New Deals

2017 ◽  
pp. 62-87
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Severs
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Great Society ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
The U.S

This chapter demonstrates the deep importance of Wallace’s collegiate study of U.S. economic policy, especially in the Great Depression, to his early short stories. What if, I ask, we locate Wallace’s “origins” not in the post-World War II moment or 1960s ironic postmodernism, but instead in the crash of 1929, a less predictable moment of cultural crisis in which he took a quieter but subsuming interest? Key elements that emerge in this chapter are the U.S. Treasury (surreally portrayed as the issuer of a post-gold-standard currency – and post-metaphysical meaning – in the uncollected gem “Crash of 69”) and, in “Westward,” the governmental remedies of social insurance and economic reconstruction in the New Deal. While attending more briefly to other stories in Girl With Curious Hair, this chapter also provides sustained readings of Dust-Bowl metaphysics in “John Billy” and Johnson’s Great Society in “Lyndon.”

The House and the Federal Role: A Computer Simulation of Roll-Call Voting

1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 494-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
White House ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Post War ◽  
The New Deal

Much of the business of the U.S. Congress in the post war period has involved issues concerning the size and scope of activities of the federal government. The legislation in this area can be traced, for the most part, to measures which originated during the period of the New Deal in response to the Great Depression and to measures enacted during World War II to meet the short-run exigencies attendant to rapid economic and social mobilization. From the point of view of the expansion of the federal role, the Eisenhower years are of some moment. While they marked a lull in the expansionist trend witnessed under the Democratic presidencies of Roosevelt and Truman, their significance lies in the fact that despite the change in adminsitrations, there was no reversal of the policies begun during the Roosevelt years. While most of the Republican legislators were on record in opposition to the expansion of the federal role, the failure of the Republican Party to introduce and enact legislation to reverse the trend of federal expansion resulted in a new plateau of federal activity from which the congressional dialogue was to proceed during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.While the 87th Congress, meeting during Kennedy's first two years in the White House, did not enact the quantity of legislation expanding the federal role that Kennedy had called for in his inaugural, In the 88th Congress both parties supported a larger federal role to a greater extent than they had previously. In fact the first sessions of the 88th Congress as it bears on the federal role has been summed up as follows: “At no time did the majority of both parties reject a larger federal role.” (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1963, p. 724) With two exceptions, the statement holds true for the second session in 1964.

Hollywood

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wierzbicki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
American Film ◽  
World War ◽  
Stock Market Crash ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
The New Deal

This chapter explores one of the ironies that color the history of the American film industry—the fact that its most glorious years, in terms of profitability, were those during which the entire nation struggled desperately to pull itself out of the depths of the Great Depression. Hollywood was as hard hit as any other industry by the stock market crash of 1929. But the captains of the film industry took advantage of several of the “New Deal” offers extended in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Owing in part to smart business practices and in large part to an audience desperately in need of inexpensive escapist entertainment, the American film industry after 1933 thrived on a circle of economic dependence on attendance, exhibition, and production; only after World War II did the circle reverse itself and turn vicious.

Development Delayed: U.S. Economic Policy in Occupied Korea, 1945–1948

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
James I. Matray
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Government ◽  
World War ◽  
American Occupation ◽  
38Th Parallel ◽  
Southern Korea ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
The U.S

AbstractOn 9 September 1945, U.S. military forces landed at Inchon to begin American occupation of southern Korea. For almost three years thereafter, a U.S. military government under the command of Lieutenant General John R. Hodge was responsible for civil affairs south of the 38th parallel. Its policies resulted in delaying Korea's economic development. Early in World War II, the U.S. government had begun preparations for the postwar administration of military government and civil affairs. At first, the focus was on Germany and its occupied territories, but during 1944, training began for 1,500 army and navy officers to serve in occupied Japan. The program ignored Korea, with the exception of a one-hour lecture in some classes near the end of the war. Plans to prepare civil affairs handbooks summarizing conditions in target areas for over thirty nations did not include Korea. Not surprisingly, many civil affairs officers who served in postwar Korea had trained for duty in Japan. They knew nothing about the country they were to govern and of course did not speak the language. Historians have argued that this lack of preparation was largely responsible for the failures of the American occupation. But other factors were more important in explaining the lack,

The Early Twentieth Century, 1900–1945

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-159
Author(s):  
Gillis J. Harp
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The New Deal

Chapter 5 examines the first half of the twentieth century, focusing initially on the judicial and political critics of Progressivism. Although conservatives such as Justice David Brewer drew upon Christian elements in articulating their judicial theory, it was in a limited and circumscribed way. Similarly, political conservatives such as Elihu Root substituted a constitutional formalism and veneration of the Founders for the more theological approach of the Gilded Age dissenters. Meanwhile, leaders such as Presbyterian scholar John Gresham Machen helped draw evangelicals away from the older theocratic approach toward more libertarian views regarding politics and the state. Conservative responses to the Great Depression included Fundamentalists who viewed the New Deal apocalyptically and organizers of the Liberty League who warned of a coming totalitarianism. The modest connections established between Liberty Leaguers and evangelicals foreshadowed the deeper alliance that would profoundly shape the post–World War II conservative movement.

