Analysis Question on The Great Society – American History

1.) President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Lyndon B. Johnson were inaugurated into office served with a platter of issues and tribulations. Both attempted to assist constructively through a series of programs. Roosevelt’s New Deal was created to provide ’relief, recovery, and reform’ to help ease the effects of the Great Depression, and to a great extent, Johnson’s domestic program, the Great Society, reflected many of the aims of the New Deal since they both were created to mend society while dealing with the issues at hand, such as the overwhelming poverty and unemployment rates, at the expense of the national deficit and inevitable cynicism from critics.

The origins of the New Deal and Great Society were similar in that they were created to address the popular topics, however many of these ‘topics’ were different. Ultimately, the New Deal was formed to deal with the Great Depression brought about by the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Meanwhile, the Great Society had many origins. First, Johnson had to deal with Kennedy’s death and what ideas and plans he had left unfinished. In his inaugural address Johnson stated that Kennedy pursued, “education for all of our children,” “ jobs for all who seek them,” “care for our elderly,” and “equal rights for all Americans whatever their race or color” (Patterson 524). Johnson was ready to handle rising expectations through his domestic program. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Johnson had to deal with other desires and goals of African Americans. Furthermore, Johnson would equate himself to Abraham Lincoln and FDR; so, he was bound to create a program similar to FDR’s New Deal. Similar to the origins of the New Deal, Johnson had to address the increased unemployment and poverty rates. One factor juxtapose with the aforementioned is Michael Harrington‘s The Other America (1962) which stated that 25% (approximately 40 million) of American people were living in poverty; and even more African Americans (Patterson 537). Some of the other causes of poverty was that industrial jobs were leaving, while skilled jobs were replacing them. During the Great Depression (1934), more than 9 million people were without work and hundreds of thousands of them were in real need of one (Garraty 744). Basically, FDR and Johnson both pursued domestic policies to hinder unemployment and poverty; while Johnson also had to deal with other important issues such as the rising expectations of Americans after Kennedy’s death.