The New Deal on CLEP US History II: the era that reshapes American politics

The New Deal accounts for roughly 12 to 15 percent of the CLEP US History II exam (about 15 to 18 questions out of 120), more than any other single political program in 20th-century US history. The questions cluster around three themes: the alphabet agencies of the First and Second New Deals, the political realignment that built the modern Democratic coalition, and the 1937 constitutional crisis when Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court.

For the broader study sequencing, see the CLEP US History II 30-hour study plan and the CLEP US History II pillar guide.

Why the New Deal is heavily tested

The New Deal sits at the structural turn of 20th-century American history. Almost every later policy debate (welfare state, federal regulation, executive power, civil rights through federal action) traces back to it. The exam tests recognition of the named programs, but also tests cause-and-effect: why the New Deal happened, what it changed, and how it shaped what came next.

When I took CLEP US History II, more questions touched the New Deal than I expected. Some asked about specific alphabet agencies; others asked about the political realignment ("Why did African American voters shift from Republican to Democratic in the 1930s?"); others asked about constitutional debates ("What was the significance of Schechter v United States?"). The reading lists in most prep books under-cover the third category.

Setting the stage: the 1929 crash and Hoover's response (1929-1933)

The 1929 stock market crash and the Depression that followed had structural causes the exam tests:

• Overproduction: 1920s manufacturing capacity exceeded consumer demand even at peak employment
• Wealth concentration: the top 1 percent of households owned over 30 percent of the wealth, limiting consumer purchasing power
• Banking fragility: the 1920s banking system had thousands of small under-capitalized banks with no federal deposit insurance
• Easy credit and stock speculation: margin buying on as little as 10 percent down meant a 10 percent stock drop could wipe out an investor
• Agricultural overproduction: World War I had inflated farm prices; postwar return to normal production caused chronic farm distress through the 1920s

Hoover's response (1929-1933):

• Initial belief that the economy would self-correct
• The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) lent to banks and railroads, the largest peacetime federal intervention to that point
• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930) raised import duties, deepening the global trade contraction
• The Bonus Army (1932): 17,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding early bonus payment; Hoover ordered MacArthur to clear the camp, severely damaging Hoover's public standing

By the 1932 election, unemployment exceeded 25 percent and bank failures had wiped out depositors' savings. Roosevelt won by a landslide.

The First New Deal (1933-1934): emergency relief

Roosevelt's first 100 days are heavily tested. The named programs:

Program	Year	What it did
Emergency Banking Act	1933	Closed banks, then reopened solvent ones with federal backing. Stopped the bank runs.
Glass-Steagall Act	1933	Separated commercial from investment banking; created the FDIC (federal deposit insurance)
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)	1933	Direct cash relief to states for distribution to the unemployed
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)	1933	Employed young men on public-lands projects; ~3 million served
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)	1933	Paid farmers to reduce crop production to raise prices; struck down by SCOTUS in 1936
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)	1933	Federal authority for electricity, flood control, and economic development in the Tennessee River basin
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)	1933	Codes of fair competition across industries; struck down by SCOTUS in 1935 (Schechter case)
Public Works Administration (PWA)	1933	Large-scale infrastructure projects (dams, schools, hospitals)
Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC)	1933	Refinanced home mortgages to prevent foreclosure
Securities Act / Securities Exchange Act	1933-1934	Created federal regulation of stock issuance; SEC established (1934)

Two of these programs (NIRA in 1935 and AAA in 1936) were struck down by the Supreme Court, which set up the constitutional crisis of 1937.

The Second New Deal (1935-1936): structural reform

After the First New Deal stabilized the immediate crisis, the Second New Deal aimed at longer-term structural reform:

Program	Year	What it did
Works Progress Administration (WPA)	1935	Largest employment program; employed over 8 million Americans on construction, arts, and writing projects
National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)	1935	Federally protected workers' right to organize and collectively bargain; created the NLRB
Social Security Act	1935	Old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, aid to dependent children, federal grants to states for health programs
Resettlement Administration	1935	Aided sharecroppers and tenant farmers displaced by the AAA
Banking Act of 1935	1935	Strengthened the Federal Reserve's authority over national monetary policy
Rural Electrification Administration (REA)	1935	Brought electricity to rural areas (only 11 percent of farms had electricity in 1935)
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)	1938	Minimum wage (25 cents/hour initially) and 40-hour workweek; abolished child labor in interstate commerce

The Wagner Act and Social Security Act are particularly heavily tested. Both reshape American labor and welfare policy permanently.

