New Deal Dbq

The Great Depression of the 1930s was one of the biggest economic shocks in American history. The Great Crash of 1929 marked the beginning of the great depression. Falling share prices, bank failures marked with high unemployment were the normal feature of the 1930s. The presidency of Franklin Roosevelt brought in many new programs and reforms that sought to end the depression. His most notable plan was the New Deal that included a series of reforms designed to end the depression. Critics of the New Deal like Huey Long and Francis Townsend urged for stronger measures to provide economic security to the elderly, unemployed, and disabled. Dorthea Langes’ most iconic photograph, the “Migrant Mother” brought to light the effects of the great depression

His vision was to create a federal program called the New Deal, which would get the economy out of turmoil. Upon his inauguration Roosevelt called congress into special session and seeded his New Deal plans. The most important legislation of the New Deal was the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that helped put young men to work in national forests and parks and this helped free up jobs that were held with these men. He also created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which attempted to increase farm income by reducing farm production, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and National Recovery Association (NRA). All of these programs were meant to promote jobs, organize the industrial sector, and provide utilities. His fireside chats proved a huge success as he explained what the government had been planning and doing to save the banking system. He asked many Americans for their support and this helped to cease the bank panic as many Americans started to put their money back in the banks without withdrawing it. The New Deal was the focus of Roosevelt’s vision at providing relief for America because during all the panic it induced some confidence in people and helped alleviate the panic of depression. His emergency banking bill helped reorganize the banking system and provided federal money to keep stronger banks

Her most iconic photograph the “Migrant Mother” depicts an out of work pea-picker Florence Thompson sitting in her tent surrounded by her seven children, while gazing at the horizon. The photograph represented the hardships of itinerant farm hand workers like her. Thompson described the life she lived in as “We just existed…Anyway, we lived. We survived, let's put it that way”(Phelan 2014). Thompson wasn’t eager to have her family photographed and shown as specimens of poverty, but she knew there were many families just like hers that were starving. She had posed for the photo to symbolize the poor families in hopes of getting help. The photograph had helped Lange gather fame and it earned her a “Guggenheim fellowship and a permanent place in the canon of American photographers”, yet it did little to help Thompson herself who had posed for the photo (Phelan 2014). Lange had hoped that this picture would help educate the public about the plight of the hard working poor (Phelan 2014). Langes’ vision was to help the impoverished through photography, she knew if she could show the public the plight of the poor then something could be done to help them. Both Lange and Thompson had very similar views as to how they could help the impoverished, Lange