New Deal Liberalism

Brinkley, End of Reform
Study questions will be posted the day before class.

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kcjohnson9 said, on March 9, 2009 at 5.32pm

Elizabeth’s questions:

1. What was the difference between the New Deal of the early 1930’s vs. the mid to late 1930’s?

2. What effect did the 1936 election have on the Democratic party/New Dealers?

3. What was the relationship between FDR and the courts?

4. What action did Morgenthau take when trying to rectify the recession of 1937?

5. What was the conservatives’ view about the New Deal program during the recession of 1937?

6. How did Benjamin Cohen and Thomas G. Corcoran influence Roosevelt and his New Deal policies?

7. What was the New Dealers’ opinion on how the government should regulate buiness within society?

8. What was the “Keynesian approach” and what effect did it have on trying to rebuild the country during the 1937-38 recession?

9. Why did Congress do to try to alleviate the concerns of the business world in 1938?

10. What was the attitude of the New Dealers towards Roosevelt’s popolicies during the turbulent times of the economic recession of 1938?

11. What programs did the New Deal have to offer in the mid 1930’s and which industries did the government want to reform?

12. The title of the book: The End of Reform- Is this a proper name for the book. Although it may have been the end of certain reforms in the early 1930’s was it the beginning of others in the late 1930’s and 1940’s?

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Amanda Bowman said, on March 9, 2009 at 8.03pm

Study Questions for End of Reform

1. In what ways did the basic ideas of New Deal Liberalism evolve out of the Progressive movement of the first quarter of the century?

2. Why did New Dealer’s need to reform their ideas about reform following the economic obstacles of 1937?

3. Post 1937 liberalism focused on the relationship between business investment, production capabilities, and monopolistic corruption. In what ways were anti-trust measures designed to dispense with all three problems?

4. What fears were holding critics back from embracing the idea of “corporate liberalism”?

5. Which was a greater driving force in the establishment of an anti-monopoly liberal agenda: the economic practicality of the plan, or the ideological struggle against big business?

6. What similarities can be drawn between the liberals desire to break up big business and Jackson’s fight against the BUS?

7. In what ways did the shift from production oriented strategies to consumption oriented strategies effect the policies and identities of liberals?

8. How significant to liberal evolution was the electoral bounce seen in Congress in 1938, only two years after the “blank check” victory of 1936? In what ways did it shape the new liberalism?

9. How did liberals hope to use the mobilization of the country to war as a pathway to promoting their ideas? And how did those hopes suffer based on presidential behavior?

10. In what ways did the totalitarian enemies of Europe effect the tide of liberal politics in Washington and the country at large?

11. Do you believe the liberal effectiveness became stronger or weaker as a result of switching from a platform or “reform” to a platform of “rights”

12. In what ways did unionism both bolster and undermine the liberal agenda through the war years?

13. Would the strategy of full employment have fit into earlier New Dealer’s ideas for how to stabilize the economy?

14. What were the effects of Keynesian economics and counter-cyclical spending on the proposals and ideas of the ever evolving liberalism of the FDR years?

15. With FDR often swinging into a centrist position and his preoccupation with the war in Europe, does the legacy of the New Deal and reform truly belong to him, or is it more appropriately ascribed to the more radical New Dealers and liberal reformists who served as advisors and the heads of various organizations? Which (FDR or the more left fighters) holds the greater influence in the identity of a liberal today?

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