History Commons^™

Review Of Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism, Charles Whitmer Wright

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Emotions In Work And War: Comparisons Of Emotional-Cultures Of New Deal Ccc Enrollees And Wwii U.S. Army Enlistees, 1933-1945, Maeve Losen

Master's Theses

Though the Great Depression and Second World War were consecutive eras and overlapped in numerous aspects, scholarship often overlooks the commonalities between these periods. To demonstrate these eras’ shared qualities, this thesis examines the relationship in emotional-cultures—the cultural norms that dictated how individuals felt and demonstrated their emotions—among Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees and U.S. Army enlistees during WWII.

The broad intent of this undertaking is to place the cultural history of the Great Depression and WWII in conversation and to show the advantage of inter- and multidisciplinary work by applying anthropological and historical theories of emotion. Though the historical …

Detrimental Influences: Chicago And The Home Owners' Loan Corporation, 1933-1940, Matthew Amyx

Dissertations

This dissertation chronicles and analyzes the record of the Chicago chapter of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation in Chicago during the New Deal.

Introduction To The Bremer-Kovacs Collection: Historic Documents Related To The Administrative Procedure Act Of 1946 (Heinonline 2021), Emily S. Bremer, Kathryn E. Kovacs

Journal Articles

Few statutes have a legislative history as rich, varied, and sprawling as the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA). In recent years, courts and scholars have shown increased interest in understanding this history. This is no mean feat. The APA’s history spans nearly two decades, and it includes numerous failed bills, a presidential veto, and a full panoply of congressional documents. In addition, much of the most crucial documentation underlying the APA was produced outside of Congress—by the executive branch—and even outside of government—by the American Bar Association. Identifying and locating all the relevant documents is difficult. Understanding each piece …

"Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" Southern Baptist And Roman Catholic Relief Efforts During The Great Depression, Alyson Marie Fagan

Masters Theses

Before the Depression commenced, the Church’s role in society was beginning to teeter as various criticisms surfaced in their bodies, as well as from secular America. The churches then began reassessing their interpretation of Scripture in a changing environment, as well as their application of Gospel principles. Within these principles, the idea of providing for the needs of the “least of these” and being the Good Samaritan took on different attributes depending on their denomination as well as their location in America. In providing Christian charity, churches had to determine their ability, and willingness in some cases, to provide tangible …

Building A New (Deal) Identity The Evolution Of Italian-American Political Culture And Ideology, 1910–1940, Ryan J. Antonucci

Theses and Dissertations

Italian Americans were a key constituency of the white-ethnic voting bloc that formed one of the main pillars of the New Deal coalition. However, few historians have looked at motives for the group’s allegiance beyond economic necessity and machine politics. This approach has falsely colored enthusiasm for the New Deal as a reflexive reaction to the Great Depression. “Building a New (Deal) Identity” argues that Italian Americans living in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, from Pittsburgh through Cleveland, voted heavily for the New Deal during the 1930s because of their unique political reshaping during the preceding two decades. In this …

“Deserting The Broad And Easy Way”: Southern Methodist Women, The Social Gospel, And The New Deal State, 1909-1939, Chelsea Hodge

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of three decades, white southern Methodist women took on issues of labor and poverty through their national women’s organization, the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC). Between 1909 and 1939, the WMC focused their work on five groups of people they viewed as in need of their help: women, children, black southerners, immigrants, and rural people. Motivated by the Social Gospel and an intense belief that their faith led them to effect real change in the American South, the WMC intervened in people’s lives, pursuing reform that could at times be maternalistic and condescending but at other times radical …

Promoting The Consumer Citizen: Seals, Spectacles, And The Gendered Consumer In Depression-Era America, Danielle B. Wetmore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will argue that New Deal legislation accounted for increased importance placed on consumers and the articulation of consumer citizenship as female during the Great Depression. Once New Deal programs and legislation determined and legitimized the consumer citizen, the consumer citizen exercised influence though purchasing power. Analyzing the ways the federal government defined women as consumer citizens through programs like the National Recovery Administration’s Blue Eagle Campaign offers important insight into who was considered to have a voice. Notions of citizenship define groups by who has the necessary attributes and qualifications—in this case the means to purchase goods—to be …

