509. SOCIAL WELFARE IN AMERICA: THE NEW DEAL

Willie Hiatt

Fierce opposition to New Deal social programs began before Franklin Roosevelt’s election in 1932 and persisted long after his death in 1945. On the eve of the election, President Hoover warned against “changes and so-called new deals which would destroy the very foundations of the American system.” To be sure, Roosevelt’s election and New Deal initiatives marked a dramatic expansion of the federal government’s role in guaranteeing economic security for ordinary citizens. As the first of two stand-alone talks, this lecture situates the New Deal’s advocacy for economic recovery (first phase), protection against unemployment and poverty (second phase), and the courts’ opposition to key legislative advances within a longer history of social welfare in America.

10:00-12 noon                                                                                                          1 Session

Wednesday, November 5                                                                                          Fee:  $30

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Willie Hiatt, a Kentucky native, is an Associate Professor of History at Long Island University, Post Campus. He’s the author of The Rarified Air of the Modern: Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes (Oxford, 2016). His current research is an oral history project examining how Maoist insurgents in Peru targeted high-tension towers during the Shining Path movement (1980-92).