The main theme of this essay is a question that has been hovering over my mind for a few years. Hence, the decision. What should the role of the state be in the economy? Should it create wealth or just distribute it? And how does this decision impact society and more specifically a group, that has been oppressed for years, like women? It is from this place of curiosity that this paper was born.
THE NEW DEAL AND FDR’S ADMINISTRATION
When President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was elected President of the United States of America (POTUS) in 1932, the country was crossing a major crisis caused by The Great Depression (TGD). “More than 25 percent of American workers were unemployed; factory wages had shrunk from $12 billion to $7 billion; more than five thousand banks had failed; nine million people had lost their life savings, and millions of mortgages were foreclosed.” (Chafe)
To reverse the consequences of TGD, president Roosevelt and “a group of experts that later was dubbed ‘the brain trust’” (Fusfeld)developed the New Deal (ND), a set of economic programs that aimed to give aid and produce reforms to stabilize the economy. The term “New Deal” was first heard by the Americans during FDR’s speech accepting the Presidential Nomination “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” (Roosevelt). During this speech on the 2nd of July 1931, the soon-to-be president addressed the problems caused by TGD and claimed that the system perpetuated by President Hoover demanded to be reformed.
Three main goals constituted this political program: recovery, relief, and reform.
The New Deal was divided into two parts. The First New Deal and the Second New Deal.
During the First New Deal that occurred from 1933 to 1934, President Roosevelt focused on providing a lifeline for the struggling economy, creating agencies like the Public Works Administration that “oversaw tens of thousands of infrastructure projects, from repairing roads to building dams, as well as cultural and arts initiatives”(Lepore Chapter 11 Part 2), the Agricultural Adjustment Act that “was a striking success. It stabilized farm prices; it limited production; it won and retained the support of most commercial farmers.” (Chafer), and the Farm Credit Administration that prevailed until today and is responsible for providing mortgages for farm owners. Roosevelt’s administration placed a great investment in agriculture and the rural area, according to Price V. Fishback “Nearly 45 percent of all New Deal loans were distributed to farmers”.
However, this lifeline was not enough. Therefore, FDR and his Brain Trust developed the Second New Deal which focused on providing more financial security for Americans.
From 1934 to 1938, America saw the birth of legislations and agencies that endure to this today. It is the case of the Fair Labor Standards Act “which created a minimum wage, a forty-hour workweek, and a ban on child labor”(Chafe), the Rural Electrification Administration that “brought cheap power to the countryside”(Kennedy 252) and the Social Security Act which was “one of the most complicated and far-reaching laws ever to pass Congress”(Kennedy et al. 841) and “It established pensions, federal government assistance for fatherless families, and unemployment relief”. (Lepore Chapter 11 Part 2)
The New Deal “brought money and jobs to millions of the unemployed while putting in place new schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and post offices that would benefit, (…), the society as a whole.”(Chafe) and “brought together blue-collar workers, southern farmers, racial minorities, liberal intellectuals, and even industrialists and, still more strangely, women.”(Lepore Chapter 11 Part 1)
The social impact of the New Deal and the Roosevelt administration was a breakthrough in American history. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt stood out during this period like no other FLOTUS had done before. According to Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor was “a new phenomenon in American politics.” (Cook) Eleanor was an advocate of civil rights and one of the most prolific female voices in the USA after the nineteenth amendment. In her book, It’s Up To the Women, Eleanor wrote: “If women are really going to awake to their civic duties, if they are going to accept changes in social living and try to make of this country a real democracy, (…), then we may indeed be seeing the realization of a really new deal for the people.” (Roosevelt). And it happened. During the years of the New Deal, we saw women like Frances Perkins taking charge in government roles. Perkins served as Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, became the first woman to work in the Cabinet, and was a member of the president’s “Brain Trust”. The Social Security Act was a result of Perkins’ exceptional work. “As a member of the Committee on Economic Security, she worked tirelessly to create a practical Social Security program which the Congress would pass. (…) Her leadership, (…), helped remove the threat of starvation, eviction, and destitution from the doorstep of every worker’s home.”(Berg).
Mary McLeod Bethune is another example of female emancipation. Bethune, a daughter of ex-slaves, served as an advisor for the POTUS regarding minority affairs. She also became the first black woman directing a federal agency when she became the Negro Affairs director of the National Youth Administration.
Another woman who left her mark in the first half of 20th-century politics was Mary Williams (Molly) Dewson. Molly once said that “At last women had their foot inside the door. We had the opportunity to demonstrate our ability to see what was needed and to get the job done while working harmoniously with men. The opportunities given women by Roosevelt in the thirties changed our status” (Ware). Dewson was designated to direct the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee and it was also her who “proposed Frances Perkins to President Roosevelt for Secretary of Labour”( Seeber) and was also a big advocate for the New Deal. She created the “Reporter Plan” that “sent female party workers door to door to inform the electorate about New Deal legislation.” (Gittell et al.)
