Great Depression And New Deal

-------------------------------------------------
Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression
In the 1920s the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and military world power. The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles imposed by its Allies on the defeated Central Powers; instead, the United States chose to pursueunilateralism.[105] The aftershock of Russia's OctoberRevolution resulted in real fears of communism in the United States, leading to a Red Scare and the deportation of aliens considered subversive.
While public health facilities grew rapidly in the Progressive Era, and hospitals and medical schools were modernized,[106] the nation in 1918 lost 675,000 lives to the Spanish flu pandemic.[107]
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export ofalcohol were prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment. Prohibition encouraged illegal breweries and dealers to make substantial amounts of money selling alcohol illegally. The Prohibition ended in 1933, a failure. Additionally, the KKK re-formed during that decade and gathered nearly 4.5 million members by 1924, and the U.S. government passed the Immigration Act of 1924 restricting foreignimmigration.[108] The 1920s were also known as the Roaring Twenties, due to the great economic prosperity during this period.[citation needed] Jazz became popular among the younger generation, and thus was also called the Jazz Age.
[edit]Great Depression and New Deal
Further information: Great Depression and New Deal

Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centeringonFlorence Owens Thompson, a mother of seven, age 32, inNipomo, California, March 1936.
The Great depression (1929–39) and the New Deal (1933–36) were decisive moments in American political, economic and social history that reshaped the nation.[109]
During the 1920s, the nation enjoyed widespread prosperity, albeit with a weakness in agriculture. A financial bubble was fueled by an inflated stockmarket, which later led to the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929.[110] This, along with many other economic factors, triggered a worldwide depression known as the Great Depression. During this time, the United States experienced deflation as prices fell, unemployment soared from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933, farm prices fell by half, and manufacturing output plunged by one-third.
In1932, Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt promised "a New Deal for the American people", coining the enduring label for his domestic policies. The desperate economic situation, along with the substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 elections, gave Roosevelt unusual influence over Congress in the "First Hundred Days" of his administration. He used his leverage to win rapid passage of aseries of measures to create welfare programs and regulate the banking system, stock market, industry and agriculture, along with many other government efforts to end the Great Depression and reform the American economy. The New Deal regulated much of the economy, especially the financial sector. It provided relief to the unemployed through numerous programs, such as the Works ProgressAdministration (WPA) and (for young men) the Civilian Conservation Corps. Large scale spending projects designed to provide high paying jobs and rebuild the infrastructure were under the purview of thePublic Works Administration. Roosevelt turned left in 1935–36, building up labor unions through the Wagner Act. Unions became a powerful element of the merging New Deal Coalition, which won reelection for FDR in1936, 1940 and 1944 by mobilizing union members, blue collar workers, relief recipients, big city machines, ethnic groups (especially Catholics and Jews) and the white South, along with blacks in the North (where they could vote). Some of the programs were dropped in the 1940s when the conservatives regained power in Congress through the Conservative Coalition. Of special importance is...