New Deal Thought

"The volume is primarily a collection of documents and . . . remains a vaulable resource.  Containing 420 pages of documentation, it is divided into eleven sections . . . national economic planning, monopoly power and public enterprise, social welfare, and the interest groups which the New Deal failed to mobilize."
     —Stuart Kidd, Journal of American Studies

SKU
26293g

Edited, with Introduction, by Howard Zinn

2003 - 472 pp.

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Cloth 978-0-87220-686-1
$49.00
Paper 978-0-87220-685-4
$12.50
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-0-87220-685-4
$5.00

A reprint of the 1966 Bobbs-Merrill edition.

This anthology assembles the contemporary writings not only of the New Dealers—the men who devised and executed the programs of the government in the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt—but also of the "social critics" who "gathered in various stances and at various distances around the Roosevelt fires." Here is a sampling of the famous movers and shakers of the 1930's: Thurman Arnold, Henry Wallace, Rexford Tugwell, David Lilienthal, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, John Maynard Keynes, and of course Roosevelt himself. Here too are the voices of those who thought the New Dealers were going "too far" such as Walter Lippmann and Raymond Moley, and of those who thought they were not going "far enough"; like John Dewey, W. E. B. DuBois, Norman Thomas, Lewis Mumford, and Carey McWilliams.

In his Introduction Howard Zinn defines the boundaries of the New Deal's experimentalism and attempts to explain why it sputtered out. The result is a book that captures the spirit of the New Deal—hopeful, pragmatic, humane—yet remains hardheaded about its accomplishments and failures.
     —from the Foreword

 

Reviews:

"The volume is primarily a collection of documents and . . . remains a vaulable resource.  Containing 420 pages of documentation, it is divided into eleven sections . . . national economic planning, monopoly power and public enterprise, social welfare, and the interest groups which the New Deal failed to mobilize."
     —Stuart Kidd, Journal of American Studies

 

Contents:

Introduction.
Chronology.
Selected Bibliography.

PART ONE: Philosophic Setting

1. Charles A. Beard: The Myth of Rugged American Individualism (1931)
2. Upton Sinclair: Production for Use (1933)
3. Reinhold Niebuhr: After Capitalism – What? (1933)
4. Stuart Chase: The Age of Distribution (1934)
5. John Dewey: The Future of Liberalism (1935)
6. Thurman Arnold: A Philosophy for Politicians (1935)

PART TWO: Expectations

7. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Every Man Has a Right to Life (1932)
8. Paul H. Douglas: The Roosevelt Program and Organization of the Weak (1933)
9. Robert M. McIver: The Ambiguity of the New Deal (1934)
10. Edward A. Filene: Business Needs the New Deal (1934)
11. Henry A. Wallace: We Need a Declaration of Interdependence (1936)

PART THREE: National Economic Planning

12. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Bold, Persistent Experimentation (1932)
13. Rexford Guy Tugwell: Planning Must Replace Laissez Faire (1932)
14. Gerard Swope: A Business Approach to Economic Planning (1934)
15. Walter Lippmann: Planning Will Lead to Oligarchy (1937)
16. David A. Lilienthal: Planning Step by Step (1944)

PART FOUR: Giantism in Business

17. Ernest Gruening: Controlling the Giant Corporation (1933)
18. William O. Douglas: How Effective is Securities Regulation (1934)
19. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Stop Collectivism in Business (1938)
20. Thurman Arnold: The Rule of Reason in Antitrust Action (1939)
21. Raymond Moley: Roosevelt's Refusal to Make a Choice (1939)
22. Temporary National Economic Committee: The Concentration on Economic Power (1941)

PART FIVE: Public Enterprise

23. Harry L. Hopkins: The War on Distress (1933)
24. Nathan Straus: End the Slums (1938)
25. Lewis Mumford: The Government Should Support Art (1936)
26. Hallie Flanagan: The Drama of the Federal Theater Project (1939)
27. Max Lerner: A TVA "Yardstick" for the Option Industries (1939)
28. Alvin Hansen: The Need for Long-Range Public Investment (1939)

PART SIX: Organizing Labor

29. The Wagner Act: Unions of Their Own Choosing (1935)
30. Heywood Broun: Why Exclude Domestic Workers? (1935)
31. John L. Lewis: Industrial Democracy in Steel (1936)
32. Liberals Disagree on the Sit-down Strike (1937)
      Robert Morss Lovett: A G.M. Stockholder Visits Flint
      Oswald Garrison Villard: A Letter F.D.R. Ought to Write
33. Philip Murray: How the NLRB Changed "Little Siberia"(1939)

PART SEVEN: The Farmer

34. Fiorello La Guardia: Urban Support for the Farmer (1933)
35. Henry A. Wallace: A Defense of the New Deal Farm Program (1938)
36. William R. Amberson: Damn the Whole Tenant System (1935)
37. John Steinbeck: The Torment of Migrant Workers in California (1936)
38. Carey McWilliams: Farm Workers and "Dirt Farmers" need Power (1942)

PART EIGHT: Minimum Security

39. Hugo Black: For a Thirty-Hour Work Week (1933)
40. Stuart Chase: The Consumer Must be Permitted to Consume (1933)
41. Frances Perkins: The Principles of Social Security (1935)
42. Henry Ellenbogen: The Social Security Act is Only a Beginning (1935)
43. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work (1937)
44. Samuel Lubell and Walter Everett: The Breakdown of Relief (1938)
45. Henry E. Sigerist: Government Should Also Protect "The Right to Health" (1938)

PART NINE: The Negro

46. Guy B. Johnson: Does the South Owe the Negro a New Deal? (1934)
47. John P. Davis: The New Deal: Slogans for the Same Raw Deal (1935)
48. Robert C. Weaver: The New Deal is for the Negro 49. Walter White: U.S. Department of (White) Justice (1935)
50. Harold L. Ickes: Not "Special Consideration" But a "New Social Order for All" (1936)
51. W. E. B. DuBois: Can Federal Action Change the South? (1940)

PART TEN: The Constitution and Social Progress

52. Felix Frankfurter: Social Issues Before the Supreme Court (1933)
53. Morris R. Cohen: Fallacies About the Court (1935)
54. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Court Needs "New and Younger Blood" (1937)
55. The Supreme Court Retreats: Minimum-Wage Laws are Constitutional (1937)

PART ELEVEN: Critiques and Perspectives

56. Frances Perkins: FDR Was "A Little Left of Center" (1946)
57. Benjamin Stolberg and Warren Jay Vinton: The New Deal "Moves in Every Direction at Once" (1935)
58. Floyd B. Olson: A New Party to Challenge Capitalism (1935)
59. Norman Thomas: Socialism, Not Roosevelt's Pale Pink Pills (1936)
60. John Maynard Keynes: The Maintenance of Prosperity is Extremely Difficult (1938)
61. John Dewey: The Old Problems are Unsolved (1939)
62. The New Republic: "Extraordinary Accomplishments" and "Failure in the Central Problem" (1940)

Index.

 

About the Author:

Howard Zinn, (1922-2010), was Professor Emeritus of History, Boston University.