Civil Rights And The Black Experience During The New Deal Era: Limitations And Possibilities 1932–1948, Garth Sutherland

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay………………………………3

II. Primary Documents and Headnotes……….27

III. Textbook Critique……………………………39

IV. New Textbook Entry…………………………47

V. Bibliography…………………………………..53

New Deal, 1933-1939 - Relating To (Sc 3459), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3459. Letter, 4 May 1943, of South Carolina Congressman H. P. Fulmer to E. M. Biggers, Houston, Texas, challenging Biggers to justify his “statement” concerning federal agencies created under the “Roosevelt New Deal Party”; and Biggers’ reply of 5 June 1943, a lengthy criticism of “these damnable Bureaus” as the creation of “fan-tailed theorists” and encroachments on American liberty. The two letters and a compilation of names of the “Alphabetical Agencies” (also included) are reproductions created by Biggers, the owner of a printing company, for public distribution.

Factionalism In The Democratic Party 1936-1964, Seth Manning

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The period of 1936-1964 in the Democratic Party was one of intense factional conflict between the rising Northern liberals, buoyed by FDR’s presidency, and the Southern conservatives who had dominated the party for a half-century. Intertwined prominently with the struggle for civil rights, this period illustrates the complex battles that held the fate of other issues such as labor, foreign policy, and economic ideology in the balance. This thesis aims to explain how and why the Northern liberal faction came to defeat the Southern conservatives in the Democratic Party through a multi-faceted approach examining organizations, strategy, arenas of competition, and …

"To Prevent Pernicious Political Activities" : The 1938 Kentucky Democratic Primary And The Hatch Act Of 1939., Raymond Michael Myers Iv

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

By 1938, popularity for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal had declined. The 1938 Kentucky Democratic primary, pitting Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley against Governor A.B. “Happy” Chandler, became a referendum on the administration. During the campaign, each candidate accused their opponent of employing government resources to buy votes. This national scandal prompted Congress to enact the Hatch Act of 1939. Still in effect, this law restricted how federal employees interacted with political campaigns. This paper contends that the 1939 Hatch Act served as a constitutional backlash against the New Deal’s federal expansion and the rise of the administrative state. …

Women And Work: African American Women In Depression Era America, Sarah Ward

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores whether African American women met similar public sentiments as Caucasian women during the Depression Era and how gender dynamics changed within African American households in urban America as well as the effect of the crisis on a populace that was not new to the work force. Historical statistical analysis and emphasis on labor policy are used to garner information. The Great Depression sparked an abrupt shift in not only the American economy but also American ideology regarding male and female gender dynamics. Despite discouragement from entering the workforce due to dominant masculinity, employment rates rose amongst Caucasian …

Gen Ms 07 Farm Security Administration Photographs Finding Aid, Siobain C. Monahan

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Description:

Reproductions from the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, used in a 1974 exhibition at the University Art Gallery. The photographs are by Jack Delano, John Collier, Edwin Locke, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, Edwin Rosskam, Fenno Jacobs, Walker Evans, Herbert Mayer, Gordon Parks, and Walter Payton. Places represented include: in Maine, Aroostook County, Ashland, Bath, Boothbay, Caribou, Fort Kent, Fryeburg, Houlton, Lille, New Sweden, Presque Isle, Rockland, Saint David, Soldier Pond, and Van Buren; in Vermont, Bellows Falls, Brattleboro, Bridgewater, Castleton, Essex Junction, Hardwick, Lowell, Manchester, Morrisville, Orange …

Gen Ms 06 Ben Shahn Photographs Finding Aid, Siobain C. Monahan

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Description:

Ben Shahn was an artist who used photographs primarily as a starting point for paintings. He was employed in the New Deal Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration as an artist, but also assisted with the photographic projects. The collection consists of reproductions from the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, used in a 1976 exhibition at the University Art Gallery.

