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T
he 1937 poster advertises the spread of electricity to rural
parts of the nation, one of the many building programs of
the New Deal. Indisputably, the New Deal visibly changed the
nation; but did it succeed in reviving the economy?
Few issues in the nation’s history have been more con-
troversial. At the time and for decades afterward conserva-
tive historians such as Edgar E. Robinson denounced the
New Deal as an economic failure that infringed on individ-
ual rights. Most liberals—foremost among them Arthur M.
Schlesinger, Jr. (1957–1960)—acknowledged that the New
Deal did not end the Depression but it did restrain corpo-
rations and address the needs of most workers, farmers,
and consumers. That such people benefited from its
actions was proven by how many of them voted for FDR,
time and again.
William Leuchtenburg (1963) approved of much of the
New Deal, but claimed that it left sharecroppers, slum
dwellers, and most blacks “outside of the new equilibrium.” It
was but a “halfway revolution.” A few years later Barton
Bernstein (1968) led the far left in a blistering attack: “The
New Deal failed to solve the problem of depression, it failed
to raise the impoverished, it failed to redistribute income, it
failed to extend equality and generally countenanced racial
discrimination and segregation.” The New Deal, in short, was
no revolution at all.
In subsequent decades historians were more inclined
to assess the New Deal in light of what was possible at the
time. David Kennedy (1999), while acknowledging the
New Deal’s many failures, was struck by the “the boldness
of its vision.”
The financial crisis that hit in 2008 and 2009, triggered
by inadequate government supervision of mortgage lend-
ing and complicated financial investments, caused many
historians to champion the regulatory initiatives of the
New Deal.
DEBATING THE PAST
Did the New Deal Succeed?
A 1937 poster shows the impact of electrification projects on remote
farm homes.■ ■ ■ ■ ■to muster the votes to do away with accomplished
reforms, succeeded in blocking additional legislation.
Significance of the New Deal
After World War II broke out in 1939, the Great
Depression was swept away on a wave of orders from
the beleaguered European democracies. For this
prosperity, Roosevelt received much undeserved
credit. His New Deal had not returned the country to
full employment. Despite the aid given to the jobless,
the generation of workers born between 1900 and
1910 who entered the 1930s as unskilled laborers had
their careers permanently stunted by the Depression.
Far fewer rose to middle-class status than at any time
since the 1830s and 1840s.
Roosevelt’s willingness to experiment with differ-
ent means of combating the Depression made sense
because no one really knew what to do; however, his
uncertainty about the ultimate objectives of the New
Deal was counterproductive. He vacillated between
seeking to stimulate the economy by deficit spending
and trying to balance the budget, between a narrow
“America first” economic nationalism and a broad-
gauged international approach, between regulating
monopolies and trust-busting, and between helping
the underprivileged and bolstering those already
strong. At times he acted on the assumptions that theSource: Edgar E. Robinson, The Roosevelt Leadership(1955); Arthur M.
Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, 3 volumes (1957–1960); William
Leuchtenburg,Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940(1963);
Barton Bernstein, Towards a New Past(1968); David M. Kennedy, Freedom from
Fear(1999).