Name: Ashton Seip

Subject: US History

Period: 2nd

Date: June 30, 2009- Tuesday

Approximate Time: 50 minutes

Hoover vs. FDR

Objectives:

  1. TSW compare and contrast the presidencies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (DOK 2, US History, 4.a)

Materials:

Books, handouts, overhead, construction paper, colored pencils.

Do Now:

What is your favorite food? Write two complete sentences describing why it’s your favorite food.

Set:

TTW ask the student to tell me her favorite food. TTW ask the student to convince the teacher that her favorite food is the best food in the world. Why is her favorite food better than another student’s favorite food? What makes her favorite food more desirable than someone else’s favorite food? We just compared your favorite food to someone else’s favorite food. You told me why your favorite food is the best and better than anyone else’s choice. Today, we will be comparing and contrasting the presidencies of Hoover and FDR. You will read about each of them and have an opportunity to decide for yourself which president was better.

Procedures:

  1. Do Now. (3 min.)
  2. Set. (4 min.)
  3. TTW introduce the topic (2 min).
  4. TSW read the passage on Herbert Hoover and answer the questions (9 min).
  5. TTW review the student’s answers to the questions (2 min).
  6. TSW read the passage on FDR and answer the questions (7 min).
  7. TTW review the student’s answers to the questions (2 min).
  8. TSW complete the Venn diagram using the answers to the previous questions (6 min).
  9. TTW review the Venn diagram with the students (2 min).
  10. TSW create a poster convincing the teacher and fellow classmates which president was better (11 min).
  11. TSW present her poster to the class and explain why she thinks her selected president was better (4min).
  12. Close (2 min).

Closure:

TTW ask questions to review the lesson and then preview the next lesson.

Assessment/Evaluation:

Informal: TTW ask the student questions to check for comprehension.

Formal: TSW compare and contrast the presidencies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt on a Venn Diagram that the teacher will collect for a daily grade.

Name: ______Date: ______Class:______

THE FEARLESS LEADER: HOOVER, PRESIDENT DURING THE DEPRESSION

Directions: Read the following passage about President Hoover. Answer the questions at the end of the passage.

“President Herbert Hoover”

Herbert Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harding from 1920-1923. When Harding died during his term as president, Hoover worked under President Calvin Coolidge.

Coolidge decided that he did not want to seek another term as the president. At this point, Hoover was asked to run for president. His opponent in the election was Alfred Smith. Both candidates agreed on the need for child welfare reform, business practices, and the prison system. Their major differences were their views on farm policies and prohibition (a legal ban on the sale of alcohol).

Smith believed in fixing farm prices and sending any surplus (extras) overseas. This allowed the government to control pricing. Smith believed that prohibition needed to be repealed. Hoover felt that prohibition was necessary. Hoover did not believe in questioning the laws. He felt he would rather enforce the laws that were in place. After a long battle, Hoover was elected as the 31st president. In fact, he was elected by the largest majority to date at that time.

Hoover wanted to make a difference. The first thing he did to make a change was to give his presidential pay to charity. He did not feel it was right to accept money for public service. Even after the presidency, he would give away any money that was received for public services.

Hoover became president at a time when the stock market was booming. People were finding any way they could to buy stocks. Some people were borrowing money and others were buying stocks with a little bit of money and promising to pay the rest when the stock made a profit.

Hoover felt it was dangerous to spend this much money on the stock market. Even the banks were getting involved in the stock market. They were taking money people put into the bank and using it to buy stocks. Hoover could not do anything about that because at the time there were no laws to stop them. All this activity caused the stock market to continue to rise.

Hoover had numerous problems with farmers in America. The farmers felt it should be government responsibility to regulate crop prices and buy the farmers crop surplus. Hoover did not agree with this at all. Instead of controlling the farm industry, he wanted to help farmers run their businesses.

This prompted Congress to pass the Agricultural Marketing Act and create the Federal Farm Board. These things were there to help farmers learn to market themselves. They were also there to ensure stable and favorable prices for the crops. Finally, tariffs (taxes) were placed on agricultural products to protect from lower priced products coming from overseas.