Size of Collection:

4.5 ft.

Gen Ms 05 Walker Evans Photographs Finding Aid, Siobain C. Monahan

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Description:

Walker Evans was a self-taught photographer who pointed a new direction in American documentary photography in the 1930s. In the mid-1930s, he worked for President Roosevelt’s New Deal Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration, taking photographs intended to alert America’s increasingly urban society to the plight of the rural poor during the Great Depression. The collection consists of reproductions from the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, used in a 1978 exhibition at the University Art Gallery.

Size of Collection:

4.5 ft.

Precarious Democracy: "It Can't Happen Here" As The Federal Theatre's Site Of Mass Resistance, Macy Donyce Jones

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The scholarly consensus of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) is that it was a massive undertaking set to employ theatre professionals during the Great Depression. That undertaking resulted in vibrant, relevant theatre that helped to build a theatre audience across the nation. Outside of the overview-style scholarship, specialized studies have delved into the FTP as a community-building enterprise, a site of racial/ethnic study, and an essential new play creator.

My scholarship fills a hole that previous FTP scholarship has left open. The FTP was a political machine engaged in producing pro-American propaganda. That aspect of production has been largely left …

When Old Age Changed: Inventing The "Senior State," 1945-1975, Benjamin Hellwege

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation asks why public assistance at the federal level in the United States has become significantly oriented towards the needs of older Americans since the New Deal era. It argues that in effect the United States has developed an old age welfare state – a “senior state,” in other words, which has sought primarily to protect the economic status of older Americans, and that the creation of this “senior state” represents the end-point of a long-term project by social reformers, organized labor, and old age advocacy organizations over the course of the second half of the 20th century to …

"Propaganda For Democracy": The Vexed History Of The Federal Theatre Project, Karen E. Gellen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My thesis explores and analyzes the Federal Theater Project’s cultural and political impact during the Depression, as well as the contested legacy of this unique experiment in government-sponsored, broadly accessible cultural expression. Part of the New Deal’s Works Projects Administration, the FTP aimed to provide jobs for playwrights, actors, designers, stagehands, and other theater professionals on relief in the stark period from 1935 to 1939. But the project became a nationwide political and artistic flashpoint, spurring fierce debate over the leadership, politics and impact of this “people’s theater.” The FTP gave professional theater an unprecedented reach into working-class and black …

Tennessee Valley Authority, Division Of Forestry (Sc 3100), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3100. Report on the forestry reconnaissance of the proposed Gilbertsville, Kentucky, reservoir area. Prepared by the Tennessee Valley Authority, Division of Forestry, November, 1936. Contains black and white photographs.

An 'Answer To Hopes And Dreams': Utopianism, Progressivism, And The American Spatial Tradition In The New Deal Resettlement Community Of Greenhills, Ohio, Jared M. Berg

Senior Independent Study Theses

The purpose of this project is to explain what historical forces led to the construction of Greenhills, Ohio. The goal is to show that Greenhills is one example in a very long line of planned residential communities in American history which have been designed in order to solve contemporary societal issues. This has been done by examining how Americans have constructed space in preceding planned communities. Upon examining these examples, it is clear that Greenhills is very much part of what I identify as an American spatial tradition, a community which especially borrows from the utopian and progressive elements of …

Full Circle: The New Deal And The Great Recession, Donald Lewis Roberts

Honors College Theses

In this paper I will show how the mindset of liberalism has evolved since the Great Depression. It merged with progressive movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries to become a politically left ideology that intertwined with power hungry politicians who perverted liberalism and used sudden economic and social phenomena to engineer a new type of American government. One that has constantly expanded, reaching and entrenching itself further and further into the lives of Americans, starting with President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s work would be expanded in the name of progress and equality by several of his …

William King Oral History - Great Depression - Dyess Colony, Kyrie M. King

Great Depression

No abstract provided.

