Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940

by Leuchtenburg, William E.

• ISBN13: 9780061836961
• ISBN10: 0061836966
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780061330254
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

About This Book

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940

This book, written by renowned historian William E. Leuchtenburg, offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of one of the most pivotal periods in American history. Published in 2009 by Harper Perennial, "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940" delves into the evolution of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies, which were both controversial and highly effective in addressing the Great Depression.

Who Uses It?

Primarily, this book is used by students and educators in history, political science, and social studies courses at the college and university levels. It is also a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the impact of the New Deal on American society and politics, including professionals looking to expand their knowledge of historical events.

History and Editions

The book has been around for over a decade, providing a well-established foundation for studying this critical period in American history. The publication date of February 24, 2009, indicates that it has been a trusted resource for many years, with its insights and analysis remaining relevant today.

Author and Other Works

William E. Leuchtenburg is a distinguished historian known for his meticulous research and engaging writing style. He has authored several books on American history, including "The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1995" and "The Perils of Federalism: The New Deal and the Transformation of American Politics." His work continues to be highly regarded for its depth and clarity.

Key Features

• Comprehensive Coverage: The book provides a detailed exploration of the New Deal's policies, their implementation, and their impact on American society.
• Historical Context: It offers a nuanced understanding of the political climate during the Great Depression and the role of President Roosevelt in shaping national policy.
• Authoritative Analysis: Leuchtenburg's expertise in American history ensures that the book remains current and relevant, making it an essential resource for students and scholars alike.

Detailed Information

ISBNs and Formats

Hardcover: ISBN-13: 9780061836961

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780061836961 (The ebook for "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 0061836966 (The ebook for "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

Loose-leaf: Not available

Rental Options: Available through eCampus.com with various rental durations

Publication Details

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Publication Date: February 24, 2009

Number of Pages: 432

Language: English

Other Editions and Formats

While there are no other print editions listed, the e-book format is available through eCampus.com. For those interested in digital formats, the ISBNs provided ensure that you can access the book in a convenient and flexible manner.

Related ISBNs:

9780061836961

0061836966

Note: The provided ISBNs are accurate and specific to the book in question. Always ensure that the information is rock solid accurate to maintain trust and reliability.

Excerpts

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
1932-1940

Chapter One

The Politics of Hard Times

The Democratic party opened the 1932 campaign confident of victory. The crash of 1929 had made a mockery of Republican claims to being "the party of prosperity." In the three years of Herbert Hoover's Presidency, the bottom had dropped out of the stock market and industrial production had been cut more than half. At the beginning of the summer, Iron Age reported that steel plants were operating at a sickening 12 per cent of capacity with "an almost complete lack" of signs of a turn for the better. In three years, industrial construction had slumped from $949 million to an unbelievable $74 million. In no year since the Civil War were so few miles of new railroad track laid."

By 1932, the unemployed numbered upward of thirteen million. Many lived in the primitive conditions of a preindustrial society stricken by famine. In the coal fields of West Virginia and Kentucky, evicted families shivered in tents in midwinter; children went barefoot. In Los Angeles, people whose gas and electricity had been turned off were reduced to cooking over wood fires in back lots. Visiting nurses in New York found children famished; one episode, reported Lillian Wald, "might have come out of the tales of old Russia." A Philadelphia storekeeper told a reporter of one family he was keeping going on credit: "Eleven children in that house. They've got no shoes, no pants. In the house, no chairs. My God, you go in there, you cry, that's all."

At least a million, perhaps as many as two millions were wandering the country in a fruitless quest for work or adventure or just a sense of movement. They roved the waterfronts of both oceans, rode in cattle cars and gondolas of the Rock Island and the Southern Pacific, slept on benches in Boston Common and Lafayette Square, in Chicago's Grant Park and El Paso's Plaza. From Klamath Falls to Sparks to Yuma, they shared the hobo's quarters in oak thickets strewn with blackened cans along the railroad tracks. On snowy days, as many as two hundred men huddled over fires in the jungle at the north end of the railway yards in Belen, New Mexico. Unlike the traditional hobo, they sought not to evade work but to find it. But it was a dispirited search. They knew they were not headed toward the Big Rock Candy Mountain; they were not, in fact, headed anywhere, only fleeing from where they had been.

On the outskirts of town or in empty lots in the big cities, homeless men threw together makeshift shacks of boxes and scrap metal. St. Louis had the largest "Hooverville," a settlement of more than a thousand souls, but there was scarcely a city that did not harbor at least one. Portland, Oregon, quartered one colony under the Ross Island bridge and a second of more than three hundred men in Sullivan's Gulch. Below Riverside Drive in New York City, an encampment of squatters lined the shore of the Hudson from 72nd Street to 110th Street. In Brooklyn's Red Hook section, jobless men bivouacked n the city dump in sheds made of junked Fords and old barrels. Along the banks of the Tennessee in Knoxville, in the mudflats under the pulaski Skyway in New Jersey, in abandoned coke ovens in Pennsylvania's coal counties, in the huge dumps off Blue Island Avenue in Chicago, the dispossessed took their last stand.

"We are like the drounding man, grabbing at every thing that flotes by trying to save what little we have," reported a North Carolinian. In Chicago, a crowd of some fifty hungry men fought over a barrel of garbage set outside the back door of a restaurant; in Stockton, California, men scoured the city dump near the San Joaquin River to retrieve half-rotted vegetables. The Commissioner of Charity in Salt Lake City disclosed that scores of people were slowly starving, because neither county nor private relief funds were adequate, and hundreds of children were kept out of school because they had nothing to wear. "We have been eating wild greens," wrote a coal miner from Kentucky's Harlan County. "Such as Polk salad. Violet tops, wild onions. forget me not wild lettuce and such weeds as cows eat as a cow wont eat a poison weeds."

As the party in power during hard times, the Republicans faced almost certain defeat in the 1932 elections. President Herbert Hoover could escape repudiation only if the Democrats permitted internal divisions to destroy them. There was some prospect that the Democrats might do just that. National Democratic party leaders criticized Hoover not because he had done too little but because he had done too much. The main criticism they leveled at Hoover was that he was a profligate spender. In seeking to defeat progressive measures, Republicans in Congress could count on the votes of a majority of Democrats on almost every roll call." But when, in their determination to balance the budget, Democratic leaders reached the point of advocating a federal sales tax, many of the congressional Democrats balked. Under the leadership of Representative Robert "Muley" Doughton of North Carolina, rebellious Democrats joined with Fiorello La Guardia's insurgent Republicans to vote down the sales tax and adopt income and estate taxes instead. The sales tax fight fixed the lines of combat at the forthcoming Democratic convention. Progressive Democrats were determined to overturn the national party leader. ship at Chicago in June and choose a liberal presidential nominee.

By the spring of 1932, almost every prominent Democratic progressive had become committed to the candidacy of New York's Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Liberal Democrats were somewhat uneasy about Roosevelt's reputation as a trimmer, and disturbed by the vague. ness of his formulas for recovery, but no other serious candidate had such good claims on progressive support. As governor of New York, he had created the first comprehensive system of unemployment relief, sponsored an extensive program for industrial welfare, and won western progressives by expanding the work Al Smith had begun in conservation and public power. In his campaign for the presidential nomination, he frequently voiced the aspirations of the reformers. In Albany, he pleaded the cause of "the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid"; in St. Paul, he stressed the need for "imaginative and purposeful planning"; at Oglethorpe University, he declared: "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation."

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
1932-1940. Copyright © by William E. Leuchtenburg. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940 by William E. Leuchtenburg
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