Oakland Tech HS Talk:

“Providing America with a 'Better Deal': Teaching Johnson's Great Society."

By Sarah Gold

Time: Approx. 45 minutes (2:45–3:15)

  1. Introduction [SLIDE 1]
  2. My name is Sarah Gold, and I am a graduate student in UC Berkeley’s History Department.
  3. Today I am going to talk to you about Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program in an effort to explore how we might answer this question: “How successful were the “Great Society” programs, begun in 1964, in ending poverty, eliminating racial injustice, and improving opportunities for a better life?”
  4. (The photo on this slide, by the way, is of LBJ signing Medicare Bill in 1965.)
  5. Here’s my plan for the next 45 minutes: [SLIDE 2]
  6. I want to start off by hearing from you — how you teach the Great Society in your classrooms, and what kind of argument you develop for your students.
  7. Then, I will walk you through the process I would go through if I were answering this question — how to think about the terms of the question, what kinds of evidence to consider, and possible conclusions to make from this evidence.
  8. Finally, I will leave time at the end to answer any questions you might have — either about the content we will talk about, or about the processes involved in coming to historical conclusions.
  1. Current Methods
  2. [SLIDE 3] So let’s start off by hearing from you — How do you teach the Great Society now?
  3. What kind of argument do you develop for your students?
  4. How do you think you might answer this question? Hypotheses? Hunches?
  1. Answering the Question
  2. So now I want to start walking through the process of how I would answer this question. To begin with, I think it is important to keep the following idea in mind: [SLIDE 4]
  3. The terms of the question:
  4. What do we mean when we say the Great Society succeeded or failed?
  5. Possibilities [SLIDE 5] = Getting leg passed, Getting leg implemented, Seeing on the ground changes
  6. You don’t need to decide which is the “right” answer yet, but keeping these terms in mind will help us frame the information we learn about the Great Society, and help us decide what kind of evidence will be significant in making a final assessment.
  1. The Basic Narrative:[SLIDE 6]
  2. LYNDON B. JOHNSON
  3. VP under Kennedy
  4. When Kennedy was assassinated in Nov. 1963, LBJ took the oath of office.
  5. Reelected one year later (Nov. 1964) by an immense landslide election: [SLIDE 7] 486 electoral college votes, 44 (+DC) states
  6. Began working on Great Society programs almost as soon as he was inaugurated (Jan. 20)
  7. The Great Society was LBJ’s attempt to utilize (“cash in on”) the political capital of his landslide election, as well as the public’s sympathy & good will after JFK’s assassination
  8. ORIGINS OF THE GREAT SOCIETY
  9. Roosevelt
  10. FDR was LBJ’s mentor and his inspiration, yet LBJ’s goal = “to accomplish more even than FDR” (87) — to create a “Better Deal” for America
  11. Johnson was a liberal (in the FDR sense) who believed that gov’t could and should do everything it could to help people.
  12. His two main goals = end poverty & make life better
  13. We can see LBJ’s vision for the Great Society in the “Great Society speech” he gave at U Michigan, which is included in the packet.
  14. One publication that was extremely influential in shaping how LBJ conceived of his policies was Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962) [SLIDE 8], which revealed 40-50 million Americans living in poverty, hidden from view from the “universally prosperous 1950s” in urban slums and rural areas.
  15. Technological improvements (mechanized agriculture & industry) had helped the middle class but hurt farm laborers and unskilled workers
  16. GOALS OF GREAT SOCIETY
  17. With this context of The Other America, LBJ’s personal convictions about the role of the government, and the recent landslide election, Johnson got started on the Great Society.
  18. Goals of the Great Society were clear, and they were informed by Johnson’s political ideology.
  19. Unlike mainstream postwar liberalism, LBJ did not believe that general prosperity would help everyone — the poorest and least skilled would still be left behind. Instead, these populations needed to be targeted directly. [SLIDE 9]
  20. Another component of ideology that affected Great Society programs: gov’t should just take help people become prosperous, but also take care of “social, spiritual, and aesthetic needs of the nation” (S, 90)
  21. Creating a richer — not just better — quality of life
  22. LBJ’s Goal = build consensus behind his programs; treat all constituencies equally
  23. Did not believe that the interests of, e.g., the rich and poor (or black and white) were naturally antagonistic
  24. Genuinely believed that he was capable of forging a broad consensus and that such a consensus was paramount for getting anything done.
  25. Finally, LBJ believed that helping the poor was a smart thing to do both morally/compassionately and economically. [SLIDE 10] — Make more efficient workers, create more consumers for American products, etc. (S, 91)
  26. Thus, the Great Society was the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.
  27. COMPONENTS OF GREAT SOCIETY PROGRAMS
  28. Great Society = “The most sweeping proposal for governmental action to promote the general welfare since the New Deal” (F, 858)
  29. The Great Society offered something for everyone:
  30. Old people > health care (Medicare)
  31. Poor people > food stamps & health care (Medicaid)
  32. Unemployed people > job training
  33. Schools > new programs and facilities (federally funded)
  34. Urban cities > development (federally funded)
  35. Environmentalists > parks / preservation
  36. Commuters > better transportation
  37. Racial Minorities > civil rights (Eq. Employment Opp. Commission)
  38. Farm workers > labor standards
  39. Businesses > tax incentives
  40. Artists/Museums > financial support (NPR, Nt’l Endowment for Arts)
  41. The Great Society offered something for everyone, but with particular attention to the most unfortunate — unlike the New Deal, which had not helped racial minorities, tenant farmers, and unskilled workers.
  42. Main policy goal = End poverty
  43. When he began to propose these new programs, LBJ became obsessive about cutting down unnecessary government spending — to prevent conservatives from derailing the Great Society programs due to their cost.
  44. E.g. turned off the lights in the White House whenever it was not in use.
  45. Yet, still focused less on how to fund Great Society programs long-term, and instead on getting Congressional approval for his projects so that they would get off the ground.
  46. Became like a “chief legislator”: part of the legislative wing instead of outside of it. [SLIDE 10]
  47. One historian whose work I find really useful in understanding LBJ is Bruce J. Schulman. He says: “No president matched Johnson’s skills as chief legislator.” (S, 96)
  48. Regarding the specific legislation
  49. The textbook lists them all out [SLIDE 11], but I think it is probably more valuable (not to mention easier to grasp as a student) to focus not on the names and dates, but on the values embodied in these pieces of legislation. [SLIDE 12–17]
  1. Evidence to Consider [in assessing Great Society success]:
  2. [SLIDE 18] So now that I’ve sketched out why the Great Society began, and what kinds of programs it entailed, let’s talk about how we might assess the Great Society as a whole.
  3. As I mentioned earlier, there are three main ways to think about what whether the Great Society was successful. [SLIDE 19]
  4. I think it is easier to think about these terms re-phrasing them as questions [SLIDE 20]
  5. So let’s start with looking at how many of the Great Society programs passed through the legislature.
  6. This, after all, was how contemporaries defined the program at first. [SLIDE 21]
  7. [SLIDE 22] 1964: 58% of Johnson’s programs passed
  8. 1965: 69% of Johnson’s programs passed
  9. 1966: 56% of Johnson’s programs passed
  10. (Compare:
  11. 1957: 37% of Eisenhower’s programs passed
  12. 1963: 27% of JFK’s programs passed)
  13. This is the most productive lawmaking record in American history. (89thCongress, 1964–66)
  14. Successfully passed measures to cover the main values / ideas he was concerned with: poverty, civil rights, health, education
  15. More successful in getting liberal legislation passed than JFK or even FDR
  16. The second way to think about success is in terms of implementation [SLIDE 23]:
  17. Because remember: getting something passed through Congress does not mean it will be implemented and administered successfully…
  18. Schulman: “Johnson thought that if he could just plant the seeds for his Great Society, it would slowly but surely grow into a vast, powerful, impregnable oak. But he proved better at planting than at watering and nurturing.” (S, 99)
  19. Schulman’s take on implementation: “Johnson displayed little interest in administering the agencies he created.” (S, 102)
  20. One useful case study: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: “the marrow of LBJ’s education program” (S, 101)
  21. Goal = compensate for the lower resources of poor kids by giving them some money to make up the difference.
  22. Compromise = In order to appease local school districts (who were used to controlling their money and how it was spent), the ESEA gave local districts control over how to implement the program in their district.
  23. Thus, local districts got an allocation based on how many poor kids it enrolled—and “most districts pocketed the money and continued business-as-usual” (S, 101)
  24. Other schools spent the money of programs for all students, such as subsidizing a P.E. class, as in Camden, NJ
  25. Ultimately, the ESEA ended up helping middle income & wealthier students proportionately more than poor students!
  26. One administrator said that the greatest failure of the Great Society was its tendency to “oversell and underperform” — LBJ’s big ideas, but without the well-thought-out directives nor the money to succeed (S, 105)
  27. Finally, what about the on-the-ground effects of Great Society programs?
  28. Some programs were successful—this is illustrated nicely by the Joseph Califano, Jr. essay in the packet. (Califano was an advisor to LBJ.)
  29. As this essay demonstrates, numerically speaking, many people participated in Great Society programs.
  30. Some programs, however, were less effective than LBJ had hoped.
  31. The Great Society program with the highest expectations—and then the biggest disappointment when it was put into effect—was the War on Poverty.
  32. One good examples is the Job Corps — took poor/uneducated young people (men, mostly) and trained them with some of the most successful corporations in the country.
