The USA 1917 to 1945: war and isolationism, the boom of the 1920s, the Wall Street Crash and Depression, Roosevelt and the New Deal, and the impact of the Second World War.

What this dot point is asking

You need to explain how the USA moved from entry into the First World War and a retreat into isolationism, through the boom of the 1920s and the Wall Street Crash, to Roosevelt's New Deal and the transformation brought by the Second World War. The AS 1 paper rewards causal analysis and judgement; you should be able to weigh the New Deal's achievements against its limits and note the long debate over whether it "saved" or merely "cushioned" American capitalism.

War, isolationism and the 1920s boom

The 1920s brought a consumer boom built on mass production (Henry Ford's assembly line, which by 1925 produced a Model T roughly every ten seconds), hire-purchase credit, advertising and new industries (electrical goods, chemicals). Not everyone shared in it: farmers faced falling prices and debt, black Americans and recent immigrants faced discrimination, and older industries (coal, textiles) declined. Social tensions surfaced in Prohibition (1920 to 1933) and the gangsterism it fed, the revived Ku Klux Klan (claiming several million members by the mid-1920s), and the "Red Scare".

The Wall Street Crash and Depression

Roosevelt and the New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 election promising a "New Deal". Acting fast in the Hundred Days (1933), he declared a bank holiday, passed the Emergency Banking Act, reassured citizens through radio "fireside chats", and created "alphabet agencies" for relief, recovery and reform: the CCC and WPA gave work, the AAA supported farmers, and the TVA rebuilt a whole region.

• Relief. Immediate jobs and aid for the unemployed and poor.
• Recovery. Public works and farm price support to restart the economy.
• Reform. Lasting measures such as Social Security (1935), the Wagner Act (1935) protecting unions, and banking regulation (Glass-Steagall).

The "Second New Deal" of 1935 was more reformist, but the Supreme Court struck down the NRA (1935) and the AAA (1936) as unconstitutional, prompting Roosevelt's failed "court-packing" plan of 1937, and the "Roosevelt recession" of 1937 to 1938 showed recovery was incomplete.

The impact of the Second World War

The New Deal eased suffering but did not end the Depression. Full employment returned only with rearmament and entry into the Second World War after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. War production roughly doubled GDP, drew women into the workforce ("Rosie the Riveter"), and left the USA the dominant economic and military superpower of 1945, holding a nuclear monopoly.

Examples in context

A model AS paragraph on the New Deal might read: "The New Deal is best judged a qualified success: it transformed the role of government and relieved suffering, but it did not by itself end the Depression. Its achievements were real and lasting. The banking reforms of 1933 ended the immediate crisis of confidence, the relief agencies such as the WPA gave work to millions, and Social Security in 1935 created a permanent welfare framework that survives today. Yet the limits are equally clear. Unemployment remained around 15 per cent as late as 1938, the Supreme Court struck down the NRA and AAA as unconstitutional, and the 'Roosevelt recession' of 1937 showed how fragile recovery was when federal spending was cut. The decisive judgement is therefore that the New Deal reformed and stabilised American capitalism and restored hope, but it was the vast spending of the Second World War, not the New Deal, that finally restored full employment." This weighs success against limits and reaches a clear verdict.

Try this

Q1. What were the three aims of the New Deal? [3 marks]

• Cue. Relief for those suffering, recovery of the economy, and reform to prevent another depression.

Q2. Explain why the Wall Street Crash led to the Great Depression. [6 marks]

• Cue. Loss of confidence and wealth, the collapse of banks (around 9,000 failed), the fall in spending and credit, business closures, and Hoover's limited federal response.

Q3. How far was Roosevelt's leadership the main reason for America's recovery by 1945? [20 marks]

• Cue. Weigh the New Deal and Roosevelt's leadership against the decisive role of wartime rearmament after Pearl Harbor. Reach a substantiated judgement.