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FDR signing The Social Security Act , 1935

FDR signing The Social Security Act , 1935.

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FDR signing The Social Security Act , 1935

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  1. FDR signing The Social Security Act, 1935 The “New Deal”—a package of economic and social reforms enacted during the 1930s under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Taken together, they had the effect of dramatically increasing the power and presence of the federal government in a range of industries and in people’s everyday life.

  2. New Deal extends and builds upon Progressivism, but some key differences: • Much stronger commitment to gov’t planning and intervention • Explicit commitment to working-class people and to “grassroots” democracy • Belief that social and environmental problems are fundamentally intertwined

  3. The emergence of “regional planning”

  4. The Tennessee Valley region

  5. “Destruction in the wake of a flood,” Tennessee Valley, c. 1940 (FDR Library)

  6. FDR on the TVA: “I can put it this way: ….What we are doing there is taking a watershed with about three and a half million people in it, almost all of them rural, and we are trying to make a different type of citizen out of them from what they would be under their present conditions….”

  7. The federal government employs experts to plan and implement the TVA “TVA employee interviewing family,” 1938(NARA)

  8. Conceptual sketch for the town of Norris, TN, 1933(TVA Archives)

  9. Social Effects of TVA • --Increased overall standard of living in the region relatively rapidly • --Electricity to most homes within 10 years • --More industry, more employment opportunities other than farming • --Benefits distributed unequally • --Some people lose their land, farms • --Largest benefits go to large land owners, who are able to increase the size of their farms and modernize • --African American farmers/tenants derive the least benefits

  10. Environmental Effects of TVA --Less flooding --Better, more productive farming practices introduced (but large farmers successfully challenged authority of federal government to tell them what to do on their farms) --Some reforestation (but reforestation not embraced by majority of farmers)

  11. John Wesley Powell, author of Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, 1878

  12. Reclamation Act --1902 • Progressive-era legislation (under TR) • Establishes Bureau of Reclamation • Provide irrigation works to farms of 160 acres or less (agrarian vision) • Federal government will provide initial capital and engineering expertise (but projects must be paid for by water users)

  13. The Columbia Basin Project

  14. Lucy Covington, Colville Indian, in 1977, testifying before Congress on the effects of Grand Coulee: “We had a beautiful way of life. We were rich. The dam made us poor. The way they treated us, they tried to make us less than human….We Indians trust the day is past when the nation will approve of what the government did when they built the dams, which back in those days caused on of our people to say, ‘The promises made by the government were written in sand and then covered with water, like everything else.’”

  15. Indian Compensation and the Columbia Basin Project • 1940: Congress requires “just and equitable compensation” for land taken for the project • Colville tribe paid $63,000 for loss of land (nothing for fish) • Spokane tribe paid $4,700 for loss of land (nothing for fish) • Colville lawsuits • claim for loss of fisheries; filed in 1973 and settled in 1978 for $3,257,000 • claim for lost hydropower potential; filed in 1951 and settled in 1994 for $53,000,000 plus $15,200,000/year (adjusted annually) • Spokane tribe still seeking compensation for fishery and hydropower losses • 2008: Columbia Basin Fish Accords settle lawsuits filed by multiple tribes (including the Colville) along the river over salmon; $967,000,000 over 10 years to improve fish and lamprey survival (Colville receive ~$200 million)

  16. The Philosophy of New Deal Resource Planning 1. Embodies Progressive values (progress & technology are good; order and efficiency are priorities; expert planning can solve social problems; government must take an active role in management)—but New Dealers have a much stronger commitment to gov’t planning and intervention 2. Commitment to working-class Americans: economic benefits should be shared across classes; working-class people should participate in democratic government (but still largely a racialized vision) 3. Belief that social and environmental problems are fundamentally intertwined and must be solved together

  17. The Philosophy of New Deal Resource Planning 1. Embodies Progressive values (progress & technology are good; order and efficiency are priorities; expert planning can solve social problems; government must take an active role in management)—but New Dealers have a much stronger commitment to gov’t planning and intervention 2. Commitment to working-class Americans: economic benefits should be shared across classes; working-class people should participate in democratic government (but still largely a racialized vision) 3. Belief that social and environmental problems are fundamentally intertwined and must be solved together 4. Industrial modernity and nature can be reconciled (through expert planning….)

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