required employers to deal with unions, insured bank deposits, regulated
the stock market, loaned money to home owners, and provided payments to
a majority of the elderly and unemployed. It transformed the physical envi-
ronment through hydroelectric dams, reforestation projects, rural electrifica-
tion, and the construction of innumerable public facilities. It restored faith in
democracy and made the government an institution directly experienced in
Americans’ daily lives and directly concerned with their welfare. It redrew the
map of American politics. It helped to inspire, and was powerfully influenced
by, a popular upsurge that recast the idea of freedom to include a public guar-
antee of economic security for ordinary citizens and that identified economic
inequality as the greatest threat to American freedom.
The New Deal certainly improved economic conditions in the United
States. But it did not generate sustained prosperity. More than 15 percent of the
workforce remained unemployed in 1940. Only the mobilization of the nation’s
resources to fight World War II would finally end the Great Depression.
CHAPTER REVIEW
REVIEW QUESTIONS
- Discuss how regional planning such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Columbia
River project reflected broader changes in American life during the New Deal. - What actions did President Roosevelt and Congress take to help the banking system recover
as well as to reform how it operated in the long run? - How did the actions of the AAA benefit many farmers, injure others, and provoke attacks
by conservatives? - Explain what labor did in the 1930s to rise from being “slaves of the depression” to secure
“economic freedom and industrial democracy” for American workers. - How did the emphasis of the Second New Deal differ from the First New Deal?
- How did the entrenched power of southern white conservatives limit African-Americans’ ability
to enjoy the full benefits of the New Deal and eliminate racial violence and discrimination? Why
did African-Americans still support the Democratic Party? - Analyze the effects of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 on Native Americans.
- Explain how New Deal programs contributed to the stigma of blacks as welfare-dependent.
- How did the New Deal build on traditional ideas about the importance of home ownership
to Americans, and how did it change Americans’ ability to own their own homes? - What were the major characteristics of liberalism by 1939?
How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s?CHAPTER REVIEW ★^859