The Birth of the American Social Welfare System

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In 19 34 congress passed the indian reorganization act, known as the indian new deal. That law began to reverse the federal policy of forced assimilation. It also gave back to tribes more control over their natural and cultural resources. And there's plenty of evidence things did change because regular people took action beyond casting votes. But activism by working people had an impact on corporate leadership too. Finally, the beginning was when mister newson put his name to a piece of paper that says 'c o u w i nn' in which they have a bargaining agent for the employees in those plants where they didn't even exist.

The Great Depression presented a crisis not only for the U.S. economy, but for American democracy. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to save the nation’s system of government, and its economic system, while reforming both. What did the New Deal achieve, and not achieve?

Reported and produced by John Biewen, with series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with Eric Rauchway and Cybelle Fox. The series editor is Loretta Williams.

Music by Algiers, John Erik Kaada, Eric Neveux, and Lucas Biewen. Music consulting and production help from Joe Augustine of Narrative Music.

Photo: Men fighting during a strike at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, 1937. Image courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

As mentioned in the episode, an article by public historian Larry DeWitt examining the widespread assertion that the exclusion of some occupations from the original Social Security old-age pension program was insisted on by southern segregationists: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html