Chapter 15 Willkie's Wager

January 1940
Unemployment (year): 14.6%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 151

Summary:

Oren Root, a young lawyer yearly in the year of 1940, attended one of Herbert Hoover's speech addressed to the Young Republicans Club of New York. Root believed that the struggle for Europe (As World War II had just begun) was similar to the struggles that the New Deal proposed in the US and the US was not yet ready to be involved in the war and if they ended up engaging in war, he believed that he presidency should go to someone who understood wartime politics like Wendell Willkie. This initially wasn't taken seriously. Eventually the Republican party and writers such as Hubert Kay began supporting Willkie against Roosevelt, arguing how inefficiently Roosevelt was using government spending's and using the weaknesses of Roosevelt's New Deal. Willkie used this politics views about freedom and growth to gain popularity with the Republicans. Still Roosevelts efforts in the depression such as providing millions of peoples with jobs, passing the social security act and etc, overshadowed Willkes argument and ideas. Not to mention that in wartime, Roosevelt would prove to be the better candidate, eventually leading him to be reelected in 1940. Willkie brought up the topic of who exactly the forgotten man was, and reminded people that the forgotten man was the person who wanted most to protect the country.

Key Terms:

Town Hall Meeting of the Air
Stryker
TVA
The New Deal
American Liberalism

Questions:

What did Willkie's wager prove to Americans?

Who is the Forgotten man towards the end of the book?

Pictures:




1940, March 16 2015, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Willkie





Dorothea Lange, March 16 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg

Chapter 14 "brace up, america"

January 1938
Unemployment: 17.4%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 121

Summary

Still in the depression, less server than it was in previous years, Americans were finally able to adjust to some extent and breathe. A meeting between Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler at Munich were occurring but Roosevelt was aware that this was not likely stop war. During this time. the Mid Term elections were taking place, Roosevelt winning the election once more, leaving the Republicans without representation in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Hatch Act was passed in 1939, limiting the political activities by government that had proved especially useful during the presidential election. At the same time, a report made by the Associated Press about the cooperative farm experiment in Casa Grande was made by Robert Faul. As the events in 1938 began to unfold, Americans expressed their favoritism towards Europe by wanting to help support them with supplies and military support.

Key Terms:

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Spencer
Father Divine
Casa Grande
The Big Book
Alcoholics Anonymous

Questions:

What were the main themes of the election of 1940?

Pictures:



Atlanta Georgia, 1932, March 16 2015, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

Chapter 13 Black Tuesday, again

August 27, 1937
Unemployment: 13.5%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 187

Summary:

With Mellon's Death brought problems including undistributed tax profits, the fluctuation of bond prices. Businesses and  investors refused to buy anymore money because they didn't want to use it. The Fed law, caused banks to cut back on loans and made stricter policies for banks. The Fed, fearing inflation from vast amount of gold pouring back into the economy, restricted the flow of gold into the economy which as a result removed billions of dollars from circulation and caused banks to lend fewer loans to the public. With the social security program taking out money to fund retired people and the Wagner act making bushiness much more expensive, the New Deal seemed inefficient. The massive drop in industrial production ever recorded helped support the ineffectiveness of the New Deal. During this time, Roosevelt was taking advice from a group of Anti-big businessmen, Corcoran, Cohen, Ickles, Jackson, and Hopkins to take advantage of the downturn and eliminate big businesses, urging the president to take action against the elite. The New Deal revealed the competition between the elite and the government and continued to support Roosevelt's opposition to holding companies and Wilkes support of private and holding companies .

Key Terms:
 Civilian Conservation Corps
WPA
Agriculture Department
New Deal
Department of Commerce

Questions:

Where the programs and administrations that Roosevelt sponsored really helpful? What significant changes did they make?

What caused the depression within the depression in 1937?

Pictures:



Des Moines, Iowa June 8 1936, March 16 2015, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/resources/newdealprojects.html

Chapter 12 The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt

January 1937
Unemployment (January): 15.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 179

Summary:

Rex Tugwell, once a member of the Roosevelt Administration left this job at the undersecretary of agriculture and abandoned his projects to become a worker of a private molasses company. Compared to how the government was during the middle of the depression, the economy was slowly recovering but never recovered back to the way it was during the 1920's, this proving how the New Deal was in some aspects ineffective. As a result of Roosevelt laying off workers in the NIRA and WPA, employees standing behind the Wagner Act began protesting, adding to the problem was the solution of their or not to raise wages to see if the government could get the economy back to the way it was in the late 1920's. Meanwhile, the fear of communists and the soviet union became a persistent problem, ever since Roosevelt recognized the the Soviet Union. Journalist Oddete Keun, traveling from Europe to study organizations like the TVA, caused Americans to notice the effects the New Deal on the businesses and realize the effects of the Wagner act of companies and businesses.

