ALPHABET SOUP AGENCIESWe now know FDR was a progressive president….

Progresso?...eh?...anyone?....

He developed TONS of new agencies to help achieve his 3 New Deal Goals:A. Jobs for the joblessB. Fix the economyC. Prevent another depression

There are A LOT of these… use your handy-dandy grid that I’ve created for you to help with

studying/ understanding.

In 1933 when FDR took office, 13,000,000 Americans were out of work!

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): hired unemployed single men 18-25

• For $1 a day, they planted trees, built bridges, worked on flood-control projects, parks

• Conserved natural resources & gave jobs to young people

Works Progress Administration (WPA): 1935 – put the jobless to work

• Making clothes & building hospitals, schools, parks, playgrounds, and airports

• Hired artists, photographers, actors, writers & composers to entertain & educate the public

• WPA writers collected information about American life, folklore & traditions

Promoting RecoveryTo bring recovery, the President had to boost

industry & farming

Helping Industry• Overproduction & declining prices had been a major

cause of the depression• Low prices had caused businesses to fail & had

caused high unemployment rates

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA): each industry wrote a code, or a set of rules & standards for production, wages, prices & working conditions

• The NIRA tried to end price cutting & firings

To enforce the new codes, Congress set up the

National Recovery Administration (NRA)

– Companies that followed the NRA codes stamped a blue eagle on their products

– The gov’t encouraged people to business only with companies displaying the eagle

– This caused competition between companies

The NIRA also set up the Public Works Administration

(PWA): promoted recovery by hiring workers for thousands of public works projects

• Workers built dams, schools, aircraft carriers for the navy

Helping Farmers• On farms, overproduction remained the major problem• Surpluses kept prices and farmers’ incomes low• Surplus: when company or farm produce more than they

can sell

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA): gov’t paid farmers NOT to grow certain crops

– Roosevelt hoped that with smaller harvests, laws of supply & demand would cause prices to rise

– By limiting the amount of “available” options, people would pay more lump sums for staple crops

The gov’t paid for farmers to plow surplus crops under the soil & destroy surplus cows & pigs

– People thought this was crazy when people in cities were starving

– The plan was necessary to help farmers recover & keep them growing food

Rural Electrification Administration (REA): help people in rural areas get the same

electrical service as people in urban areas

– Provided $$ to extend electric lines to rural areas

– # of farms with electricity rose from 10-25%

– Electricity helped to save many farms from ruin• Refrigeration – dairy farmers

could keep milk & eggs longer

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): set out to remake the Tennessee River Valley – a vast region

that had suffered from terrible floods that had caused ½ of the areas farms & families to fail

• 49 dams were built in 7 states – also produced cheap electric power

• The TVA deepened river channels for shipping• Planted new forests to conserve soil• Developed new fertilizers to improve farmland• Set up schools & health centers• Result: transformed a region of desperation & poverty into

a prosperous & productive area

Preventing Another Depression• During the Hundred Days, Congress passed

laws regulating the stock market & banking system

Truth-in-Securities Act: end the risky buying/ selling of stocks in the hope of making a quick profit

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): Insured savings accounts in banks approved by the gov’t – if a bank insured by the FDIC failed, the gov’t would make sure depositors

received their $$