A.p. ch 34 pt. 4

A.p. ch 34 pt. 4

• 2.
  A HELPING HANDfor INDUSTRY and LABOR A daring attempt to stimulate a nationwide comeback was initiated by the National Recovery Administration (NRA). It was to combine immediate relief with long range recovery and reform. It was designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed. Explain how the NRA was going to be applied to industry, labor, and the unemployed. The NRA would collapse with the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Schechter v. New York. Special stimulants aided the recovery of one segment of business – the liquor industry. The repeal of prohibition began with the legalization of light (3.2%) beer and wine. The govt. imposed a tax on the booze, bringing-in much needed revenue. Prohibition was officially repealed by the 21st Amendment late in 1933.
• 3.
  PAYING FARMERS NOTto FARM Ever since the war-boom days of 1918, farmers had suffered from low prices and over- production, especially in grain. During the depression, conditions became desperate. Farmers were destroying crops and preventing the shipment of crops and dairy products. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration ushered in a radical new approach based on “artificial scarcity” that would establish “parity prices” for agricultural commodities. How would this work? Identify and describe the main criticisms of the AAA. What was its fate? Explain the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (1936). Explain the second AAA of 1938.
• 4.
  DUST BOWLS &BLACK BLIZZARDS Nature had been providing some unplanned scarcity. Late in 1933 a prolonged drought struck the states of the trans-Mississippi Great Plains. Rainless weeks were followed by furious, whining winds, while the sun was darkened by millions of tons powdery topsoil from homesteads in Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma – an area soon dubbed the Dust Bowl. What was life like in the “Dust Bowl?”
• 5.
  Along with thedrought and the wind, the human hand also worked its mischief. High WWI prices encouraged farmers to plow marginal land, using dry farming techniques, leaving the powdery topsoil to be swept away at nature’s whim.
• 6.
  Burned and blownout of the Dust Bowl, tens of thousands of refugees fled their ruined acres. In five years about 350,000 “Okies” and “Arkies” trekked to southern California in “junkyards on wheels.” John Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath, portrayed an “Okie” family’s journey to California. The book became the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Dust Bowl.
• 7.
  Zealous New Dealers,sympathetic toward farmers, made various efforts to relieve their burdens: •Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act (1934) •The Resettlement Administration (1935) •CCC activity Native Americans also felt the far-reaching hand of New Deal reform. Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier ardently sought to reverse the forced-assimilation policies in place since the Dawes Act of 1887. Explain the Indian Reorganization Act that Collier promoted. Was it effective?
• 8.
  THE TVA HARNESSESthe TENNESSEE RIVER Inevitably, the sprawling electric-power industry attracted the fire of New Deal reformers. The Tennessee River provided New Dealers with a rare opportunity – how?
• 9.
  An act creatingthe Tennessee Valley Authority was passed in 1933 by the Hundred Days Congress – who was the catalyst for the project? What were the criticisms of the project? The gigantic project not only brought to the area full employment and cheap electricity, but low-cost housing, abundant cheap nitrates, the restoration of eroded soil, reforestation, improved navigation, and flood control. Foreigners marveled over the project.
• 10.
  TVA projects wereslated to include western areas, thus promoting development. But conservative reaction against the “socialistic” New Deal would confine the TVA’s brand of federally guided resource management and comprehensive regional development to the Tennessee Valley.