The Effectiveness of Franklin Roosevelt

After suffering three long years of economic hardships, Franklin Roosevelt was elected president which gave the nation hope of overcoming the awful years of the Great Depression. The New Deal was Roosevelt’s response to the depression and became effective as soon as he was elected into office. The New Deal was intended to bring relief, reform, and recovery to the country.

Although the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, Roosevelt had great success in reaching his goals of providing relief and reform to the nation, but was unsuccessful in providing recovery for the struggling Americans. Franklin Roosevelt created many different laws and agencies to reach his goals of relief, reform, and recovery. Roosevelt created the Social Security Act. The Social Security Act provided modest pensions, unemployment insurance, and financial assistance to handicapped, elderly, and dependent children.

It was a system that provided for the welfare of individuals in the new industrial act. The National Recovery Administration as meant to encourage cooperation between businesses, government, and labor to achieve economic progress. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration was an effort to support farmers back into success. Relief was one of the 3 R’s that was a success during Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The different laws and agencies Roosevelt developed were all to help the people out of the depression, but on the way he came up with different ways for the citizens to feel relief.

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The Civilian Consercation Corps and the Works Progress Administration were made to design new work programs for people and kept people from starving. It also helped citizens restore their self-respect that they had lost during the hard years of the Great Depression. These agencies provided needed labor for public projects. For women, the depression made their position in the economy worse. More than 20% of women were unemployed, but if the women that did work had their wages lowered a significant amount.

If women were raising children, often the oldest male child would have to go out and find work to provide for the household. In the sense of reform, Roosevelt was successful by including Negroes in the government for the first time ever. The New Deal greatly changed the government. Before the Great Depression the government was mostly laissez faire and allowed businesses to act however they pleased. By the end of the New Deal, the government had a much bigger role in regulation businesses and affecting the lives of citizens.

Many citizens felt like the new agencies that were created would help greatly in the role of the government as “an instrument of democratic action. ” Many also disagreed and though it was leading the country towards socialism and communism. The New Deal changed the government into a much larger, more individual government. Although World War II was the reason the Great Depression ended, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal greatly reduced the worst effects of the depression.

After the New Deal ended, Roosevelt was still extremely popular and had revived American optimism. When the New Deal ended, the unemployment rate had dropped significantly from 12,830,000 to 7,700,000. There were many things Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal did to lighten the impact of the Great Depression although it did not end it itself. It changed the way the government functioned and the optimism in Americans. It gave citizens hope in overcoming hardships. Roosevelt built a dominant new political coalition, creating a democratic majority.

Bibliography

1. McElvaine, Robert. The Great Depression. New York: Times Books, 1947. Print. Ross, Stewart. Causes and Consequences of the Great Depression. Texas: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1998.
2. Print. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. 1995-2010 http://wps. ablongman. com/long_divine_appap_7/23/5931/1518562. cw/index. html
3. FDR’s New Deal Summary & Analysis. http://www. shmoop. com/fdr-new-deal/summary. html
4. The Effectiveness of Roosevelt’s New Deal. July 29, 2010. http://voices. yahoo. com/the-effectiveness-roosevelts-6418844. html

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