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Discussion Questions:

1.) When historians tell the story of the Great Depression, they typically point to the stock market crash of 1929 as the igniting event that led to the calamitous implosion of the American economy.

*How did this human-made disaster reinforce the Progressives critique of Hoover and Republicans laissez-faire approach to economic management?

*How did Hoovers tepid response to the disaster reinforce Progressives critique of Hoover and the Republicans belief in small and limited government?

2)Remember that the politics of welfare states around the world generally revolve around the fundamental conflict in capitalist systems between the interests of Capital (i.e. business) and Labor (i.e. the workers). With that in mind, consider the following political questions:
~With the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the passage of his landmark New Deal legislation, how did the Democratic and Republican Parties align themselves?

~Now, with the parties more fully identified with each side of the class struggle, what was the one big problematic contradiction at the heart of the Democratic Party in this era? (think about the historical roots of each party and think about a particular region of the country)?

~How did this contradiction at the heart of the Democratic Party impact New Deal legislation? (i.e. how did it limit what Roosevelt was able to accomplish?)