New Deal DBQ
New Deal DBQ
The 1929 stock-market crash and the ensuing Great Depression exposed major weaknesses in the U.S. and world economies. These ranged from chronically low farm prices and uneven income distribution to trade barriers, a surplus of consumer goods, and a constricted money supply. As the crisis deepened, President Hoover struggled to respond. In 1932, with Hoover's reputation in tatters, FDR and his promised “New Deal" brought a surge of hope. Although FDR's New Deal did not end the Great Depression it eased the people’s suffering and reformed many of the problems that contributed to the depression by providing relief, recovery, and reform while fundamentally changing the role of the federal government towards the people.
First, the conditions under Hoover need to be examined, as seen from the point of view of The New Masses, a Marxist publication, in which Meridel Lesueur criticizes the Hoover administration's lackluster response in helping not only men, but mostly in helping women as a whole, noting that there were many women out of work who were discriminated against by the male population in the midst of the crisis (Document A). Critics could dismiss this because of the source, a Marxist publication, but they cannot dismiss statistics, like those shown in Document J, which shows the overall unemployment rates of non-farm workers from 1920 until 1945, with the peak of the unemployment following the crash, and only beginning to fall after Hoover's leave from office and the initiation of the New Deal (Document J).
The effectiveness of the New Deal must be weighed with the economic and political environment of the Roosevelt Administration. Under Roosevelt, the New Deal was formed, and unemployment dropped from nearly 40% unemployment to 25% unemployment from 1933 to 1937 (Document J). If this doesn't show how effective the New Deal was, then nothing does. The effectiveness of the New Deal goes beyond lowering unemployment by half. It also goes
The 1929 stock-market crash and the ensuing Great Depression exposed major weaknesses in the U.S. and world economies. These ranged from chronically low farm prices and uneven income distribution to trade barriers, a surplus of consumer goods, and a constricted money supply. As the crisis deepened, President Hoover struggled to respond. In 1932, with Hoover's reputation in tatters, FDR and his promised “New Deal" brought a surge of hope. Although FDR's New Deal did not end the Great Depression it eased the people’s suffering and reformed many of the problems that contributed to the depression by providing relief, recovery, and reform while fundamentally changing the role of the federal government towards the people.
First, the conditions under Hoover need to be examined, as seen from the point of view of The New Masses, a Marxist publication, in which Meridel Lesueur criticizes the Hoover administration's lackluster response in helping not only men, but mostly in helping women as a whole, noting that there were many women out of work who were discriminated against by the male population in the midst of the crisis (Document A). Critics could dismiss this because of the source, a Marxist publication, but they cannot dismiss statistics, like those shown in Document J, which shows the overall unemployment rates of non-farm workers from 1920 until 1945, with the peak of the unemployment following the crash, and only beginning to fall after Hoover's leave from office and the initiation of the New Deal (Document J).
The effectiveness of the New Deal must be weighed with the economic and political environment of the Roosevelt Administration. Under Roosevelt, the New Deal was formed, and unemployment dropped from nearly 40% unemployment to 25% unemployment from 1933 to 1937 (Document J). If this doesn't show how effective the New Deal was, then nothing does. The effectiveness of the New Deal goes beyond lowering unemployment by half. It also goes