Undergraduate Course: Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (HIST10113)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course investigates the political responses to the social and economic challenges of the Great Depression in the United States. In tackling the Depression's problems, Franklin Roosevelt and the Roosevelt administration developed innovative policies that transformed the role of the federal government. The course assesses the New Deal's shorter-term success in finding solutions to the Great Depression, as well as its longer-term impact on American politics and society. |
| Course description |
The course begins by investigating the causes of the Great Depression and by examining the rise of Franklin Roosevelt to political prominence. It then investigates the ways in which the Democratic administration sought to deal with the crisis through the regulation of business and agriculture and through the promotion of economic development. The course assesses the results of the New Deal's reform-oriented impulse by looking at the emergence of an American welfare state in the 1930s and at the creation of new governmental protections for organised labour. There is an analysis of Roosevelt's successful mobilisation of electoral majorities for the Democratic party, together with coverage of the radical criticisms that the New Deal faced and of the fortunes of America's minority groups under the New Deal. As far as political institutions are concerned, the course looks at the changing roles of the Supreme Court and of state and local governments. Finally, the course reviews themes concerning the long-range impact both of the New Deal and of Roosevelt himself on the United States. From year to year, the course may examine different aspects of the New Deal which are relevant to the course's larger interest in the response of the American government under Franklin Roosevelt to the varied problems of the Great Depression.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Personal Tutors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Secretary to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 503783). |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, command of the body of knowledge considered in the course;
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship;
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material;
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, the ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence;
- Demonstrate independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
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Reading List
Anthony J. Badger, The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-40 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989)
Ronald Edsforth, The New Deal: America¿s Response to the Great Depression (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000)
Alonzo L. Hamby, For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s (New York: Free Press, 2004)
David E. Hamilton, ed., The New Deal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
Michael A. Hiltzik, The New Deal: A Modern History (New York: Free Press, 2011)
Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (New York: Liveright, 2013)
David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929¿1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)
Alan Lawson, A Commonwealth of Hope: The New Deal Response to Crisis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)
William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932¿1940 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963)
Robert S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929¿1941 (New York: Times Books, 1993)
Jason Scott Smith, A Concise History of the New Deal (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Allan M. Winkler, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Robert Mason
Tel: (0131 6)50 3770
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Marie-Therese Talensby
Tel: (0131 6)50 3780
Email: |
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