  33. Yet although Job Corps had tons of applicants (300,000 for 10,000 slots in 1965, the program’s first year), its impact was low: graduates earned approx. the same income before as after they finished the program, and nearly 30% remained unemployed.
  1. Assessing its Success: [SLIDE 24]
  2. After weighing all this evidence, it seems to me that the answer is clear: The Great Society was not entirely successful in achieving its stated goals. [SLIDE 25] Although it may indeed have been successful at getting legislation through Congress, if we asses the Great Society for its ability to alleviate poverty and end racial discrimination — that is, actually get the legislation implemented — we see it was as not successful as Johnson had desired. [SLIDE 26]
  3. Why did it not succeed? [SLIDE 27]
  4. Previously mentioned weaknesses: LBJ’s failure to administer the programs, unexpected ways in which the federal funds would be utilized or manipulated by their recipients, clashes between local and federal power, etc.
  5. Califano himself admits that there were mistakes—enacting laws, he realized, were not ends in themselves (S, 205)
  6. Ideology:
  7. LBJ’s Ideology:
  8. What causes poverty? LBJ’s answer was a lack of skills, “proper attitudes,” and work habits. Fix these and you could end poverty!
  9. Compare this to the postwar liberalism of the 1950s, in which Democrats had argued that poverty was caused by “an imbalance of economic power and flawed economic institutions” (860) (F) — That is, uplift or balance the economy as a whole, and everyone will benefit!
  10. As such, historian Eric foner argues that the Great Society programs did nor “consider the most direct ways of eliminating poverty—guaranteeing an annual income for all Americans, creating jobs for the unemployed, promoting the spread of unionization, or making it more difficult for businesses to shift production to the low-wage South or overseas.” (F, 860)
  11. Thus, with the exception of food stamps (one of the most popular and successful components of Great Society), the Great Society focused on uplifting peoples’ skills and spirits rather than attacking poverty directly — ex. Job training, Head Start, legal services, scholarships, a domestic peace corps (VISTA)
  12. So, if you were someone of who held different beliefs about poverty than Johnson—someone of the more traditional postwar liberal perspective—you could argue that Johnson failed because his programs did not go about attacking poverty in the “right” way.
  13. This critique is particularly evident in two sources in your packet: Reagan’s speech, and George Gilder’s essay from 1981.
  14. Conservatives attacked the Great Society as a waste of government money. Reagan was particularly vehement on this point, arguing that Great Society programs were paternalistic and that they trapped the poor in a cycle of poverty and dependence.
  15. The Cost:
  16. The cost of a two-front war in Vietnam took away from Great Society.
  17. Schulman: Johnson was ambitious, and determined to do it on the cheap. But “this would prove an impossible feat, especially when he determined to fight a major war in Vietnam at the same time.” (92)
  18. This is probably the best encapsulation of how Johnson viewed the failure of the Great Society. And the language he used is really revealing: it is extremely gendered! [SLIDE 28 / 29]
  19. Compromise
  20. Ultimately, historian Bruce Schulman comes down on the side of compromise. [SLIDE 30]
  21. Schulman: “Ultimately, Johnsonian liberalism proved too timid to challenge the powers that be. Johnson could not, would not, see that the interests of rich and poor, business and labor, must sometimes collide; he could not win everyone’s cooperation without compromising in the effectiveness of his programs.” (107)
  22. Here is the key phrase: [SLIDE 31]
  23. So, who should be blamed for the Great Society’s lack of success? [SLIDE 32] There are many possibilities.
  24. Presidential aides? — for not supporting LBJ properly?
  25. Congressional Republicans? — for forcing compromise
  26. Nixon? — for neglecting to continue the program as LBJ envisioned
  27. Local politicians / communities — for stymying implementation
  28. Individual poor people — for not taking advantage of what the gov’t gave them?
  29. Ultimately, Schulman blames LBJ himself — For underestimating the cost of a two-front war in Vietnam, and how much money the war would take away from Great Society; and for not anticipating how racial backlash would undermine his liberal program.
  30. To the first: “Eventually, he had to scale back the Great Society to fight the war that took up more and more of his time and energy.” (S, 108)
  31. To the second: Some whites people believed that Johnson was lavishing too much money and attention on black people—even though most of the Great Society programs mainly benefitted whites! His talk of poverty eradication and civil rights caused a backlash by middle-class whites, dramatically undermining LBJ’s support among traditional Democratic demographics: blue-collar white ethnics from the Midwest and Northeast. (Remember: the white South had already been lost with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.) Schulman calls this “the insidious political current that would further undermine LBJ’s liberal program.” (108)
  32. However, I think it is of course important to also blame the racist people who held these beliefs—not just Johnson!
  1. Questions [SLIDE 33]

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