Minority Representation in the New Deal and its Economic Impact= A Critical Analysis

Minority Representation in the New Deal and its Economic Impact= A Critical Analysis

When Franklin Roosevelt was appointed president of the United States in the 1930s, he was tasked with reducing the alarming unemployment rate in the country. At the time, the United States economy had crashed because of the Great Depression caused by World War I, leaving many people unemployed. The unskilled and ethnic minority groups, such as Native Americans and Blacks, were given priority in the programs former President Roosevelt designed after being appointed to relieve the United States of the devastating effects of the Great Depression on its economy. President Roosevelt named his program “New Deal,” which had several sub-programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration.

President Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corp project under the New Deal program to help the unskilled, immigrants, and minority groups earn income in 1933. These people, who would ordinarily remain unemployed at a time when employers prioritized skilled workers, were contracted by President Roosevelt’s government to work in environmental conservation areas (Dyer (Director) & Dyer (Producer), 2005). The workers’ groups above were transported from their homes in the East to conservation sites in the West, where they were employed to plant trees, construct fish ponds, re-seed grazing lands, and fight fires that frequently threatened the existence of forests in the region. However, segregation was still acceptable at the time, and African American employees lived on different campsites, away from the Whites.

President also commissioned the Works Progress Administration venture under the New Deal program, which employed the unskilled to help in the construction of public projects. These workers were assigned tasks, such as constructing schools, hospitals, and new sewer lines. Additionally, these workers constructed bridges, paved airfields, and repaired roads (Corbett et al., 2019). As in the case of the CCC project, ethnic minority workers, such as African Americans, were also segregated and lived on separate campsites (Library of Congress, 2011). The New Deal project was terminated in the late 1940s after successfully reducing unemployment rates in the United States to 2%. At this time, the Great Depression had ended, and the United States economy regained its initial robust status.

References

Corbett, P. S., Lund, J. M., & Waskiewicz, S. (2019). U.S. History. Open Stax. https://openstax.org/details/books/us-history

Dyer, J. (Director), & Dyer, J. (Producer). (2005). A new deal: Part 5 [Video file]. Dallas County Community College District. Retrieved from Academic Video Online: Premium database.

Library of Congress. (2011, July 29). New Deal programs: Selected Library of Congress resources: Digitized materials. Retrieve from https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

---

Reflecting over the weekly reading and lesson video The New Deal Coalition (also linked in the Required Resources), address the following for your selections:

Consider workers, immigrants, and African Americans. Explain how minorities were represented by the New Deal.
Analyze to what extent you think that the New Deal effectively ended the Great Depression and restored the economy.