Key Terms:

New York Herald Tribune
McCarthy
Middletown in Transition
Keun
Casa Grande
Stalin and Communists


Questions:

How were workers able to use the Wagner Act to lead strikes?

What kind of power did it give them?

Pictures:



Rexford Tugwell, March 16 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rexford_Tugwell

Chapter 11 Roosevelt's Revolution

January 1937

Unemployment: 15 percent

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 179

Summary: 

Roosevelt was elected again in 1937 and gave his election speech during his inauguration on January 1937. During this year of his presidency, Roosevelt skipped state ratification and increased the number of Supreme Court Justices from 9 to around 15 and possible even more. This elicited strong disapproval from many American citizens and old-fashioned liberals who found it illiberal. As a result, the court supported unions and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which gave the government power to regulate manufacturing and giving the Wager Act more power. While Roosevelt began prosecuting Mellon and his connection to the Aluminum Company of America due to revenue, tax, and monopoly, a national convention for doctors, the American Medical Association, a new drug called sulfanilamide was being introduced. Claiming that the drug could easily fight off bacterial infection, it help form on an idea to giving American Citizens national health care and required all the nation's doctors to become a member/officer of the Federal Health Service.

Key Terms:

West Coast Hotel Company v Parrish
Fireside Chats
Adkins v Children's Hospital
NLFA
Sulfanilamide
Federal Public Health Service
American Medical Association

Question:

What was the significance of Roosevelt adding more Justices to the already existing group?

Why did it make Republicans and classical liberals angry?

Pictures:



Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Emergency Railroad Transportation Act, June 16 1933, March 16 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/509263/Franklin-D-Roosevelt

Chapter 10 Mellon's Gift

December 1936
Unemployment (December): 15.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 182

Summary:

Mellon approaching somewhere near his late 70's wanted to give back to the American community by building a national art gallery in Washington that would display his precious art collection that the had been collecting for years. At first, Mellon had wanted to keep the idea a secret but eventually disregarded the idea it after it had been leaked. Mellon had been an avid connoisseur of art and collected many pieces of art such as Madonna of the House of Alba, a portrait of Pocahontas painted origination in Britain from 1616, and many of van Eyck's paintings. A couple of weeks after Roosevelt was reelected into office, Mellon proposed the idea of constructing an art museum made entirely out of marble and named The National museum of art, with no mention of Mellon's name in the museums name or in the collection of paintings that were going to be displayed in the museum. It was graciously accepted by Roosevelt. Building the museum to be much bigger than what he had intended to fit his collection in, he was hoping that it would encourage the elite class philanthropist to donate to the community when he no longer could, thus proving that the elite could indeed contribute to the community.

Key Terms:

Van Eyck's Annunciation
Alba Madonna
Duveen
Tennessee Marble

Questions:

How might Mellon's Art Gallery become significant in the future?

What did Mellon's Art donation prove to the Elite Class and the rest of the Americans?

Pictures:



National Gallery of Art, west building, March 16 2015, http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/andrew_mellon

Chapter 9 Roosevelt's Wager

July 1935
Unemployment (July): 21.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 119

Summary:

By Funding projects such as the NRA, Roosevelt, hoped that his experiments would prove valuable
to the efforts in improving the situation of the economy, but after seeing how it didn't help the situation, he turned to politics, something that he was more familiar with. Formulating a plan to get him reelected and gain more supporters, Roosevelt, Tugwell, and his administration worked to foster projects like the National Youth Administration which created jobs for hundreds of employees, the Wagner act that denied jobs to anyone who was not in a union, close shop, the Social Security act; which guaranteed citizens that when they retired, they would receive government aid, the TVA, and Guffey coal Act. Roosevelt targeted the rich elite business men, and sympathized with the lower classes by forcing the elites to pay taxes to redistribute and recirculate money into the economy. Doing all of this caused Roosevelt to reevaluate his definition of the "Forgotten Man" to mean something like the different groups such as; Farmers, veterans, blacks, women, and industrial workers, that he planned to help, changing the definition of the Forgotten man. All of these acts, apart of the New Deal helped the situation of the Great Depression and reassured Americans. As a result of the US being in a depression for such an extended period of time, unemployment no longer seemed as harsh as it did towards the beginning of the Depression and stock markets began slowly recovering. Confidence that the New Deal would bring about prosperity, alleviated many of the worries that Americans harbored and allowed the country to recover. Meanwhile, Roosevelt and Congress looked for ways to redistribute revenue and tax profits efficiently.

Key Terms

Guffey Coal Act
Horse and the Buggy
Hallie Flanagan
CIO
Cardozo
PWA
Gone with the Wind
AAA
Tipaldo
Grapes of Wrath

Questions:

How are Hoover and FDR alike?

 How are they different?

Pictures:



Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal pin, 1932, March 16 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411331/New-Deal





Civilian Conservation Corps, New Jersey 1935, March 16 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411331/New-Deal