The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945: A Brief History with Documents

by Polenberg, Richard D.

• ISBN13: 9780312133108
• ISBN10: 0312133103
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-21
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

The era of Franklin D.Roosevelt and the New Deal was a time of depression and despair, economic rebirth and renewal, and mobilization for a war in both the East and the West. Richard Polenberg's introduction to this new volume provides an engaging historical and biographical overview of the period by focusing on one of its key actors. The biographical introduction is followed by over 45 topically arranged primary sources that provide students with a rich context in which to understand FDR's multifaceted role as president, reformer, policymaker, and commander-in-chief. The readings thoroughly cover issues of race and ethnicity, profile First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and explore the New Deal's transformative agencies for their economic and social ramifications and the constitutional revolution they triggered. A chronology, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, and an index are also provided.

Author Biography

RICHARD POLENBERG is professor of history at Cornell University, where he has received the Clark Distinguished Teaching Award and was appointed Goldwin Smith Professor of American History in 1986. He has been a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has published widely on twentieth-century American history, including The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process (1997), Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech (1989), for which he won the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award and the Gustavus Myers Foundation's Outstanding Book Award; and One Nation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States since 1938 (1980).

Table of Contents

Foreword	v
Preface	vii
PART ONE Introduction: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Liberalism	1	(36)
FDR: The Paradox	1	(2)
Hyde Park to Washington	3	(5)
The New Deal, 1933--1936	8	(8)
The Waning of Reform, 1937--1940	16	(8)
Liberals at War, 1941--1945	24	(9)
FDR: The Legacy	33	(4)
PART TWO The Documents	37	(208)
FDR as President	39	(29)
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933	39	(5)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
First Press Conference, March 8, 1933	44	(3)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Annual Message to the Congress, January 4, 1935	47	(6)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Campaign Address at Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936	53	(5)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937	58	(6)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Speeches on Conservation and the Environment, 1936--1937	64	(4)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The New Deal	68	(25)
The National Labor Relations Act, February 21, 1935	68	(4)
Robert F. Wagner
The Social Security Act, September 2, 1935	72	(5)
Frances Perkins
The Crisis in Agriculture, September 12, 1936	77	(6)
John Steinbeck
Federal Relief, September 19, 1936	83	(6)
Harry Hopkins
The Federal Theatre Project, May 11, 1938	89	(4)
Hallie Flanagan
Eleanor Roosevelt and American Women	93	(15)
Women in the Labor Force, June 16, 1938	93	(6)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Women and the New Deal, April 8, 1936	99	(4)
Molly Dewson
Women in Politics, March--April 1940	103	(5)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Documenting the Depression: The Photographs of Dorothea Lange	108	(6)
Plantation Overseer and His Field Hands, Mississippi Delta, 1936	109	(1)
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936	110	(1)
Mexican Migratory Field Worker's Home on the Edge of a Frozen Pea Field, Imperial Valley, California, 1937	111	(1)
Small Independent Gas Station during Cotton Strike, Kern City, California, November 1938	112	(2)
Right...and Left...Face	114	(19)
The Challenge to Liberty, 1934	114	(3)
Herbert Hoover
American Liberty League, The New Deal vs. Democracy, July 15, 1936	117	(3)
The EPIC Plan, 1934	120	(2)
Upton Sinclair
The National Union for Social Justice, November 11, 1934	122	(4)
Father Charles E. Coughlin
Share Our Wealth, May 23, 1935	126	(7)
Huey P. Long
Race, Ethnicity, and Reform	133	(28)
Songs of the Mexican Migration: Deported [Deportados], 1933	133	(3)
The Pecan Shellers of San Antonio, 1940	136	(6)
Selden Menefee
Orin C. Cassmore
The NAACP and Segregation, January--February 1934	142	(5)
W.E.B. Du Bois
Walter White
The March on Washington, November 1942	147	(4)
A. Philip Randolph
A New Deal for American Indians, 1938	151	(5)
John Collier
The Voice of a Navajo Indian, April 10, 1934	156	(5)
J. C. Morgan
The Constitutional Revolution	161	(23)
United States v. Butler, January 6, 1936	161	(8)
Owen Roberts
Harlan Fiske Stone
Unpacking the Court, February 13, 1937	169	(4)
Robert M. La Follette, Jr.
A Greatly Dangerous Precedent, July 19, 1937	173	(2)
Herbert H. Lehman
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, March 29, 1937	175	(5)
Charles Evans Hughes
George Sutherland
Helvering v. Davis, May 24, 1937	180	(4)
Benjamin N. Cardozo
Morale in Wartime: A Portfolio of Propaganda Posters	184	(7)
U.S. War Manpower Commission, United We Win, 1943	185	(1)
U.S. Employment Service, Do the Job HE Left Behind, 1943[?]	186	(2)
Packer Aircraft, Lookout Monks! Here's Your Plane Warning! 1942	188	(1)
U.S. Treasury Department, Buy Victory Bonds, 1945	189	(2)
The ``Good War''?	191	(54)
Western Defense Command, Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry, April 30, 1942	191	(3)
Footprints: Poetry of the American Relocation Camp Experience, ca. 1942--1944	194	(3)
Korematsu v. United States, December 18, 1944	197	(7)
Hugo Black
Frank Murphy
Debate about the Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, May 20, 1943	204	(7)
Pearl S. Buck
A. Leonard Allen
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, June 14, 1943	211	(8)
Robert Jackson
Felix Frankfurter
Report to the Secretary [of the Treasury] on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews, January 13, 1944	219	(2)
Randolph Paul
Debate about the Bombing of Auschwitz, July--November 1944	221	(3)
John W. Pehle
John J. McCloy
Race, Religion, and Prejudice, May 11, 1942	224	(2)
Eleanor Roosevelt
An Economic Bill of Rights, January 11, 1944	226	(3)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
APPENDICES
Chronology of Events during the Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933--1945)	229	(4)
Questions for Consideration	233	(2)
Selected Bibliography	235	(10)
Index	245