Introduction to the Great Depression and the New Deal

On October 24, 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed. Black Thursday, as the day became known, marked the beginning of the Great Depression. By 1932, many Americans battled job insecurity, decreased wages, unemployment, bank failures, property foreclosure, or loss of personal savings. In 1933, the United States unemployment rate reached twenty-five percent. A series of natural disasters, including a severe drought, exacerbated the economic crisis. The Depression was not limited to the United States; many nations experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

For the first years of the Great Depression, the U.S. federal government did not intervene to provide relief to most effected individuals. Private aid societies and religious organizations staffed soup kitchens, shelters, and other relief operations. However, relief organizations—themselves affected by the Depression—could not keep up with the demand for their services. Some activists pushed for federal and state government intervention. After his inauguration in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced a comprehensive relief and reform program, sponsored and implemented by the federal government. Roosevelt called his plan to provide "relief, reform, and recovery" the New Deal.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided jobs on federal projects such as the building of roads, dams, and parks. Many people moved hundreds of miles to find work, living in temporary housing in WPA and CCC camps. Some farmers bankrupted by Dust Bowl crop failures and foreclosures in the American heart-land moved west to work as migrant agricultural laborers. Some moved north seeking factory work, aiding the growth of the union labor movement. The WPA mural "A Nebraska Farm Scene"—a striking contrast from the bleakness of the Dust Bowl— reflects the hopes and progress of recovery for Depression-era farmers.

This chapter highlights many key New Deal programs, from the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to the advent of Social Security. "On the First Hundred Days" is Roosevelt's famous radio address detailing the first wave of New Deal reforms. Though sometimes controversial, the New Deal-era's increase in the size and role of the federal government cemented its ability to direct and implement national social policy. The legacy of the New Deal is discussed further in future chapters.

At a time when the United States government was rapidly expanding its social policy role, the British government was less inclined to intercede in its economic troubles. The era's economic stagnation prompted Italy's turn to fascism and aided the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. The Soviet Union seemed to avoid many of the economic and unemployment problems of the 1930s, but only because the nation was recovering from the devastation of the 1920's brutal collectivization programs. Lingering tensions from the end of World War I and political change heightened by economic downturn fueled the build-up to World War II in Europe in 1939.