worker, Harry L. Hopkins FERA

began to, give immediate and adequate relief to the unemployed, and pay no attention to politics
or politicians (University) as per instructions from the President. At first, FERA began by
distributing funds as block grants to states that applied and those states would then distribute the
money to people as a means for short-term relief, but that failed in some states because people
refused to accept government help (North Carolina) and the minimum for living standards was
not acceptable or possible according to the population in need of help (University).
On November 9, 1933, the Civil Works Administration was created to create and give
jobs to employable people also under the administration of Harry L. Hopkins. The Essay: The
Federal Emergency Relief Administration stated that, it has been estimated that during this
period of relief, roughly three-fourths of the heads of families on relief were employable. They
may not have been generally employable in private industry due to age, but they were considered
employable by FERA (University).
Most of the jobs created were construction, or public works type work such as
improvements of sanitation, construction and repair of buildings, research on improving farming
and fishing and public works projects. White collar jobs were also created and those included:
planning, welfare, public health, education, arts, research and similar jobs. This administration
only lasted through to the winter of 1934, its responsibilities were taken over once again by
FERA which was then replaced by the Works Progress Administration when FERAs
authorization ended in 1935. At one point of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
between 1932 and 1933, 44,000 people were employed (University).
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), enacted in May of 1933, was created to,
restore agricultural prosperity by curtailing farm production, reducing export surpluses, and
raising prices (Editors, AAA). Favored by most farmers, AAA basically controlled supply and

demand of seven farm products that were considered commodities such as corn, rice, milk,
wheat, rice, tobacco, cotton and peanuts. This rose the prices for the products and helped farmers
make a living. AAA did this by paying farmers to leave a portion of their land fallow for a time
thus reducing the amount of commodities produced. A major problem of the AAA was that the
act was unconstitutional, but it was largely popular because it did revive hope. Another problem
was that not all farmers were eligible because the AAA only applied to commodity farmers, this
meant that livestock producers and farmers of other products continued to struggle to make a
living. Despite these problems, AAA did help farmers improve their lives and their finances
(Ganzel).
On May 18, 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act (TVA) was signed into action by
President Roosevelt with the purpose of dealing with the many issues of the valley such as
flooding and its damages, replanting forests, improving business and farming, and providing
electricity to the area. With the development of the area, especially by proving electricity and
flood control by building dams, the area became more productive and growth was seen.
Electricity produced by the hydroelectric dams improved the productivity and challenges
of life, and industry grew creating more jobs (ourdocuments.gov). Malaria was previously
prevalent in the area around the river,

but it was eliminated when the TVA eradicated

mosquitos on their reservoirs. The TVA also improved transportation and travel on the river and
converted the lakes created by the dams into areas of recreation such as fishing and boating. The
TVA has continued on to the present day and now controls most of the areas power, electricity,
nuclear plants and dams; it has also controlled flooding in the area as there have been no floods
since the completion of the dams (Editors, TVA).

The Securities Act of 1933 was the first act Congress passed to fight the fraud being
conducted by issuers of securities at the New York Stock Exchange. Issuers of securities would
look to gain funding or investments so while disclosing material information about their plans
many issuers would withhold information or provide the investors with false information or
ideas. The Securities Act worked to correct this problem and provide investors with accurate and
truthful information about the securities. The act did this by creating a mandatory registration
process for the sale of securities but it was applied mostly to the primary market offerings.
Issuers were generally required to submit information about themselves and the terms of the
securities. Other requirements included a description of the business of the issue, past
performance information, names and information of the issuers managers, legal status, and risks
of investment and all of this information would be open to the public (Sarkar).
Despite all the problems of the Great Depression and the fact that the nation did not agree
with having such an active government and president, President Franklin D. Roosevelt acted to
improve the lives of the citizens of the United States. This set the tone for many other presidents
that came after Roosevelt and some of his programs are still active today, improving the lives of
millions. Even though President Roosevelts programs did not pull the U.S. economy out of the
depression, it did help alleviate some of the suffering and most of the nations unemployment,
providing families with the opportunity to continue striving to improve their lives.

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