The Great Depression and the New Deal
Terms
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- Barrios
- Where many Mexican and Mexican Americans of the California region ended up living as the lower end of the state's working class, mostly in Los Angeles.
- panacea
- Hypothetical remedy for all ills or diseases.
- pump priming
- Spending money raised by borrowing.
- foreclosure
- The legal procedure for reclaiming a piece of property when the buyer is unable to keep up the mortgage payments.
- collective bargaining
- When representatives of management and labor reach agreements through negotiation and compromise
- Housing Act of 1937
- It appropriated $500 million for urban slum clearance and public housing.
- "brain trust"
- The group of experts who served as advisers and policy planners for FDR.
- streamlining
- It transformed the appearance of thousands of products. It originated in the 20s with a visionary group of industrial designers. It was the elimination of all extraneous design features in favor of smoothly flowing surfaces.
- Swing
- A kind of jazz generally played by a "Big Band" and was characterized by a lively rhythm suitable for dancing. The bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller played this style.
- Federal Securities Act
- Required full disclosure to investors of information relating to stock offerings, and registration of most stock offerings with the Federal Trade Commission
- "black cabinet"
- Led by Mary McLeod Bethune, a Florida educator and founder of the National Council of Negro Women, it linked the administration and black organizations.
- nostrums
- A scheme, theory, device, etc., especially one to remedy social or political ills.
- Count Basie
- Helped launch the swing era by playing in a big band, which started at Kansas City's Reno Club.
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- It insured bank deposits up to five thousand dollars.
- Benny Goodman
- United States clarinetist who in 1934 formed a big band (including Black as well as White musicians) and introduced a kind of jazz known as swing.
- John L. Lewis
- A long-time labor leader of the United Mine Workers who organized and led the first important unskilled workers labor union. He was called in to represent the union during the sit-down strike.
- Civilian Conservation Corps
- It employed jobless youths in such government projects as reforestation, park maintenance, and erosion control. It combined work relief with environmental programs.
- buying stock on margin
- Purchasing stocks by borrowing some of the purchase cost from the brokerage firm.
- Emergency Banking Act
- Set up procedures for failed banks, and tightened regulations governing banking practices
- sacrosanct
- Must be kept sacred.
- Federal Arts Project
- Artists working for this designed posters, offered courses, and painted murals on public buildings.
- anti-Semitic
- Discriminating against Jews.
- Sidney Hillman
- Of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, he created (along with John L. Lewis) the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) within the AFL.
- First New Deal, Second New Deal
- The "First New Deal" of 1933 was aimed at short-term recovery programs for all groups. The Roosevelt administration promoted or implemented banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, agricultural programs, and industrial reform (the NRA), a federal welfare state, as well as the end of the gold standard and prohibition. A "Second New Deal" (1935-1936) included labor union support, the WPA relief program, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid farmers, including tenant farmers and migrant workers.
- defict spending
- The practice of spending funds in excess of income, especially by a government.
- Revenue Act, 1935
- Raised taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
- utopia
- An imaginary place considered to be perfect or ideal.
- Keynesian Economics
- The ideas of John Maynard Keynes that governments should deliberately use deficit spending during depressions to fund public-works programs, thereby increasing purchasing power and stimulating recovery.
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- The most innovative program of the Hundred Days. It had its origins in a WWI hydroelectric station on the Tennessee River in Alabama built by the War Department to power a nearby munitions plant. Expanding Norris's idea of using the facility to supply electric to nearby farmers, TVA advanced the economic and social development of the entire Tennessee River valley, a region mired in poverty.
- demagogue
- An orator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of his audience.
- Securities and Exchange Commission
- Congress set this up in 1934 to regulate the stock market and to prevent abuses by sellers of stocks and bonds.
- National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)
- Guaranteed unions' collective-bargaining rights and outlawed anti-union practices.
- Works Progress Administration
- Headed by Harry Hopkins, this funneled assistance directly to the jobless. Over its eight-year life, the WPA employed more than 8 million Americans and constructed or improved vast numbers of bridges, roads, schools, post offices, and other public facilities.
- United Automobile Workers
- In 1935, bearded workers at Chrysler/GM who refused to shave until they were recognized as union. In 1937, companies signed recognition contract.
- Bank Holiday
- The four days when FDR ordered all banks to close when thousands of banks had failed because borrowers defaulted, depositors withdrew savings, and homeowners missed mortgage payments.
- sit-down strike
- Employees at GM's two body plants in Flint, Michigan stopped work and peacefully occupied the factories. The "sit-down" strategy (adopted so GM could not hire strikebreakers to keep the plants operating) paralyzed GM's production.
- Scottsboro Boys
- Nine young black men between the ages of 13 to 19 were accused of raping two white women by the names of Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. All of the young men were charged and convicted of rape by white juries, despite the weak and contradictory testimonies of the witnesses.
- Congress of Industrial Organizations
- Union organization of unskilled workers; broke away from the American Federation of Labor in 1935 and rejoined it in 1955.
- repatriation
- Process by which Mexican-Americans were encouraged, or forced, by locals, state, and federal officials to return to Mexico during the 1930s
- Harry Hopkins
- As unemployment continued, he convinced FDR to support direct federal relief programs, rather than channeling funds through state and local agencies. He also headed the Civil Works Administration, which funded short-term work projects for the jobless.
- Walter Reuther
- In 1936, he mapped a campaign to unionize General Motors, where hostility to organized labor ran deep. Also, he preformed "sit-downs."
- militancy
- A militant aggressiveness.