One of the first acts that Roosevelt enacts was the Emergency Conservation Work Act (ECW), better known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). His main focus was on getting both the young men of America and its natural resources in one. Many of the jobs that were made were temporary but they helped rejuvenate the decimated forest that had been cut down years prior. As many as 3 billion trees were planted between 1933 and 1943 and in doing so helped farmers that were affected by the dust bowl as the trees worked as walls to block strong winds and keeping the soil together and fresh. Millions of young men were transported westward as a result of most of the jobs were being done on the west coast while the men were mainly east but was solved relatively quick. Many historians and politicians believe that as a result of so many young men enrolling to the CCC, crime rates by young men were down by 55%.
Because of the European war(WWI) many European nations were having problems producing enough food for both their soldiers and their people. American farmers were able to utilize this to their advantage and mass produced produce for the European people up until 1920. By that time most of the European nations became more independent from the United states and as a result needed way less/absolutely none of the American produce as they could produce it within their own country. This led to American farmers having to deal with not only an excess of produce they expected to sell but also with debts and other monetary problems to deal with. President Roosevelt enacted the "Agricultural Adjustment Act" within his first 100 days as part of the New deal. The act established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration which was made to help the farmers who agreed to cut back on produce production would have their surplus products bought and paid for by the administration thus offering them relief. The money used to pay farmers came from taxes put on companies who bought farm products to make food or clothes
This is a great summary of FDR's first major achievements. Did you consider the bias in the AAA poster? It's really interesting to see how it portrays the Agricultural Adjustment Act to be idealistic and colorful and optimistic, when in reality it led to a lot of waste; it literally paid the farmers to destroy their produce/livestock. While this act helped the hurting farmers' prices inflate, there were also starving people in the cities that could've eaten that food.
ReplyDeleteYou explained the causes and effects of these acts very well. It is also interesting to note that the another way the AAA provided relief for the farmers was by directly providing them with industrial products in exchange for excessive farm produce. I remember from the video we watched that one example was the government would take away the farmer's cows and provide them with canned meat.
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