The New Deal Was on the Ballot in 1932

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 201-213
Author(s):  
Eric Rauchway

During the 1932 campaign, Franklin Roosevelt explicitly committed himself to nearly all of what would become the important programs of the New Deal. In the months before his March 4, 1933, inauguration, he made his proposed policies even clearer. Yet many Americans have forgotten this clarity of purpose, led in large measure by histories of the New Deal and biographies of Roosevelt that echo old misconceptions of this critical election. Such texts are far more likely to describe Roosevelt's campaign as so devoid of substance and full only of “sunny generalities” that at the time he took the oath of office his “plans remained largely unknown to the public.” He had “no larger philosophy or grand design.” He stood only for “action, any action, with little or no thought given to the long-term consequences.” One historian recently declared, “The notion that when Franklin Roosevelt became president he had a plan in his head called the New Deal is a myth that no serious scholar has ever believed.”

1983 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 23-23
Author(s):  
William E. Leuchtenburg

The year 1937 marks a great division in the history of the Supreme Court. In a period of 18 months in 1935 and 1936, the Court struck down more important social and economic legislation of the national government and of state government than at any time in its history, including such landmarks of the New Deal as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. In the nearly half-century since then, the Court has not invalidated even one piece of significant social legislation. The seminar will explore how this “Constitutional Revolution of 1937” came about. It will examine the changes wrought by the New Deal, the character of the Court in the era of “the nine old men,” controversial rulings such as those in the Schecter and Butler cases, the origins and nature of FDR's “court packing“ plan, and the long term consequences of the Constitutional Revolution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.


2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. STEPHEN WEATHERFORD

The concept of critical realignment has shaped much of the thinking of political scientists and historians about the processes and patterns of change in American politics. Research on re-alignment has, however, tended to focus on successful cases and to concentrate on the electoral breakpoints rather than the process of regime formation, with the result that little systematic thinking has been devoted to the question of why some electoral upheavals lead to party realignment while other large vote shifts do not. This article begins from the proposition that the election does not so much constitute the realignment as offer the opportunity and the momentum for the new party to build a lasting national coalition. Whether the party capitalizes on this potential depends on processes and events that follow the critical election, during what could be called the ‘consolidation phase’ of the realignment. The question is ultimately one about public opinion, but the concept of consolidation needs to take in the interaction between the public and political elites, since mass opinion is formed in the context of elite initiatives and interpretations. The model of consolidation depicts two interrelated processes. The first involves strategic competition among elites, including elected officials and organized societal interests, who frame the conflict, by prioritizing issues and cleavages, and by relating policy proposals to group identities and widely-shared values. The second focuses on the public. Their standing loyalties disrupted by the crisis and the incumbents' inability to deal with it successfully, citizens engage in a process of experiential search as they seek to re-establish the stable political orientation given by attachment to a political party. The article draws on qualitative and quantitative information from the New Deal to illustrate the model of consolidation.


Author(s):  
Adina Bud ◽  

The paper presents the context in which the closure of the mining in the Maramureş county took place by carrying out some inappropriate works that generated phenomena with a strong environmental impact through manifestations, physical and chemical in nature. The analysis performed so far shows that these events will amplify the environmental impact on the public health in the future, with long-term consequences.


1987 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-105
Author(s):  
Walter Creese
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  

2008 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jefferson Cowie ◽  
Nick Salvatore

Abstract“The Long Exception” examines the period from Franklin Roosevelt to the end of the twentieth century and argues that the New Deal was more of an historical aberration—a byproduct of the massive crisis of the Great Depression—than the linear triumph of the welfare state. The depth of the Depression undoubtedly forced the realignment of American politics and class relations for decades, but, it is argued, there is more continuity in American politics between the periods before the New Deal order and those after its decline than there is between the postwar era and the rest of American history. Indeed, by the early seventies the arc of American history had fallen back upon itself. While liberals of the seventies and eighties waited for a return to what they regarded as the normality of the New Deal order, they were actually living in the final days of what Paul Krugman later called the “interregnum between Gilded Ages.” The article examines four central themes in building this argument: race, religion, class, and individualism.


1992 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Skowronek

The political foundations of the modern presidency were laid during the New Deal years. Franklin Roosevelt was the New Deal president. The relationship between these two facts is a matter of some consequence. On it hinges our understanding of presidential leadership and modern American government generally, not to mention the political significance of Roosevelt himself.


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