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APUSH CHAPTER 26

Terms in this set (46)

Role of Radio
Radio reached its climax in the 1930s when millions of Americans listened to network news commentators, musical programs, and comedy shows. Also, President Roosevelt and corporations used this resource to attract people, sell products, or to promote a political issue.
Fireside Chats, 1933-1945
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's regularly scheduled radio broadcasts to the American public. The name suggested an intimate conversation and demonstrated the president's effective use of the new electronic political medium of radio.
• Many newspapers were hostile to FDR, so he used the radio to bypass the papers. Roosevelt fused this technique when he explained the Bank Holiday to the American people.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1930s-1940s
Eleanor Roosevelt was married to President Franklin Roosevelt. Theirs was a political partnership as well as a marriage. She was more liberal than her husband and served as a spokesperson for women and minority groups. When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow the black opera singer Marian Anderson to give a concert in their auditorium in 1939 she resigned from the DAR and got permission for Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
• She served as a political lighting rod for her husband, often people who disliked a particular policy of the President blamed it on Eleanor's influence. She also wrote a daily syndicated news column called "My Day" and after her husband's death served as a United Nations ambassador.
Brain Trust, 1930s
A group of university professors, outside the presidential cabinet, who served as advisors to Roosevelt. They included Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and Adolph A. Berle.
• The use of the group demonstrated Roosevelt's pragmatic nature that looked for results rather than ideological purity.
"Broker State," 1939-present
New Dealers wanted to build a new cooperation among all Americans to create a unified economic system. However, instead of one group the New Deal created the "Broker State" where the federal government acted as a mediator among various interest groups.
• The New Deal's accomplishment was to allow groups, such as labor and agriculture to have a genuine voice in American politics - where prior to the New Deal, the one powerful voice the American government heeded was corporations. In the future, additional groups such as minorities and women would be added to the political arena.
Frances Perkins, 1933-1945
Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, Perkins was the first women appointed to a cabinet level position in American history. Perkins also played a major role in the creation of Social Security.
Harold Ickes, 1933-1945
One of the more liberal and influential New Dealers who was President Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior.
Twentieth Amendment aka Lame Duck Amendment, 1933
Reduced the amount of time between the November election and the beginning of the Presidential and Congressional terms. Originally, March 4 was the swearing in date; now, January 3 for Congress and January 20 for the President and Vice-President.
Twenty-first Amendment, 1933
Repealed the Eighteenth amendment thus ending Prohibition. The flouting of Prohibition in combination with the Depression led to widespread public support to repeal Prohibition.
Keynesian economics aka "deficit spending / John Maynard Keynes
Theory of British economist John Keynes that government spending should be used to stimulate the economy in times of economic recession or depression. Roosevelt adopted this policy in the New Deal and it led to deficit spending - that was spending to stimulate the economy or direct assistance to people overrode the goal of a balanced federal budget. Although the New Deal used Keynesian spending, the Roosevelt administration never spent in sufficient quantity to end the Great Depression.
New Deal, 1932-1941
A series of experimental social and economic programs developed by President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisors during the 1930s in an attempt to bring the United States out of the Great Depression.
• These programs greatly expanded the role of the federal government and changed the way the public viewed Washington.
• Even though millions of Americans benefited directly from the New Deal's "alphabet soup" of agencies and programs -all known by their three or four-letter acronyms—both relief and recovery were limited and temporary. The depression continued into the 1940s until after the country entered World War II, which eventually pulled the country from its economic slump.
"Relief, Recovery, and Reform," 1932-1941
These three areas, relief, recovery, and reform, are the categories into which the New Deal was split.
• The Relief category was defined by the acts implemented in the area of aid to the unemployment.
• The Recovery category put forth measures that would help aid in the speedy recovery of areas hit hardest by the depression (i.e. agriculture and industry).
• Reform was a category in which the government tried to solve problems that created economic instability (such as the banking system or the stock market).
First Hundred Days, March 9 - June 16, 1933
Measures taken during Roosevelt's first days in office, from March 9 to June 16,which enabled FDR to pass acts critical to stabilizing the economy. The Hundred Days symbolized the beginning stages of the New Deal because the measures taken focused on relief, recovery, and reform. More legislation was passed during this period than at any other time in American history.
• The sense of crisis, the Democratic landslide in Congress, and FDR's landslide combined to give Roosevelt a virtual assurance of speedy passage of any of his proposed bills.
"Bank Holiday," 1933
Roosevelt's first major action as President was a proclamation ordering all American banks closed for four days so Congress could meet in special session to find remedies to handle the crisis caused by widespread bank failures.
• Roosevelt sold the American people on his handling of the crisis by promising that any bank opening after the federal government inspected their books and pronounced them sound would be safe to keep their money in and FDR convinced the American people and ended the public panic.
Emergency Banking Relief Act, 1933
Passed in four hours by Congress, this act provided for the reopening of healthy banks (in fact the government allowed banks with some chance of surviving to reopen) and gave federal assistance to some banks, and provided for the reorganization of banks in the worst trouble.
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