THE NEW RIGHT AND REAGANOMICS
30 years after Roosevelt’s administration, America entered a period called The Stalemated Seventies. A period of stagflation caused by several reasons. From 1965 to 1975 the United States of America spent a lot of resources on the Vietnam War. Lyndon B. Johnson created a program similar to the New Deal called the Great Society that aimed to eradicate poverty, and America’s industrial hegemony was being defied by countries like Japan and Germany. But not only was the economy stalled but the country was changing. In 1965, Martin Luther King led the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge taking one step closer to the Civil Rights cause, also in the same year, Griswold v. Connecticut secured the right to privacy to unmarried women who wanted to buy contraceptives. In 1973 abortion became legal with Roe v. Wade. All this happening at the same time that a sexual revolution was occurring in the USA.
As a response to all of this happening a new movement arose — the “New Right”. In 1960, Barry Goldwater, the Republican runner for the presidency against Kennedy, wrote: “I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them. (…) ‘Republican Candidates,’ Vice President Nixon has said, ‘should be economic conservatives, but conservatives with a heart.’ President Eisenhower announced (…), ‘I am a conservative when it comes to economic problems but liberal when it comes to human problems.’ (…) Such statements,(…), do great injustice to the Conservative point of view. It is conservatism that puts material things in their proper place (…)” (Goldwater).
Even though Goldwater lost the run to Kennedy, the New Right was establishing itself as a leading movement.
In 1980, the governor of California Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States of America. Mr. Reagan ran for the White House with the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again” and promoted that the government should stay away from economic matters. In his Inaugural Address, he claimed: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Regan) His economic views and plans would be called Reaganomics and the main purpose were to: “ (1) reduce the growth of government spending, (2) reduce the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital, (3) reduce regulation, and (4) reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply” (Niskanen).
Reagan “proposed a new federal budget that necessitated cuts of some $35 billion, mostly in social programs like food stamps and federally funded job-training centers.” (Kennedy et al. 1035) and made severe cuts in governmental programs, “Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid,”. The social impacts of this decision were enormous, “Between 1970 and 1990, the percentage of illegitimate birth rose from 38 percent to 67 percent for blacks and from 6 percent to 17 percent for whites. The number of recipients for AFDC had risen from 7.4 million in 1970 to 10.6 million in 1980. Under Reagan-era reforms, more than a million poor people lost food stamp benefits.” (Lepore Chapter 15 Part 2)
The economic outcome of the New Right wave lead by RR is still questionable today. Inflation decreased to 3.5 percent, gasoline prices went from $1.38 per gallon (1981) to 95 cents (1986), and unemployment diminished to 5 percent. (Patterson 163) However, the national debt rose from $917 billion to $2.7 trillion. (See Appendix A)
The New Right conservative wave caused a significant impact in the country and clashed with the prominent social movements, namely the Feminist movement. According to Lynn Hecht Schafran in a New York Article in 1981, President Reagan failed the promise that he made to appoint women to all branches of government since out of 367 administrative appointments, only 42 were women and there were no women in the cabinet. As previously stated, the Reagan administration focused on tax cuts and diminishing social programs and agencies. Schafran also accuses Reagan based on these decisions since “69 percent of households receiving food stamps are headed by women.” and 70 percent of the Legal Services Corporation “are poor women seeking help with problems relating to Social Security, divorce, food stamps, and AFDC.”. Susan Faludi claims that during the presidential campaign, the New Right would focus essentially “on the basis of its opposition to women’s rights.” and that Reagan “was the first president to oppose the ERA since Congress passed it — and the first ever to back a ‘Human Life Amendment’ banning abortion and even some types of birth control.” Zillah R. Eisenstein wrote in 1983 that “Reagan opposes the policies of liberal feminism — affirmative action. CETA programs, the right to abortion, the right to equal pay.”
Both economic models proved to be very different in their core and also in their consequences. Comparing these two periods of time, the New Deal under FDR’s administration is more beneficial to the country as a whole. Not only did it prevent millions of people from going into poverty but it also gave a platform to groups that would normally be marginalized. The Reagan administration didn’t even come close regarding social improvemnt. In fact, it had the opposite outcome of the New Deal. It disrupted the importance that the female role had conquered in previous years.
Works Cited
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Fusfeld, Daniel R.. “CHAPTER XV. The “Brain Trust”. The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the New Deal, New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 1954, pp. 207–222. https://doi.org/10.7312/fusf93386-017
“Franklin D. Roosevelt Speeches: Presidential Nomination Address.” Pepperdine School of Public Policy, publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/academics/research/faculty-research/new-deal/roosevelt-speeches/fr070232.htm.
Lepore, Jill. These Truths: a History of the United States. W.W. Norton & Company, 2019, Chapter 11, Part 2.
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