Roosevelt’s New Deal

• the most urgent task was according to Roosevelt to give people work

• CCC agency (Civilian Conservation Corps) – for food, shelter and regular wage young men in camps all over the country cut forest, strengthened river banks again floods, planted trees at where the soil was being blown away

• WPA agency (Works Progress Administration) – jobs useful to the community – building roads, schools, hospitals, even writers were given jobs to produce guidebooks

• the money people were paid helped to bring the trade back

• TVA agency (Tennessee Valley Authority) – 3 aims: to stop floods, make electricity and make land fertile (dams on rivers, plant trees and grass in order to prevent winter rains from washing away the soil)

• “Wagner Act” – passed laws to protect worker’s right to join labor unions

• 1935 – “Social Security Act” – pensions for people unable to provide for themselves, 1^st system of unemployment insurance

• unemployment vanished completely as the WW II. began – factories began to work, US became the main supplier of weapons – Roosevelt described this weapon-support of countries fighting against Hitler as “the arsenal of democracy”

The Arsenal of Democracy

• Americans strongly protested against taking part in War– “Neutrality Act” – they wouldn’t be allowed to sell weapons or lend money to countries at war

• A. Hitler had overrun most of Europe, his ally – Japan was becoming strong and US laid between them – dangerous

• Roosevelt persuaded the Congress to cancel the Neutrality Act and send Britain all military equipment and food they needed

• Britain ran out of money – US supply them without payment (“lend scheme”) as well as Russia when Hitler attacked them

• US was alarmed by fighting in Asia, reduced oil exports to Japan – they would be paralyzed

• 1941 - to seize Am. oil, Japan attacked US main naval base in the Pacific, Pearl Harbor

• US declared war against Japan

• organization of economy – not producing consumer goods, but weapons

• scientist working on top-secret “Manhattan Project” produced the world’s 1^st atomic bomb

• June 6, 1944 – Allied troops invaded Normandy in German-occupied France, German lost – “Operation Overlord” – last German offensive in Ardennes (Belgium)

• G. were defeated – May 5, 1945 – Germany surrendered

• Japan won early victories in the Pacific – overran Southeast Asia and Philippines

• by June 1943 – began Pacific offensive – allied forces fought their way “by islands” to Japan

• Japan was within range of air attacks and US troops prepared to invade the country, but work on Manhattan Project was finished

• US dropped the bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – cities devastated and nearly 200 000 civilians killed

• August 14, 1945 - Japanese government surrendered – 2^nd WW was over