Progressivism & The New Deal: BRI’s AP U.S. History Exam Study Guide

0:00 [Music] in the words of historian Richard hofstader a long age of Reform ensued from the 1890s to the

0:22 1930s the progressive and the New Deal reformers over these decades had different priorities given their respective historical challenges but both believed that the government had to increase its intervention in and regulation of the economy in order to make the economy more efficient and Equitable first came the progressives in

0:43 the latter part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century their efforts mainly fell in the area of the regulation of big business notable Progressive laws included the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 this standardized railroad Freight rates preventing large shippers from striking deals with railroads to pay lower rates than their

1:03 smaller competitors the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was another example it issued a blanket ban on big corporate mergers but it was only vaguely worded and selectively enforced other Progressive regulatory laws included the heurn act of 196 which gave the government the option of setting reasonable prices different

1:25 from those set independently by the supply and demand of the market as well as the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 this act specified illegal activities left vague by the Sherman Act of 1890 and created more Federal Regulation of business with a Federal Trade Commission each of the presidents of the Progressive Era took advantage of

1:45 the new regulatory powers of the federal government Theodore Roosevelt strove to distinguish between good and bad trusts and supported the regulation of the private Market William Howard Taft who was a lawyer dutifully sought to enforce every regulation that Congress passed and woodor Wilson worked at breaking up all the trusts and corporate combinations in the name of preserving

2:06 competition in the American economy this all resulted in heavier regulation of businesses the other major governmental institution created in the thick of the Progressive Era was the Federal Reserve also known as the FED which was authorized by Congress in 1913 and was highly active and mistake prone years later during the Great

2:28 Depression the fed did not represent a new form of regulation in the strict sense in that private Banks did not have to use or join it the Fed was started to provide an option Beyond private Central Reserve Banks as the place where the banking system could store a minimum percentage of its deposit base and turned to during times of runs panics

2:49 and other liquidity crisis very quickly most banks felt the need to join the FED system and it became overwhelmed over the first 7 years of the Fed existence from 1913 to 1920 inflation Rose then as the FED dealt with the blows of the Great Depression 10 years after that over 10,000 banks failed a great many of

3:11 their depositors left unho and businesses faced minimal to no access to lines of credit that could keep their operations going the history of banking panics prior to 1913 seemed tame in comparison as the first 20 years of the Federal Reserve was quite rough the Supreme Court had a mixed reaction to all the new regulatory legislation in

3:31 the Progressive Era in 1895 the Court ruled that the sugar trust controlling 90% of the market could not be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Act since it was engaged in manufacturing in 1911 the court did break up John D rockefeller’s standard oil for violating the Sherman Act but added that the sheer size of a company had no bearing on whether it was

3:53 an illegal trust in the New Deal era of the 1930s during the Great Depression the Supreme Court rept struck down the centerpiece of President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal the national industrial Recovery Act or n the nir allowed companies to partner with government in writing codes for whole Industries and in fixing prices but

4:15 nobody liked it big businesses resented government’s intrusion and small businesses saw the act as a means for limiting its own growth and influence the Court’s argument in the sheer case of 1935 that struck down the Nira was that the nir was unconstitutional because it sought to regulate commerce that did not cross state lines but was

4:37 contained within one state and because it called for the executive branch as opposed to Congress to regulate commerce during the first Decades of the 20th century the Congress and the presidents added significant government regulation of the private economy in hopes of making the economy more efficient and more fair but in fact the greatest

4:57 period of economic growth in those decades was not not during the Progressive Era or the years of the new deal but in between them in the 1920s when the government cut back on regulation and taxes [Music]