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| labor and civil rights leader in the 1940s who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; he demanded that FDR create a Fair Employment Practices Commission to investigate job discrimination in war industries. FDR agreed only after Randolph threatened a march on Washington by African Americans |
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Term
| Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1933) |
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Definition
| New Deal program that paid farmers not to produce crops; it provided farmers with income while reducing crop surpluses and helped stabilize farm production. The Supreme Court declared major parts of this law unconstitutional in 1936, helping lead FDR to his court-packing plan. |
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| first Catholic ever nominated for president; he lost in 1928 because of the nation's prosperity, but his religion, urban background, and views on Prohibition (he was a ¡°wet¡±) cost him votes as well. |
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| a conservative anti-New Deal organization, members included Alfred Smith, John W. Davis, and the Du Pont family. It criticized the ¡°dictatorial¡± policies of Roosevelt and what it perceived to be his attacks on the free enterprise system |
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| joint statement issued by President Roosevelt and Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill of principals and goals for an Allied victory in WWII; it provided for self-determination for all conquered nations, freedom of seas, economic security, and free trade. Later, it became the embodiment of the United Nation's charter. |
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| an informal network of black officeholders in the federal government; led by Mary McLeod Bethune, William Hastie, and Robert Weaver, they pushed for economic and political opportunities for African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s |
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| group of jobless WWI veterans who came to Washington to lobby Congress for immediate payment of money promised them in 1945; Hoover opposed payment, and when he used the U.S. Army to drive the veterans out of the capital, he was portrayed as cruel and cold-hearted. |
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Term
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| name applied to college professors from Columbia University such as Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle, and Raymond Moley who advised Roosevelt on economic matters early in the New Deal; the Brian Trust took on the role of an ¡°unofficial Cabinet¡± in the Roosevelt Administration. |
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| Catholic priest who used his popular radio program to criticize the New Deal; he grew increasingly anti-Roosevelt and anti-Semitic until the Catholic Church pulled him off the air. |
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| Roosevelt's proposal in 1937 to ¡°reform¡± the Supreme Court by appointing an additional justice for every justice over age 70; following the Court's actions in striking down major New Deal laws, FDR came to believe that some justices were out of touch with the nation's needs. Congress believed Roosevelt's proposal endangered the Court's independence and said no. |
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Term
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Definition
| Roosevelt's informal radio addresses throughout his presidency; they gave the people a sense of confidence that he understood their problems and was trying to help solve them. With these ¡°chats,¡± FDR was the first president to use the electronic media to spread his message. |
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Definition
| Roosevelt's secretary of labor (1933-1945); the first woman to serve as a federal Cabinet officer, she had a great influence on many New Deal programs, most significantly the Social Security Act. |
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| retired physician who proposed an Old Age Revolving Pension Plan to give every retiree over age 60 $200 per month, provided that the person spend the money each month in order to receive their next payment; the object of Townsend's plan was to help retired workers as well as stimulate spending in order to boost production and end the Depression. |
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Term
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Definition
| president (1933-1945); elected four times, he led the country's recovery from the Depression and to victory in WWII. He died in office, however, just weeks before Germany's surrender. He is generally considered the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. |
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Definition
| close adviser to Roosevelt and FDR's czar of relief programs; he headed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civil Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration and later undertook diplomatic missions to the USSR. |
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Definition
| vice president who became president when FDR died in April 1945; he was elected on his own in 1948. Truman ordered the use of atomic bombs on Japan to end WWII, set the course of postwar containment of communism in the Cold War, and created a Fair Deal program to carry on the New Deal's domestic agenda. |
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Term
| Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930) |
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Definition
| raised the duties on imported foreign goods to all-time highs; intended to boost American industry and employment, it actually deepened the Depression when European countries could not repay their loans (WWI war debts) and retaliated against American exports. |
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Term
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Definition
| president (1929-1933) who is blamed for the Great Depression; although he tried to use government power to bring on recovery, his inflexibility and refusal to give direct relief doomed his programs and his presidency. |
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| camps and shantytowns of unemployed and homeless on the outskirts of major cities during the early days of the Depression; they were symbols of the failure of Hoover's program and the way the nation held him responsible for the hard times. |
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| flamboyant Louisiana governor and U.S. Senator; he challenged FDR to do more for the poor and needy and proposed a popular ¡°Share-Our-Wealth¡± program to tax the wealthy in order to provide a guaranteed income for the poor. He was assassinated in 1935. |
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Term
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Definition
| term applied to the first weeks of the Roosevelt Administration, during which Congress passed 13 emergency relief and reform measures that were the backbone of the early New Deal; these included the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Glass Stegal Act (FDIC), Agricultural Adjustment Act, Federal Emergency Relief Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act. |
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Term
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Definition
| program authorizing the president to lend or lease equipment to nations whose defense was deemed vital to the U.S. Security; it was designed to help a bankrupt Britain continue fighting the Nazis. By 1945, the United States had extended $50 billion in wartime aid to Britain and the Soviet Union. |
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Term
| National Labor Relations Act (1935) |
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Definition
| created a National Labor Relations Board that could compel employers to recognize and bargain with unions; this law helped promote the growth of organized labor in the 1930s and for decades thereafter. |
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Term
| National Recovery Administration (1933) |
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Definition
| agency that created a partnership between business and government to fight the Depression; it allowed major industries to fix prices in return for agreeing to fair practice codes, wage and hour standards, and labor's right to organize. Major parts of the law that created the NRA were declared unconstitutional in 1935. |
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Term
| Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, 1937) |
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Definition
| series of laws that provided Americans could not ship weapons, loan money, travel on belligerent ships, extend credit, or deliver goods to any belligerent countries; they were high tide of isolationism, and all were repealed between 1939 and 1941. |
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Term
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Definition
| Roosevelt's program of domestic reform and relief; the three Rs of Relief, Reform, and Recovery did not end the Depression, but they gave hope and security and made government more responsive to the people in bad economic times |
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Term
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Definition
| United States naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941, with serious U.S. Losses: 19 ships sunk or destroyed and over 2,000 deaths; the attack brought the United States into WWII. |
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Term
| Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) |
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Definition
| Hoover's economic recovery program that provided government loans to businesses, banks, and rail-roads; it was ¡°pump priming,¡± but it was too little ($300 million) too late to make any real improvement in the economy. |
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Term
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Definition
| Hoover's philosophy that called on Americans to help each other during the Depression without direct government help would weaken the American character, endanger liberty, and lead to totalitarianism in the United States. |
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Definition
| proposed Anglo-American invasion of France to relieve the Soviets, who were fighting a German invasion of the USSR; originally scheduled for 1942, it was not delivered until D-Day in June 1944. This was a divisive issue in Soviet relations with the United States and Britain during the war and after. |
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Term
| Second New Deal (1935-1936) |
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Definition
| name given to a series of proposals that FDR requested and Congress passed to reinvigorate the New Deal as recovery from the Depression began to lag; they were anti business in tone and intent and included the Public Utility Holding Company Act, Social Security Act, National Labor Relations Act, and the Wealth Tax Act. |
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Term
| Social Security Act (1935) |
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Definition
| required both workers and their employer to contribute to a federally run pension fund for retired workers; it also provided federal disability and unemployment assistance. Although benefits were meager, it was the first significant government program to provide for retired, disabled, or unemployed Americans. |
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