> "For 70 years there has been a holy creed--spread by academia until > accepted by media and most Americans--that Franklin D. Roosevelt cured the > Great Depression. The belief spurred the growth of modern liberalism; > conservatives are still on the defensive where modern historians are > concerned." > > Thomas Sowell said that for half a century it has been a well known fact > that FDR got us out of the depression. > > I know that this is not a history list, but does anyone know of any books > or articles that actually make these claims? Were there college or high > school history texts at one time that said this? Has anyone done an > opinion poll on this? Like, what percent of Americans today believe that > the New Deal ended the Great Depression?
I was in junior high and high school in the 1980s. Not only was I taught that FDR cured the Depression; I was taught that the technological innovations and economic growth of the 1920s *CAUSED* the Depression. The "story" used to illustrate the point was that in the 1920s, products like refrigerators and cars and so on became widely available and affordable, so lots of people bought them lost of people had jobs in factories making them. By the 1930s (so the story went), most people already had these things, and they weren't breaking fast enough, so there was nobody left to buy these things and the factories making them closed and people lost their jobs. (There was also some mention of the Dust Bowl.) As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.... I am embarrassed to say that when I first read that theory, it actually sort of made sense to me. --Robert
