America 1920-1973Topic Summary
Topic Summary: New Deal — Successes and Failures
Part of New Deal Success or Failure — GCSE History
This topic summary covers Topic Summary: New Deal — Successes and Failures within New Deal Success or Failure for GCSE History. Revise New Deal Success or Failure in America 1920-1973 for GCSE History with 10 exam-style questions and 4 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 11 of 11 in this topic. Use this topic summary to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
Topic position
Section 11 of 11
Practice
10 questions
Recall
4 flashcards
Topic Summary: New Deal — Successes and Failures
Key Terms
- Three Rs: Relief, Recovery, Reform — framework for evaluating the New Deal
- Roosevelt Recession: 1937 — unemployment rose from 14% to 19% when FDR cut spending
- Glass-Steagall Act: 1933 banking reform — separated commercial and investment banking
- Social Security Act: 1935 — pensions + unemployment insurance; still exists today
- Wagner Act: 1935 — workers' right to join unions; tripled union membership
- Sharecropper: Tenant farmer hit hardest by AAA crop reduction payments going to landowners
Key Dates
- 1933: First New Deal — Glass-Steagall, CCC, AAA, TVA, NRA
- 1935: Second New Deal — WPA, Social Security Act, Wagner Act
- 1937: FDR cuts spending → Roosevelt Recession (unemployment 14% → 19%)
- 1941: US enters WW2 — war production finally ends Depression
- 1944: Unemployment falls to 1.2% — WW2 completes what New Deal began
Key People
- FDR: Pragmatic president — tried different approaches; kept what worked
- Eleanor Roosevelt: Advocated for Black Americans and women within New Deal
- Henry Morgenthau: Treasury Secretary who advised the 1937 spending cuts — causing the Roosevelt Recession
- Robert Wagner: Democrat senator who sponsored the Wagner Act protecting union rights
Must-Know Facts
- Unemployment: 25% (1933) → 14% (1937) → 19% after Roosevelt Recession → 1.2% (1944, WW2)
- CCC: 2.5 million employed; WPA: 8 million employed
- Social Security Act (1935) still exists today in modified form
- Wagner Act tripled union membership: 3m → 9m (1933-39)
- Black Americans, women, and sharecroppers largely excluded from New Deal benefits
- New Deal verdict: Success at Relief + Reform; Partial failure at Recovery
- Only WW2 ended the Depression — not the New Deal
Cross-Topic Links
- → Topic 12 (New Deal): Evaluating success requires knowing the programme — the Social Security Act and Wagner Act are the lasting reforms; the CCC and WPA were the major relief efforts; the failure to end unemployment is measured against these specific agencies.
- → Topic 15 (WW2 and Post-War): WW2 achieved what the New Deal could not — unemployment fell from 14% to 1.2% as war production created 17 million jobs; this is the strongest argument that the New Deal only partially succeeded, with WW2 doing the heavy lifting.
- → Topic 13 (Opposition to New Deal): Supreme Court opposition (NRA struck down 1935, AAA struck down 1936) directly limited the New Deal's reach, making opposition a key factor in any evaluation of why it fell short of full recovery.
- → Topic 16 (Segregation): The New Deal's exclusion of Black Americans (segregated CCC camps, AAA harming sharecroppers) is a key limitation for any balanced evaluation — "success" for white working-class Americans was not matched for Black Americans, who would need decades more struggle.
- → Topic 10 (Causes of Depression): The New Deal's partial success can be measured against the scale of the crisis it inherited — 25% unemployment, 5,000 bank failures, $30 billion lost — showing that reducing unemployment to 14% by 1937, while incomplete, was still a significant achievement.