The 1937 court-packing crisis

The Supreme Court had struck down major New Deal programs (NIRA in 1935, AAA in 1936, the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act in 1936). Roosevelt, fresh off a 1936 landslide re-election, proposed the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which would have allowed the President to appoint an additional Supreme Court justice for every justice over age 70 (potentially adding 6 new justices).

The plan failed politically:

• Congressional Democrats split; the bill never came to a vote
• Roosevelt lost significant political capital
• The court itself shifted: Justice Roberts began voting with the New Deal majority in West Coast Hotel Co. v Parrish (1937), the "switch in time that saved nine"
• The court began upholding subsequent New Deal legislation, including Social Security (Helvering v Davis, 1937) and the Wagner Act (NLRB v Jones & Laughlin Steel, 1937)

The constitutional crisis is heavily tested as the moment that established modern federal regulatory authority. Specific cases to recognize:

• Schechter Poultry Corp. v United States (1935): struck down NIRA
• United States v Butler (1936): struck down the original AAA
• West Coast Hotel Co. v Parrish (1937): upheld a state minimum wage law, signaling the court's shift
• NLRB v Jones & Laughlin Steel (1937): upheld the Wagner Act, validating federal labor regulation
• Helvering v Davis (1937): upheld the Social Security Act

The political realignment

The New Deal reshaped American political coalitions for the next 30+ years. Key shifts the exam tests:

African American voters: shifted from Republican (the "party of Lincoln") to Democratic between 1932 and 1936. By the 1936 election, the majority of African American voters in Northern cities voted Democratic, a coalition that would harden through the civil rights era. The shift accelerated through the 1960s with the Voting Rights Act.

Urban working-class voters and recent immigrants: solidly Democratic by 1936, anchored by the Wagner Act's pro-labor stance, the WPA's urban employment, and the Catholic-friendly tone of Roosevelt's coalition.

The South: remained Democratic through the New Deal era (the legacy of Civil War and Reconstruction), but the addition of African American voters in the North began the strain that would break the Democratic coalition in 1964-1968.

Farmers: shifted toward Democratic via the AAA (price supports) and the REA (rural electrification), though regional variation persisted.

The coalition Roosevelt assembled (the "New Deal coalition": Northern urban workers, immigrants, African Americans, farmers, Catholics, intellectuals, white Southern voters) was the dominant force in American politics through the 1964 election.

What the exam will NOT ask

To save study time:

• Detailed economic data (specific unemployment percentages by year, specific GDP figures)
• Roosevelt's personal life (polio, marriage, Hyde Park)
• The 1932 Democratic convention details
• The specific membership of the Cabinet
• Detailed mid-Depression music, film, or pop culture (these come up in later questions on the era as cultural reference, but not as content)

The exam tests cause-and-effect, named programs, named cases, and political-realignment outcomes. Time spent on personal biography or cultural minutiae doesn't return exam points.

Memorization sequence

A 90-minute drill that locks in the New Deal:

1. Minutes 0 to 20: write the alphabet agencies (CCC, AAA, TVA, NIRA, PWA, FERA, HOLC) from memory with year and one-line scope.
2. Minutes 20 to 35: write the Second New Deal programs (WPA, Wagner Act, Social Security Act, FLSA) from memory with year and key effect.
3. Minutes 35 to 50: write the five named Supreme Court cases (Schechter, Butler, West Coast Hotel, Jones & Laughlin Steel, Helvering) from memory with year and what each held.
4. Minutes 50 to 70: write the political realignment shifts (African American, urban-working-class, farmers, the South) from memory.
5. Minutes 70 to 90: take 20 practice questions on the New Deal. Review every wrong answer against the textbook.

Done over 3 to 4 sessions across a week, this drill is sufficient to lock in the New Deal questions cold.