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CHAPTER
THE
NEW DEAL
AND
WORLD
WAR II
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CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
work,” the jobs funded ranged from and dust storms during the 1930s wheat, and a system of planned stor- not only in industry but also in poli-
ditch digging to highway repairs to created what became known as the age to ensure a stable food supply. tics. Roosevelt’s Democratic Party
teaching. Roosevelt and his key of- “Dust Bowl.” Crops were destroyed Economic stability for the farmer benefited enormously from these
ficials worried about costs but con- and farms ruined. was substantially achieved, albeit at developments.
tinued to favor unemployment pro- By 1940, 2.5 million people had great expense and with extraordi-
grams based on work relief rather moved out of the Plains states, the nary government oversight. THE SECOND NEW DEAL
than welfare. largest migration in American histo-
ry. Of those, 200,000 moved to Cali- Industry and Labor. The National In its early years, the New Deal
Agriculture. In the spring of 1933, fornia. The migrants were not only Recovery Administration (NRA), sponsored a remarkable series of
the agricultural sector of the econo- farmers, but also professionals, re- established in 1933 with the National legislative initiatives and achieved
my was in a state of collapse. It there- tailers, and others whose livelihoods Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), at- significant increases in production
by provided a laboratory for the New were connected to the health of the tempted to end cut-throat competi- and prices — but it did not bring
Dealers’ belief that greater regulation farm communities. Many ended up tion by setting codes of fair compet- an end to the Depression. As the
would solve many of the country’s competing for seasonal jobs picking itive practice to generate more jobs sense of immediate crisis eased, new
problems. In 1933, Congress passed crops at extremely low wages. and thus more buying. Although demands emerged. Businessmen
the Agricultural Adjustment Act The government provided aid in welcomed initially, the NRA was mourned the end of “laissez-faire”
(AAA) to provide economic relief the form of the Soil Conservation soon criticized for over-regulation and chafed under the regulations
to farmers. The AAA proposed to Service, established in 1935. Farm and was unable to achieve industrial of the NIRA. Vocal attacks also
raise crop prices by paying farmers a practices that damaged the soil recovery. It was declared unconstitu- mounted from the political left
subsidy to compensate for voluntary had intensified the impact of the tional in 1935. and right as dreamers, schemers,
cutbacks in production. Funds for drought. The service taught farmers The NIRA had guaranteed to la- and politicians alike emerged with
the payments would be generated measures to reduce erosion. In ad- bor the right of collective bargaining economic panaceas that drew wide
by a tax levied on industries that dition, almost 30,000 kilometers of through labor unions representing audiences. Dr. Francis E. Townsend
processed crops. By the time the act trees were planted to break the force individual workers, but the NRA advocated generous old-age pen-
had become law, however, the grow- of winds. had failed to overcome strong busi- sions. Father Charles Coughlin, the
ing season was well under way, and Although the AAA had been ness opposition to independent “radio priest,” called for inflation-
the AAA paid farmers to plow under mostly successful, it was abandoned unionism. After its demise in 1935, ary policies and blamed interna-
their abundant crops. Crop reduc- in 1936, when its tax on food pro- Congress passed the National Labor tional bankers in speeches increas-
tion and further subsidies through cessors was ruled unconstitutional Relations Act, which restated that ingly peppered with anti-Semitic
the Commodity Credit Corporation, by the Supreme Court. Congress guarantee and prohibited employers imagery. Most formidably, Senator
which purchased commodities to be quickly passed a farm-relief act, from unfairly interfering with union Huey P. Long of Louisiana, an elo-
kept in storage, drove output down which authorized the government to activities. It also created the Nation- quent and ruthless spokesman for
and farm prices up. make payments to farmers who took al Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to the displaced, advocated a radical
Between 1932 and 1935, farm land out of production for the pur- supervise collective bargaining, ad- redistribution of wealth. (If he had
income increased by more than 50 pose of soil conservation. In 1938, minister elections, and ensure work- not been assassinated in September
percent, but only partly because of with a pro-New Deal majority on ers the right to choose the organiza- 1935, Long very likely would have
federal programs. During the same the Supreme Court, Congress rein- tion that should represent them in launched a presidential challenge to
years that farmers were being en- stated the AAA. dealing with employers. Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.)
