Alphabet Agencies

Alphabet Agencies: Definition

The New Deal required creating agencies to carry out many of its changes. The agencies' names were often shortened to abbreviations that consisted of three to four letters. They were nicknamed the Alphabet Agencies or, the more tongue-in-cheek Alphabet Soup because of the vast number of organisations.

The New Deal created numerous Alphabet Agencies, and even the Roosevelt administration struggled to remember which ones did what! Some of these agencies provided jobs for Americans in need. Others were created to prevent another Great Depression. To accomplish this task, the agencies monitored different parts of the economy.

The agencies were very different and run by different people. Roosevelt needed the support of all Democrats, including Southern ones. Southern Democrats were notoriously racist and wanted the New Deal only to affect white people. The Civilian Conservation Corps was run by a racist, Robert Fechner, who hired as few African Americans as possible and imposed segregation. In contrast, the Public Works Administration was determined to build schools, housing, and public buildings in African American communities.

Alphabet Agencies examples

There were plenty of different agencies with different responsibilities. Below is a list of some of the agencies, the year they were created, their abbreviation, and a brief description of what they set out to do.

Now we can dive further into some of the agencies listed!

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1933)

The 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act created the Agricultural Adjustment Agency. Farms had to amp up supplies during World War I, but they didn't stop after the war. This led to farm goods losing a lot of value because of overstock. The Agricultural Adjustment Agency paid farmers not to plant specific crops. They could still farm, just not plants that were in overstock.

The Agency purchased an oversupply of farm goods and resold them to low-income families at a discounted rate. The AAA purchased six million healthy hogs plus even more cows and sheep, then slaughtered them. While this assisted the meat market, it angered many Americans. The way that they saw it was that they were starving, and the government wasted food.

The agency ended in 1942. The AAA had mixed results. Sure, they wasted meat, but farmers' income had risen by 50%! They also supplied many low-income families with food.

Public Works Administration (1933)

The Public Works Administration (PWA) aimed to provide jobs for Americans. The program initially strived to employ people to build public buildings, schools, and homes but later expanded to so much more. Through offshoots of the PWA, artists were hired to paint beautiful murals of the American experience. Furthermore, historians and writers interviewed African Americans who were enslaved.

Securities and Exchange Commission (1934)

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, was a preventative administration. One of the causes of the Great Depression was the Wall Street Crash. The SEC was created to monitor the market to prevent another collapse. They watched for insider trading and secret trading designed to increase stock value. This administration has grown weaker over the decades and no longer has the control it originally possessed.

Social Security Board (1935)

The 1935 Social Security Act created the Social Security Board. This act created a safety net for the American people. Before 1935, it was on the community or the state to provide assistance to people who needed it.

The SSB made it the federal government's responsibility to care for its citizens. The SSB managed Social Security. The elderly received a stipend, as did the blind. The unemployed, dependent children, and single mothers received assistance. This program was met with much resistance; Dr Francis Townsend believed it didn't do enough to support the elderly, and many agreed.

Fig. 3 - Doctor Francis Townsend

Alphabet Agencies: New Deal

Roosevelt's Alphabet Agencies didn't end the Great Depression, but they did assist the American people in a time of need. Many of the Alphabet Soup organisations still exist today, with the Social Security Administration being one of the most important. The New Deal legislation wouldn't have achieved what it did without the countless people who worked to keep it afloat.

Before Roosevelt created the Alphabet Agencies the Great Depression was in full force. In 1933 almost 25% of the population, around 13 million United States citizens were out of employment. One agency alone, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration had employed 20 million in total by 1935. Even in 1939, after years of the New Deal, there was still 15% unemployment, suggesting that the agencies could not completely lift the economy out of the trenches.

Only with the spending that World War II provided could the United States truly be lifted out of the Great Depression, with around 2% unemployment by 1945. The legacies of the agencies live on particularly in terms of social security, employment security and subsidies for agriculture. Perhaps the greatest impact of the New Deal was the expansion of the Federal government through these agencies and a blueprint for how to handle future economic crises.