Successes of the New Deal
During the 1930s, the United States was submerged in a financial crisis known as the Great Depression when the economy collapsed due to the Stock Market crash of 1929. Investors withdrew their money from American stocks and prices fell drastically. In the months following the crash, over 9,000 banks failed and a great deal of money was lost. The effects of this were extremely high rates of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness throughout the country. President Herbert Hoover made attempts to save the nation by establishing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Unfortunately, nothing Hoover did helped to recover the crippled economy. In 1932, when president Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Roosevelt emphasized that the objectives of the New Deal were to provide relief, recovery, and reform. In fact, it most effectively provided relief to solve people’s suffering. The New Deal offered many programs called alphabet agencies to do this. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration offered the most direct aid to the nation. This agency sent millions of dollars to states to use in payments and food for the unemployed. Another agency that provided tremendous relief was the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC supplied over 2 million young, unmarried men with environmental jobs such as replanting forests, building trails, digging irrigation ditches, and fighting forest fires (Pearson 304). Similar to how the Tennessee Valley Authority supplied jobs to build the power plants and dams shown in Document 4. The men were given shelter, clothing, and food with a wage of about $30 per month. As Stanley Watson describes in Document 3, the CCC offered him wonderful opportunity and allowed him to continue his education and attend college despite his state of financial struggle. The third agency that provided a great amount of relief was the Home Owners' Loan Corporation which lowered mortgages to stop foreclosures. Therefore, more people were able to keep their homes and homelessness