couraged to take land out of pro- By 1940 nearly six million farm- The great progress made in labor In the face of these pressures,
duction — displacing tenants and ers were receiving federal subsidies. organization brought working peo- President Roosevelt backed a new set
sharecroppers — a severe drought New Deal programs also provided ple a growing sense of common in- of economic and social measures.
hit the Plains states. Violent wind loans on surplus crops, insurance for terests, and labor’s power increased Prominent among them were mea-
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CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
sures to fight poverty, create more To these, Roosevelt added the increasingly recalcitrant Southern WAR AND UNEASY
work for the unemployed, and pro- National Labor Relations Act, the conservatives from the Democratic NEUTRALITY
vide a social safety net.
The Works Progress Adminis-
“Wealth Tax Act” that increased
taxes on the wealthy, the Public
Party. When he cut high govern-
ment spending, moreover, the econ- Before Roosevelt’s second term
tration (WPA), the principal relief Utility Holding Company Act to omy collapsed. These events led to was well under way, his domestic
agency of the so-called second New break up large electrical utility con- the rise of a conservative coalition program was overshadowed by the
Deal, was the biggest public works glomerates, and a Banking Act that in Congress that was unreceptive to expansionist designs of totalitarian
agency yet. It pursued small-scale greatly expanded the power of the new initiatives. regimes in Japan, Italy, and Ger-
projects throughout the country, Federal Reserve Board over the large From 1932 to 1938 there was many. In 1931 Japan had invaded
constructing buildings, roads, air- private banks. Also notable was the widespread public debate on the Manchuria, crushed Chinese resis-
ports, and schools. Actors, paint- establishment of the Rural Electri- meaning of New Deal policies to tance, and set up the puppet state
ers, musicians, and writers were fication Administration, which ex- the nation’s political and economic of Manchukuo. Italy, under Benito
employed through the Federal The- tended electricity into farming areas life. Americans clearly wanted the Mussolini, enlarged its boundar-
ater Project, the Federal Art Project, throughout the country. government to take greater respon- ies in Libya and in 1935 conquered
and the Federal Writers Project. sibility for the welfare of ordinary Ethiopia. Germany, under Nazi
The National Youth Administra- A NEW COALITION people, however uneasy they might leader Adolf Hitler, militarized its
tion gave part-time employment
In the 1936 election, Roosevelt
be about big government in general. economy and reoccupied the Rhine-
to students, established training The New Deal established the foun- land (demilitarized by the Treaty of
programs, and provided aid to won a decisive victory over his Re- dations of the modern welfare state Versailles) in 1936. In 1938, Hitler
unemployed youth. The WPA only publican opponent, Alf Landon of in the United States. Roosevelt, per- incorporated Austria into the Ger-
included about three million jobless Kansas. He was personally popular, haps the most imposing of the 20th- man Reich and demanded cession of
at a time; when it was abandoned in and the economy seemed near re- century presidents, had established a the German-speaking Sudetenland
1943, it had helped a total of nine covery. He took 60 percent of the new standard of mass leadership. from Czechoslovakia. By then, war
million people. vote and carried all but two states. No American leader, then or seemed imminent.
The New Deal’s cornerstone, ac- A broad new coalition aligned with since, used the radio so effectively. The United States, disillusioned
cording to Roosevelt, was the Social the Democratic Party emerged, con- In a radio address in 1938, Roos- by the failure of the crusade for
Security Act of 1935. Social Security sisting of labor, most farmers, most evelt declared: “Democracy has democracy in World War I, an-
created a system of state-adminis- urban ethnic groups, African Amer- disappeared in several other great nounced that in no circumstances
tered welfare payments for the poor, icans, and the traditionally Demo- nations, not because the people of could any country involved in the
unemployed, and disabled based on cratic South. The Republican Party those nations disliked democracy, conflict look to it for aid. Neutral-
matching state and federal contribu- received the support of business as but because they had grown tired ity legislation, enacted piecemeal
tions. It also established a national well as middle-class members of of unemployment and insecurity, of from 1935 to 1937, prohibited trade
system of retirement benefits draw- small towns and suburbs. This po- seeing their children hungry while in arms with any warring nations,
ing on a “trust fund” created by em- litical alliance, with some variation they sat helpless in the face of gov- required cash for all other com-
ployer and employee contributions. and shifting, remained intact for ernment confusion and government modities, and forbade American
Many other industrialized nations several decades. weakness through lack of leader- flag merchant ships from carrying
had already enacted such programs, Roosevelt’s second term was a ship.” Americans, he concluded, those goods. The objective was to
but calls for such an initiative in the time of consolidation. The presi- wanted to defend their liberties at prevent, at almost any cost, the in-
United States had gone unheeded. dent made two serious political any cost and understood that “the volvement of the United States in a
Social Security today is the largest missteps: an ill-advised, unsuccess- first line of the defense lies in the foreign war.
