In Rauchway’s book, chapter 4, “Reflation and Relief,” emphasizes how President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a new deal to solve the problem of people losing their jobs. The Great Depression was a worldwide economic disintegration caused by a stock market crash in the United States that resulted in the closure of all banks. Roosevelt began by rescuing the banks. Two days after taking office, he declared the nation’s banks must stop transactions in gold, thus shutting them down, and he asked Congress to ratify his action. “(Ruchway) The Great Depression lasted ten years, from 1929 to 1939. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the one who changed the Great Depression by instituting the New Deal, which he promised would end the depression. He also set up a slew of other programs.
Many young adults lost their jobs due to the Great Depression. “Young workers, with fewer skills and experience, found themselves out of work more often than workers at the peak of their powers… if nobody did anything to help them soon, young men were most likely to leave their communities, becoming tramps or hoboes, posing a threat to social order.” (Rauchway 5) This evidence from Raucheay’s chapter shows that neither the government nor Congress is planning for this. The young adult will most likely end up homeless. As a result, President FDR established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which assists young adults between the ages of 18 to 35 in finding work. In Rauchway’s chapter, he discusses how the new deal helped the country get back on its feet, and FDR also announced a moratorium on gold transfers to create inflation in order to help the economy recover as before.
A good summary. Rauchway mentions that it was young men specifically who were the targets of job programs like the CCC and CWA. How does he suggest that assumptions at the time about gender affected the implementation of New Deal programs, and how might this be different if the government tried a similar approach today?