All Play And No Work: The Protestant Work Ethic And The Comic Plays Of The Federal Theatre Project, Paul Gagliardi

Theses and Dissertations

Given the massive unemployment of the era, the subject of work dominated the politics and culture of the Great Depression. In particular, most government programs of the New Deal sought to provide jobs or reinforce long-standing American views of working. These aims were reflected by the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), which was charged with providing jobs to unemployed theatre workers and uplifting the spirits of audiences. But the FTP also strove to challenge its audiences by staging overtly political theatre. In this context, many comic plays -which have long been ignored by scholars of the FTP - actually challenged work …

The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Bibliography, Jackie Mcfadden

Jackie McFadden

This book is a list of citations covering the wealth of information written about the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's favorite and most respected New Deal program. It provided economic assistance and hope for the future to the many enlisted men and their families during the height of the Great Depression. These men developed state parks, built roads and bridges and restored the environment from the devastation caused by droughts and deforestation of the west. Through hard work, they found renewed pride in themselves and their country. Their efforts can be seen in former …

"Waste Not, Want Not": Farmers' Reactions To The New Deal In Minnesota, Kacie Phillips

Departmental Honors Projects

By the time of the Stock Market Crash in 1929, farmers in America were already in financial trouble with the drop in demand after World War I. With poverty and malnourishment rampant, the motto of the Great Depression became “waste not, want not.” The government focused on alleviating human suffering in President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Hundred Days” of 1933 and instituted numerous legislative acts for relief, with special attention paid to farmers. As the rest of the nation fell into economic hardship, the government gave unprecedented attention to agriculture and developed relief programs to aid farmers and their families. Some historians …

The New Deal In Puerto Rico: Public Works, Public Health, And The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, 1935-1955, Geoff G. Burrows

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the 1930s, Puerto Rico experienced acute infrastructural and public health crises caused by the economic contraction of the Great Depression, the devastating San Felipe and San Ciprián hurricanes of 1928 and 1932, and the limitations of the local political structure. Signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) replaced all other New Deal activity on the island. As a locally-run federal agency, the PRRA was very unique and yet very representative of the "Second" New Deal in the United States--which attempted to move beyond finding immediate solutions to the most critical problems …

What's The New Deal With Marshall? Depression Relief And Higher Education, Hubert Wesley Rolling

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Employing archival research, this study examines the history of the New Deal’s influence on higher education, focusing on Marshall University, at the time Marshall College, from approximately 1932-1940. First, it analyzes the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and National Youth Administration (NYA) student part-time employment program’s impact on the college. Second, it discusses the PWA’s (Public Works Administration) and WPA’s (Works Progress Administration) building programs’ and flood relief efforts’ effect on Marshall. Finally, this study explores the political implications of the New Deal with emphasis on state politics and financial problems and their relationship to Marshall. A study of Marshall …

Malaria Control In The Tennessee Valley Authority: Health, Ecology, And Metanarratives Of Development, Eric Carter

Eric D. Carter

Starting in the 1930s, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) created a globally influential model of regional development through centralized planning of massive public works to re-engineer social and natural systems in impoverished areas. TVA invested heavily in malaria control, since its own reservoirs created perfect breeding grounds for malaria-carrying anopheles mosquitoes. Eventually, both the TVA and malaria control would become key elements in an influential metanarrative in which an American ideology of 'technological modernism' dominated international development in the post-World War II era, until modern environmentalism and other social movements undermined the assumptions and goals of this ideology. This paper …

The Hughes Court And Constitutional Consultation, Barry Cushman

Barry Cushman

This lecture, delivered to the Supreme Court Historical Society, details the ways in which justices of the Hughes Court provided guidance to members of the political branches in formulating constitutional solutions to the economic crisis of the 1930s. Among the policy areas considered are farm debt relief, energy policy, agricultural policy, civilian relief and public works, retirement pensions, and unemployment compensation.