domestic program administered by ful attempt to enlarge the Supreme protection of economic security.” With the Nazi conquest of Po-
the U.S. government. Court and a failed effort to “purge” land in 1939 and the outbreak of
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CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
World War II, isolationist sentiment toward intervention. Thus the No- JAPAN, PEARL HARBOR, States release Japanese assets and
increased, even though Americans vember election yielded another AND WAR stop U.S. naval expansion in the
clearly favored the victims of Hitler’s majority for the president, making
W
Pacific. Hull countered with a pro-
aggression and supported the Allied Roosevelt the first, and last, U. S. hile most Americans anxiously posal for Japanese withdrawal from
democracies, Britain and France. chief executive to be elected to a watched the course of the European all its conquests. The swift Japanese
Roosevelt could only wait until pub- third term. war, tension mounted in Asia. Tak- rejection on December 1 left the
lic opinion regarding U.S. involve- In early 1941, Roosevelt got Con- ing advantage of an opportunity to talks stalemated.
ment was altered by events. gress to approve the Lend-Lease improve its strategic position, Japan On the morning of December 7,
After the fall of France and the Program, which enabled him to boldly announced a “new order” in Japanese carrier-based planes ex-
beginning of the German air war transfer arms and equipment to which it would exercise hegemony ecuted a devastating surprise attack
against Britain in mid-1940, the de- any nation (notably Great Britain, over all of the Pacific. Battling for against the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl
bate intensified between those in the later the Soviet Union and China) survival against Nazi Germany, Brit- Harbor, Hawaii.
United States who favored aiding the deemed vital to the defense of the ain was unable to resist, abandoning Twenty-one ships were destroyed
democracies and the antiwar faction United States. Total Lend-Lease aid its concession in Shanghai and tem- or temporarily disabled; 323 aircraft
known as the isolationists. Roos- by war’s end would amount to more porarily closing the Chinese supply were destroyed or damaged; 2,388
evelt did what he could to nudge than $50 billion. route from Burma. In the summer soldiers, sailors, and civilians were
public opinion toward intervention. Most remarkably, in August, he of 1940, Japan won permission killed. However, the U.S. aircraft
The United States joined Canada met with Prime Minister Churchill from the weak Vichy government in carriers that would play such a criti-
in a Mutual Board of Defense, and off the coast of Newfoundland. The France to use airfields in northern cal role in the ensuing naval war in
aligned with the Latin American re- two leaders issued a “joint state- Indochina (North Vietnam). That the Pacific were at sea and not an-
publics in extending collective pro- ment of war aims,” which they September the Japanese formally chored at Pearl Harbor.
tection to the nations in the Western called the Atlantic Charter. Bearing joined the Rome-Berlin Axis. The American opinion, still divided
Hemisphere. a remarkable resemblance to Wood- United States countered with an about the war in Europe, was uni-
Congress, confronted with the row Wilson’s Fourteen Points, it embargo on the export of scrap iron fied overnight by what President
mounting crisis, voted immense called for these objectives: no ter- to Japan. Roosevelt called “a day that will
sums for rearmament, and in Sep- ritorial aggrandizement; no territo- In July 1941 the Japanese oc- live in infamy.” On December 8,
tember 1940 passed the first peace- rial changes without the consent of cupied southern Indochina (South Congress declared a state of war
time conscription bill ever enacted the people concerned; the right of Vietnam), signaling a probable with Japan; three days later Ger-
in the United States. In that month all people to choose their own form move southward toward the oil, tin, many and Italy declared war on the
also, Roosevelt concluded a daring of government; the restoration of and rubber of British Malaya and United States.
