The New Deal: Relief, Institutions & Constitutional Debate — Drills · Grade 11 Social Studies
Chapter: The 1920s, Depression & New DealWhat these drills covers
By the end of The New Deal: Relief, Institutions & Constitutional Debate you should be able to:
- I can separate relief, recovery, and reform.
- I can explain a historical connection using relevant evidence and qualify the conclusion.
4 questions, written answer, each with a worked explanation.
Vocabulary used: context, evidence, interpretation, relief, recovery.
Problem 1
Answer and explanation
The same project can supply short-term employment, increase spending, and build durable infrastructure. Classifying a project as relief or recovery is a way to identify a mechanism rather than a rule that each measure fits only one box. Explain which evidence would assess each function separately.
Problem 2
Answer and explanation
The original retirement system, unemployment arrangements, and public assistance provisions did not have identical coverage. Agricultural and domestic-work exclusions from covered employment had unequal effects. Do not describe them as a statute explicitly excluding all Black people or all women, or assume later coverage was unchanged.
Problem 3
Answer and explanation
Supreme Court challenges concerned particular programs and sources of federal authority. Roosevelt’s 1937 court-expansion proposal was not adopted as proposed; disagreement about institutional independence accompanied policy debate. A decision invalidating one measure did not invalidate the whole New Deal.
Problem 4
Answer and explanation
Employment, output, security, rights, and administrative capacity can change at different rates. Compare gains and limits using the same criteria. A lasting institution can be important even if it did not end the downturn by itself, while partial recovery does not prove every program worked equally well.