Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed

The achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal

If unemployment was still fifteen per cent in 1938, on what basis can the New Deal be called a success?

Option A3 · The USA, 1918–41 › Key topic 4 · Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1933–41 — one of 3 lessons in this key topic. Paper 2 Section A — historical investigation: The USA, 1918–41, key topic 4 (30 marks: 6 · 8 · 16).

Learn the achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this lesson carries all three.

What the specification asks for

“The achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal” — examined through consequence and significance. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The numbers, honestly

Unemployment fell from roughly a quarter of the workforce in 1933 to something in the region of fourteen per cent by 1937. It then rose again to about nineteen per cent in the recession of 1937–38, which followed Roosevelt's attempt to balance the budget by cutting relief spending. It was still around fifteen per cent in 1939, and it fell to negligible levels only in 1941–42 as war production absorbed the labour force.

So on the test most people apply — did the New Deal end the Depression — the answer is no, and any answer that claims otherwise is contradicting the figures. The recession of 1937–38 is the sharpest evidence, because it shows what happened when the spending was reduced, and it cuts both ways: it supports the argument that federal spending was sustaining the economy and the argument that the economy had not been repaired.

What can be claimed

Three claims are defensible, and they should be distinguished from one another rather than run together, because they are answers to different questions and the evidence for each is different.

The first is that the New Deal prevented something worse. Between 1929 and 1933 the United States had no relief system, five thousand banks had failed and a quarter of the workforce was idle; in the same years Germany went from a democracy to a dictatorship and authoritarian movements grew across Europe. The New Deal's supporters have always argued that its achievement was to make American democracy survivable, and the 1936 landslide is evidence that the electorate agreed.

The second is structural, and it is dealt with in the previous strand: social security, deposit insurance, securities regulation, rural electrification and collective bargaining outlasted the Depression and remain in place.

The third is about what recovery there was. Output roughly doubled between 1933 and 1937, and although employment lagged, the direction from 1933 was upward until the policy reversal of 1937. That is a genuine improvement even if it is not a cure.

The shortcomings that belong in every answer

It did not restore full employment, and the arrival of full employment with war orders rather than with public works is the single most damaging fact in any assessment.

It excluded people systematically. Social security omitted agricultural and domestic workers, which meant the majority of black Americans in the South; the AAA's payments for reducing acreage went to landowners, and tenants and sharecroppers — again disproportionately black — were often evicted as a result; the CCC operated segregated camps; and no federal anti-lynching law was passed, because Roosevelt would not risk the Southern Democratic votes his programme depended on.

And it did not fundamentally redistribute wealth or restructure American capitalism, which is what both its radical critics and its conservative opponents said at the time — one in complaint and the other in relief.

The strongest form of the assessment therefore names the measure before answering. Against ending the Depression, the New Deal failed; against preventing a political collapse and building permanent institutions, it succeeded; against delivering its benefits equally, it fell a very long way short.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1933–37
Unemployment falls from roughly 25 per cent to about 14 per cent; output roughly doubles. Why this date: It establishes that there was a real recovery, which the failure to reach full employment can obscure.
1937–38
The Roosevelt recession: unemployment rises again to about 19 per cent after spending is cut. Why this date: It is the sharpest piece of evidence in the whole assessment, and it supports arguments on both sides.
1939
Unemployment still stands at around 15 per cent. Why this date: Six years of the New Deal had not restored full employment, which is the fact any defence must accommodate.
1941–42
War orders absorb the labour force and unemployment falls to negligible levels. Why this date: Recovery arrived with military spending rather than with any New Deal programme, which is the most damaging single fact for its defenders.

The figures, and how far to trust them

  • About 19 per cent — Unemployment at the trough of the 1937–38 recession. (Estimates differ according to whether relief workers are counted as employed, which changes the figures materially.)
  • About 15 per cent — Unemployment in 1939, six years after the Hundred Days.
  • Roughly doubled — American output between 1933 and 1937, before the recession.

The people to place

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt — Cut relief spending in 1937 in an attempt to balance the budget, precipitating the recession that followed.
  • Mary McLeod Bethune — Adviser on minority affairs in the National Youth Administration; pressed for black Americans' inclusion in New Deal programmes.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

  • The 'it saved democracy' reading: The New Deal's achievement was political: it restored belief in constitutional government at a moment when comparable democracies were collapsing, and the 1936 landslide records that judgement by the people who lived through it. Contested by The reading that measures it economically, finds unemployment still around fifteen per cent in 1939 and full employment arriving only with war orders, and argues that recovery was delivered by rearmament rather than by any New Deal programme..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The New Deal ended the Great Depression.

This: Unemployment was still around fifteen per cent in 1939 and fell to negligible levels only with war production in 1941–42.

Not this: The New Deal helped all Americans equally.

This: Social security excluded agricultural and domestic workers, the AAA's payments went to landowners rather than tenants, the CCC was segregated, and no federal anti-lynching law was passed.

Two things students merge

Blurred: Recovery and rescue.

The distinction: The New Deal did not restore the pre-1929 economy and it did prevent a collapse of the banking system and of political order. Answers that only ask about the first cannot explain the 1936 election result.

Blurred: The 1937 recession as evidence.

The distinction: It shows both that federal spending was sustaining activity and that the underlying economy had not been repaired. A candidate who uses it for only one of those has taken half the evidence.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer names the measure before it answers. Against the standard of ending the Depression the New Deal failed and the war succeeded; against the standard of keeping a constitutional government intact while comparable democracies fell it succeeded completely; and against the standard of treating Americans equally it fell short in ways that were legislated deliberately to secure Southern votes.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section A (a) (6 marks — “Describe TWO features of EITHER … OR ….”); Paper 2 Section A (b) (8 marks — “How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about …? Explain your answer.”); Paper 2 Section A (c) (16 marks — “Extract C suggests that …. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: The 1937–38 recession used on both sides of the argument. It is the most economical way to demonstrate that a candidate is weighing evidence rather than selecting it.

The cap that bites here: The 8-mark cross-reference is capped at 4 marks unless both agreement and disagreement are addressed.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

  1. Describe two shortcomings of the New Deal. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section A (a)]
  2. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the success of the New Deal? [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
  3. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the New Deal's treatment of black Americans? [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
  4. Extract C suggests that the New Deal failed because it did not end the Depression. How far do you agree with this interpretation? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]
  5. Extract C suggests that the New Deal saved American democracy. How far do you agree with this interpretation? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Did the New Deal work?.

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Prove it — five questions on the achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal, marked on the spot, that tell you what was missing rather than just what was wrong.
  2. Teach it — Explain the achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal — what happened, why, and what it made possible — to Ember, an AI pupil who asks the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  3. Defend it — Argue the achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal against the historical mind with the strongest claim on it — three rounds, marked against descriptors you can read before you begin.
  4. Then the exam — 15 authored exam-style questions on this option, marked on Incandio with the mistake you actually made named.

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The debate is against The Case for Doing Less — the case itself, argued at its strongest, because on this strand there is no single person whose position the learner has to defeat.

The same people, elsewhere in the option

Carry on through the option