executive agreement with British self-government to those deprived the Dutch East Indies. The United
Prime Minister Winston Churchill. of it; economic collaboration be- States, in response, froze Japanese MOBILIZATION FOR
The United States gave the British tween all nations; freedom from assets and initiated an embargo on TOTAL WAR
Navy 50 “overage” destroyers in re- war, from fear, and from want for
T
the one commodity Japan needed
turn for British air and naval bases all peoples; freedom of the seas; above all others — oil. he nation rapidly geared itself for
in Newfoundland and the North and the abandonment of the use General Hideki Tojo became mobilization of its people and its
Atlantic. of force as an instrument of inter- prime minister of Japan that Oc- entire industrial capacity. Over the
The 1940 presidential election national policy. tober. In mid-November, he sent a next three-and-a-half years, war in-
campaign demonstrated that the America was now neutral in special envoy to the United States dustry achieved staggering produc-
isolationists, while vocal, were a name only. to meet with Secretary of State tion goals — 300,000 aircraft, 5,000
minority. Roosevelt’s Republican Cordell Hull. Among other things, cargo ships, 60,000 landing craft,
opponent, Wendell Wilkie, leaned Japan demanded that the United 86,000 tanks. Women workers, ex-
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CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
emplified by “Rosie the Riveter,” THE WAR IN NORTH AFRICA During that time, Benito Musso- sians advancing irresistibly from the
played a bigger part in industrial AND EUROPE lini fell from power in Italy. His East. On May 7, Germany surren-
production than ever before. Total
S
successors began negotiations with dered unconditionally.
strength of the U.S. armed forces at oon after the United States en- the Allies and surrendered imme-
the end of the war was more than tered the war, the United States, diately after the invasion of the Ital- THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC
12 million. All the nation’s activi-
U.S. troops were forced to surren-
Britain, and the Soviet Union (at ian mainland in September. How-
ties — farming, manufacturing, war with Germany since June 22, ever, the German Army had by then
mining, trade, labor, investment, 1941) decided that their primary taken control of the peninsula. The der in the Philippines in early 1942,
communications, even education military effort was to be concen- fight against Nazi forces in Italy was but the Americans rallied in the
and cultural undertakings — were trated in Europe. bitter and protracted. Rome was not following months. General James
in some fashion brought under new Throughout 1942, British and liberated until June 4, 1944. As the “Jimmy” Doolittle led U.S. Army
and enlarged controls. German forces fought inconclusive Allies slowly moved north, they built bombers on a raid over Tokyo in
As a result of Pearl Harbor and back-and-forth battles across Libya airfields from which they made dev- April; it had little actual military
the fear of Asian espionage, Ameri- and Egypt for control of the Suez astating air raids against railroads, significance, but gave Americans an
cans also committed what was Canal. But on October 23, Brit- factories, and weapon emplacements immense psychological boost.
later recognized as an act of intol- ish forces commanded by General in southern Germany and central In May, at the Battle of the Coral
erance: the internment of Japanese Sir Bernard Montgomery struck at Europe, including the oil installa- Sea — the first naval engagement in
Americans. In February 1942, nearly the Germans from El Alamein. tions at Ploesti, Romania. history in which all the fighting was
120,000 Japanese Americans resid- Equipped with a thousand tanks, Late in 1943 the Allies, after much done by carrier-based planes — a
ing in California were removed from many made in America, they defeat- debate over strategy, decided to open Japanese naval invasion fleet sent
their homes and interned behind ed General Erwin Rommel’s army a front in France to compel the Ger- to strike at southern New Guinea
barbed wire in 10 wretched tem- in a grinding two-week campaign. mans to divert far larger forces from and Australia was turned back by a
porary camps, later to be moved to On November 7, American and Brit- the Soviet Union. U.S. task force in a close battle. A few
“relocation centers” outside isolated ish armed forces landed in French U.S. General Dwight D. Eisen- weeks later, the naval Battle of Mid-
Southwestern towns. North Africa. Squeezed between hower was appointed Supreme way in the central Pacific resulted in
Nearly 63 percent of these Japa- forces advancing from east and west, Commander of Allied Forces in Eu- the first major defeat of the Japanese
nese Americans were American- the Germans were pushed back and, rope. After immense preparations, Navy, which lost four aircraft car-
born U.S. citizens. A few were Japa- after fierce resistance, surrendered on June 6, 1944, a U.S., British, and riers. Ending the Japanese advance
nese sympathizers, but no evidence in May 1943. Canadian invasion army, protected across the central Pacific, Midway
of espionage ever surfaced. Others The year 1942 was also the turn- by a greatly superior air force, land- was the turning point.