Garner, Hugh (1913–1979)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Robins Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
Royal Canadian Navy ◽  
Editorial Work ◽  
Canadian Navy

Hugh Garner was a British-Canadian writer, journalist, and editor. His fictional writings reflect on the experiences of marginalized individuals, echoing his own early experiences of poverty and unemployment. Garner and his family moved from Batley, England, to Toronto, Ontario, when he was six years old, and settled in the working-class neighbourhood of Cabbagetown. The Great Depression forced Garner to leave high school in search of work to support himself and his family. He held a wide variety of jobs, working as a bicycle messenger, a factory labourer, a newspaper copy boy, and even riding freight trains across North America to pursue short-term and seasonal farm jobs. Politicized by these experiences, Garner volunteered in the Spanish Civil War, serving with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the communist International Brigades. After the Fascist victory in 1939, he enlisted with first the Royal Canadian Artillery and then the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II. With the war’s conclusion he returned to Toronto where he made a career of his writing, managing to support his wife, Alice Gallant, and their two children, Barbara and Hugh Jr, through the publication of short stories, novels, plays, radio and television scripts, and articles, and through his editorial work at Saturday Night Magazine and New Liberty Magazine.

The Politics of Depression and War

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-150
Author(s):  
Jason Scott Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Works ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Franklin Delano Roosevelt ◽  
The New Deal

This essay explores how the Great Depression and World War II shaped politics in the United States. The collapse of the economy brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to the presidency; it also brought the New Deal. This essay explores the ways in which the New Deal’s attempts to save capitalism brought about long-lasting political changes, forging an electoral coalition that dominated American politics for decades. The New Deal’s key policy measures, including public works construction and the creation of social security, proved to be effective politics as well. World War II saw FDR and the federal government draw upon the New Deal’s methods, reforms, and bureaucracies in mobilizing the nation’s economy and society. This policy toolkit, the essay concludes, signaled the political power of empirically minded flexibility, ratifying for a generation the legitimacy of the government’s involvement in the economy.

The Economic Origins of the “War on Terror”

2020 ◽  
pp. 8-38
Author(s):  
Navin A. Bapat
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
World War ◽  
Transit Routes ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. was in a position of economic and military hegemony after World War II. However, by the early 1970s, the U.S. dollar depreciated following President Richard Nixon’s abandonment of the gold standard. To fight this problem, Nixon offered indefinite military protection from all of their enemies to all oil-producing states, if those states agreed to denominate their oil sales exclusively in U.S. dollars. This agreement reestablished the U.S. as the world’s sole superpower. At the turn of the millennium, U.S. dominance faced challenges from al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s decision to abandon the dollar in favor of the euro in oil sales. The war on terror began as an effort to eliminate each of these threats. Following the Iraq war, the U.S. seemed to establish control and alliances with all of the world’s key suppliers of energy, along with the states serving as transit routes.

Youth Marches

2018 ◽  
pp. 168-205
Author(s):  
Mischa Honeck
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Youth Organizations ◽  
World War ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Young Males ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

This gauges the impact of radical youth organizations on the BSA before and during World War II. As the Great Depression afflicted youths the world over, Scouters found their aspirations to repair the minds and bodies of America’s future citizens challenged by fascist and communist alternatives. In an effort to stave off groups affiliated with the Young Pioneers or the Hitler Youth, the BSA distanced itself from the buoyant internationalism of the 1920s and pictured the nation’s youth as disoriented, imperiled, and particularly susceptible to totalitarian propaganda. Casting the Scouts as the last best hope of boyhood in a world assailed by dictators reinforced the boundaries of Americanness and un-Americanness and obscured the closeness of the BSA’s scheme to mobilize boyhood for democracy with methods of regimenting youth on the far right and left. This narrative intensified with the U.S. entry into World War II when the BSA gave young males a share in defending the nation without transgressing the limits dictated by white middle-class ideals of childhood.

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