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The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
Japanese Americans stand in a line next to a train car, as U.S. military look on

The New Deal's Dark Underbelly

David Beito has penned one of the most damning scholarly histories of FDR to date.
Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Voices from the Wilderness

The actual history of New Deal policies provides little evidence that it was a rollicking success.
FDR's cabinet and descendants

The Unusual Group Trying to Turn Biden into FDR

In a city of ambitious influencers, a shadow cabinet hopes it can summon a new New Deal.
Chemical plant worker

Where Would We Be Without the New Deal?

A new history charts the forgotten ways the social politics of the Roosevelt years transformed the United States.
FDR with eyes crossed out with red line

Is It Time to Cancel FDR?

Today’s progressives are children of the old Republican Party, not the New Deal Democrats. Roosevelt and his followers stood for nearly everything they oppose.
President Franklin Roosevelt
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A Stronger Welfare State Is the Key to Saving Democracy From Extremism

Democrats’ policies aim to address societal problems to make fascism and socialism less attractive.

The Real History of Race and the New Deal

Material benefits trumped FDR's terrible civil rights records.
Frances Perkins on a ship, wearing a winter coat and gloves.
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Frances Perkins: Architect of the New Deal

She designed Social Security and public works programs that helped bring millions out of poverty. Her work has been largely forgotten.
A political cartoon

The New Deal and Recovery

The first in a series of posts to offer evidence casting doubt on the view that New Deal programs ended the Great Depression.

The Lessons of the Great Depression

In the 1930s, Americans responded to economic calamity by creating a richer and more equitable society. We can do it again.

FDR’s New Deal Worked. We Need Another One.

Claims that the programs adopted in the 1930s lengthened the Great Depression don’t hold up.

Fear and Loathing of the Green New Deal

What the backlash to the emergency legislation reveals about the age-old pathologies of the right.

The New Deal Wasn’t What You Think

If we are going to fund a Green New Deal, we need to acknowledge how the original actually worked.

The Bitter Origins of the Fight Over Big Government

What the battle between Herbert Hoover and FDR can teach us.
Franklin Roosevelt on the campaign trail.
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The Left is Pushing Democrats to Embrace Their Greatest President. It’s a Good Thing.

Democrats should proudly trumpet the New Deal — and extend it.

The Republican Tax Bill Is a Poison Pill That Kills the New Deal

Today’s Republicans would have fit right into Herbert Hoover’s administration.

Why Did White Workers Leave the Democratic Party?

Historian Judith Stein debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.
Hallie Flanagan

On Hallie Flanagan

A woman killed by Congress.
Political cartoon depicts Roosevelt steering a ship out of a depression while his detractors are rained on.

Welcoming Their Hatred

As Elon Musk and Donald Trump engaged in a campaign of mutually-assured destruction, social media saw record new levels of schadenfreude.
Workmen clearing cobwebs from exterior of the White House, c. 1920.
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How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Free Trader

A little understood part of the New Deal.
Social security administration seal.

Social Security Is Not a Ponzi Scheme

Today’s attacks are just the latest form of backlash to the New Deal.
A man in a suit with angel wings clipped to his back, tipping a hat with six different arms.

The Cult of the Entrepreneur

Why do Americans idealize people who found businesses?
The Griffith Observatory, constructed by the Works Progress Administration, on a hill overlooking Los Angeles.

A New Deal for Architecture

What it conveys is quite specific: grandeur, beauty, dynamism, and power.
President Roosevelt signs the proclamation naming December 15 as Bill of Rights Day.

The Reinvention of the Bill of Rights

The New Deal-era creation of “Bill of Rights Day” obscures the real nature and guardrails of American liberty.
The edges of two credit cards, prominently displaying the MasterCard and Visa logos.

Our Plastic Obsession

The story of credit cards is the story of industry versus regulators. Industry won.
Angela Davis standing at podium, speaking at Communist Party USA event.

How and Why American Communism Failed

Plus: One historian’s about-face on the Communist record.
People seated at town hall meeting.

What We Get Wrong About White Workers

Deindustrialization has helped create a right-wing turn in many Midwestern towns. Long traditions of labor militancy can explain why it hasn’t in others.
Cover of "A Great Disorder."

In Need of a New Myth

Myths to explain American history and chart a path to the future once helped to bind the country together. Today, they are absorbed into the culture wars.

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