CHAPTER 15THE DEPRESSION AT HOME AND ABROAD

Section 1: Workers and Farmers in the New Deal

Section 2: Americans Face Hard Times

Section 3: Arts and Entertainment

Section 4: The Depression Abroad

Section 1: Workers and Farmers in the New Deal

• How did the New Deal legislation help organize labor?

• What new Strategies did unions use during the Great Depression?

• What happened to farmers and farm workers during the depression?

New Deal Programs• In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor

Relations Act (NLRA), which gave workers the right to select their own unions by majority vote, as to strike , boycott, and picket.

• The National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) was created to enforce these rights.

• In 1938 Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act to deal with employee hours and wages.

Strategies of Unions during the Depression

• John L. Lewis formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1938.

• The CIO joined together many industrial unions and welcomed African Americans, immigrants, and unskilled workers, and women.

Farmers and Farm workers During the Depression

• The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) helped farmers pay their mortgage and required them to cut production, which hurt them.

• Some farmers formed the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) in July 1934, which brought attention to the problems of sharecroppers and tenant farmers, and in 1937 the Farm Security Administration was formed.

• Other New Deal agricultural reforms focused more on the land itself such as the Soil Conservation Act and a Second Agricultural Act.

Section 2Americans Face Hard Times

• How did the Great Depression affect families and women?

• How did the New Deal affect American Indians?

• How did the New Deal help African Americans during the depression?

Family Life and Women during the Depression

• Many families could not afford basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter and turned to their families for help.

• Men began to suffer from an identity crisis.

• Women suffered from hostility and discrimination and were not covered by depression programs.

• Some New Deal Programs offered relief to women; the Works Progress Administration hired women, and President Roosevelt hired some women for important positions at the federal level.

The New Deal and American Indians

• New Deal brought programs designed to improve tribal life.

• Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) was passed in June 1934.

• Indian Reorganization Act: law that ended land allotment to individual American Indians, returned some land to tribal ownership, and allowed reservation residents to form self-governing bodies.

African Americans in the Depression• Hundreds of thousands of African Americans received relief

and work from the New Deal programs like the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Works Progress Administration.

• More African Americans were appointed to federal government positions and a Black Cabinet, with members like Mary McLeod Bethune, was consulted while Roosevelt was president

Section 3Arts and Entertainment

• How did the arts reflect Americans’ experiences in the Great Depression?

• How did government programs help support the arts during the Depression?

• How did Americans entertain themselves during the depression?

Arts in the Great Depression Reflect Americans’ Experiences

• During the depression, entertainment often helped Americans escape from their worries.

• Regional writers were popular because people could identify with characters in their stories.

• Authors such as James T. Farrell and John Dos Passos wrote about the economic and social troubles of the Great Depression.

• Artists, know as regionalists, painted from ideas derived from regional customs and folk themes. They included Ann “Grandma” Moses.

Governments Support of the Arts during the Great Depression

• The Roosevelt administration began the Federal Writers’ Project and Federal Theatre Project as part of the WPA to help artists continue their work.

• Painter, including Jacob Lawrence, used WPA-sponsored workshops to learn and improve their skills.

Americans’ Entertain Themselves during the Depression

• Americans listened to music. Jazz continued to be popular. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and others developed the swing.

• Inspiration and comfort came from gospel music and folk music.

• Benny Good man

• Movies were another source of entertainment and child actor Shirley Temple was the top of the box office draw from 1935-1938.

• Even more Americans listened to radio programs including “Little Orphan Annie” and “The Lone Ranger”

• Although attendance at some spectator sports fell, radio kept fans up

Section 4The Depression Abroad

• How did the Good Neighbor Policy differ from previous U.S. foreign policies toward Latin America?

• Why did dictators rise to power in certain European nations?

• How did the United States respond to events in Europe and Asia in the 1930’s?

Latin America and the Good Neighbor Policy

• Roosevelt began a new foreign policy towards Latin America by giving more aid to Latin America in his so called Good Neighbor Policy

• The U.S. also made more trade agreements with Latin American countries.

• The Good Neighbor Policy meant respecting the internal affairs of Latin American countries, and increasing trade and cultural exchanges. The policy led to improved relations between the U.S. and Latin America.

Dictators Rise to Power in Certain European Countries

• European economies still recovering from WWI were devastated by the global depression and moved toward totalitarianism. A political system in which the government controls every aspect of citizens’ lives.

• Italy and Germany suffered economic difficulties after the war and leaders such as Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany rose to power and promised relief.

• Dictators used military force to obtain absolute power.

The U.S. Responds to Events in Europe and Asia in the 1930’s

• Roosevelt tried to maintain a balance between stopping aggression and keeping the U.S. out of war and isolated.

• In the late 1930’s Congress passed four Neutrality Acts– Four laws passed in the late 1930’s that were designed to

keep the U.S. out of international conflicts.