The 1930s were one of the most difficult periods in American history. It was the time of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans suffered hardship as the economy was in free fall. Many Americans were unemployed and lost almost everything they owned. In 1932, America realized it was time for a change and elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt by a landslide. Roosevelt promised to help end the Depression with his New Deal. The New Deal was Roosevelt's plan to end the Great Depression. Through increased government spending, FDR implemented numerous public works programs in an attempt to simulate the economy. The New Deal “alphabet soup” (this was the nickname for FDR's many programs) was FDR's plan to get people out of the Depression. The New Deal affected different industries and groups of Americans in unique ways and helped save the nation. One of the groups hardest hit by the Great Depression were farmers. Due to overproduction and underconsumption after World War I and during the 1920s, crop prices dropped dramatically. Due to low prices, farmers' incomes have decreased. The farmer was in trouble when the Great Depression hit. Farmers were crucial to the American economy, and FDR and the New Deal intended to help them. In the first hundred days of the New Deal, Roosevelt attempted to help farmers by establishing the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). The AAA was intended to help restore farmers' purchasing power. He restored the price takeoff that helped farmers earn all that money during the war. His main plan was to reduce the size of crops by paying farmers to plow up their crops. This, in theory, would cause the price of crops to collapse. There have been some problems with AAA though. It seemed equally cruel because the government was destroying crops that could be used to feed all the hungry people. The AAA also hasn't done much to help tenant farmers and sharecroppers. This is because the money the government paid farm owners to plow the fields was never shared with the tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Even though farm owners were told to give some of the money to the people who worked their land, they never did. The New Deal also established other agencies to help farmers. FDR established the Farm Resettlement Administration, the Rural Electrification Administration... middle of paper... help for the elderly, but was not to be the primary source of retirement. It also provided unemployment insurance, aid for blind or crippled people, and aid for dependent children. Roosevelt would pay for this act with a tax on corporations and the wealthy. This act gave comfort to the people because they now believed that the government would help them financially when they needed it. It also gave unions more initiative to strike because the government guarantees them safety. FDR's New Deal gave America hope in a time when there was little optimism. It gave jobs to Americans; put food on the table and began to restore confidence in the economy. FDR's New Deal may not have ended the Great Depression, but it left a legacy. A legacy you can see in unions, in the many public works projects, in the big government we have today, in acts like Social Security, and, above all, in the people whose lives they have changed forever. BIBLIOGRAPHY1) Encarta® Concise Encyclopedia Article. (http://encarta.msn.com)2) Encyclopedia.com (http://www.encyclopedia.com)3) Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (http://www.geocities.com)