volunteered for the U.S. Army and ing point on the Eastern Front. The ed on five beaches in Normandy. Other battles also contributed
fought with distinction and valor Soviet Union, suffering immense With the beachheads established to Allied success. The six-month
in two infantry units on the Italian losses, stopped the Nazi invasion at after heavy fighting, more troops land and sea battle for the island of
front. Some served as interpreters the gates of Leningrad and Moscow. poured in, and pushed the Germans Guadalcanal (August 1942-Febru-
and translators in the Pacific. In the winter of 1942-43, the Red back in one bloody engagement af- ary 1943) was the first major U.S.
In 1983 the U.S. government ac- Army defeated the Germans at Stal- ter another. On August 25 Paris was ground victory in the Pacific. For
knowledged the injustice of intern- ingrad (Volgograd) and began the liberated. most of the next two years, Ameri-
ment with limited payments to those long offensive that would take them The Allied offensive stalled that can and Australian troops fought
Japanese-Americans of that era who to Berlin in 1945. fall, then suffered a setback in east- their way northward from the
were still living. In July 1943 British and Ameri- ern Belgium during the winter, but South Pacific and westward from
can forces invaded Sicily and won in March, the Americans and British the Central Pacific, capturing the
control of the island in a month. were across the Rhine and the Rus- Solomons, the Gilberts, the Mar-
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CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
shalls, and the Marianas in a series cretly agreed to enter the war against Japanese Prime Minister Tojo. Gen- a preview of what they would face in
of amphibious assaults. Japan three months after the sur- eral Douglas MacArthur — who a planned invasion of Japan.
render of Germany. In return, the had reluctantly left the Philippines The heads of the U.S., British,
THE POLITICS OF WAR USSR would gain effective control of two years before to escape Japanese and Soviet governments met at Pots-
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CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
226 227
CHANGE
preme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRA. Subsequently, smaller
companies, traditionally even more anti-union than the large corporations,
gave in. One by one, other industries — rubber, oil, electronics, and textiles
— also followed suit.
The rise of big labor had two major long-term impacts. It became the A PICTURE PROFILE
organizational core of the national Democratic Party, and it gained material
benefits for its members that all but erased the economic distinction between For the United States, the 20th century was a period of extraordinary
turmoil and change. In these decades, the nation endured the worst
working-class and middle-class America.
economic depression in its history; emerged triumphant, with the
Allies, in World War II; assumed a role of global leadership in the
century’s twilight conflict known as the Cold War; and underwent a
remarkable social, economic, and political transition at home. Where
once the United States transformed itself over the slow march of
centuries, it now seemed to reinvent itself almost by decades.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs perhaps the most far-reaching legislation World War II in the Pacific was characterized by large-scale naval and air battles.
of the New Deal: the Social Security Act of 1935. Today, Social Security, one of Here, a Japanese plane plunges down in flames during an attack on a U.S. carrier
the largest government programs in the United States, provides retirement and fleet in the Mariana Islands, June 1944. U.S. Army and Marine forces’ “island hopping”
disability income to millions of Americans. campaign began at Guadalcanal in August 1942 and ended with the assault on
Okinawa in April 1945.
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234
Jackie Robinson, sliding home in a 1948 baseball game. Robinson broke the
color barrier against black professional baseball players when he joined the
Brooklyn Dodgers and became one of the stars of the game.
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America’s first star of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, performing on television’s “Ed
Sullivan Show,” September 9, 1956. Today, years after his death, he is still
revered by legions of his fans as “The King.”
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Two of the leaders of the women’s movement in the 1960s: Kate Millett (left),
author of a controversial book of the time, Sexual Politics, and journalist and
activist Gloria Steinem.
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