Seven months into Hoover's presidential term the stock market crashed. Hoover did not believe this event would keep the country down for long. However, the country was facing the worst Depression they had ever had. Many people lost their homes and could not feed their families. Hoover wanted to work with businesses and country leaders to rebuild the economy.

Things started looking up for a brief while but by the summer of 1930, a drought ruined it all. This drought made one million farmers lose all their crops. Hoover was working with states and cities to provide volunteer assistance. He wanted people to volunteer their time. If they chose to do so then they would receive money. This would be just like if they were working.

Many people felt it was the president's job to offer aid directly from the government. Hoover thought it was necessary that the people help themselves without receiving handouts. This caused him to pass on the idea of federal public aid. Hoover believed federal aid would give people the impression that the country would never recover. However, not allowing this aid to the starving citizens of the country made him a very unpopular president.

By 1932, the president did not have a choice about whether he should give out federal aid or not. The Depression was at the lowest point it had ever been. 12 million people were out of work. 18 million people were receiving federal aid because they could not afford to take care of their families.

The year of 1932 was a presidential election year. The race would be against Herbert Hoover and an ambitious Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Hoover's campaign focused on what he had done in the last four years. Hoover had managed to accomplish more than many of the other presidents before him. He added 5 million acres of national forests, reorganized the airmail situation, and worked to create a Children's Charter to ensure all children of every race were taken care of.

He also created several reforms to help small businesses and homeowners. He even elected three new judges to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, Justices Owen Roberts, and Justice Benjamin Cardozo were all elected under Hoover.

Roosevelt on the other hand was willing to offer the public something new. He knew they were tired of the Depression. He wanted to help get them out of it. His solution was something known as The New Deal. This was Roosevelt’s plan to get the country back in order. This plan was all it took to convince the United States to vote for him. Roosevelt beat Hoover in the election of 1932.

Name: ______Date: ______Class:______

THE FEARLESS LEADER: HOOVER, PRESIDENT DURING THE DEPRESSION

Directions: Using the passage that you just read, answer the following questions on a separate sheet of notebook paper in your own words. Answers do not have to be in complete sentences.

  1. When was Herbert Hoover President?
  2. What was the first thing Hoover did as President?
  3. Did Hoover like the stock market? Why or why not?
  4. How did Hoover want to help the farmers?
  5. Did Hoover believe in giving out handouts? Why or why not?
  6. How many people were out of work during the Great Depression?
  7. Who ran against Hoover for President in 1932?
  8. What did Hoover’s campaign focus on?
  9. Who won the Election of 1932? Why?

Name: ______Date: ______Class:______

A NEW DAY, A NEW DEAL: ROOSEVELT, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT

Directions: Read the following passage about President Hoover. Answer the questions at the end of the passage.

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York.

He attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School and became a lawyer. When he entered politics he was a member of the Democratic Party. In 1910, he was elected to the Senate and the President, Woodrow Wilson, appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was the Democrat’s nominee for vice-president in 1920.

In 1921, at the age of 39, he came down with a disease called polio and was unable to walk. Roosevelt was determined to be able to use his legs again and he used swimming as a way to help him use his legs again. He was so determined to walk, but he also remained interested in politics. In 1928, he was elected the governor of New

York.

In 1932, he was elected President of the United States during the Great Depression. Thousands of people were out of work and the banks were closed. In his first one hundred days in office he brought in laws to try to help people recover from the stock market crash of 1929, bring relief to those people who had no jobs and to try to help people that were in danger of losing their homes and farms. He called it the New Deal.

By 1935, there were some signs that the country was starting to recover, but a lot of business people were against Roosevelt’s policies. They were afraid of what he was trying to do and were angry that he had allowed the country to fall into debt. They also disliked the things he did to help people in the labor industry. Roosevelt then came up with a new plan – Social Security. He placed more taxes on the rich people, placed new controls on banks and came up with a work relief plan for the people who had no jobs.

When he was re-elected in 1936, he started to make the Supreme

Court larger. Even though this didn’t happen, measures were brought in that allowed the government to regulate the economy of the country. He pledged that the United States would be a good neighbor and changed the Monroe Doctrine, the law of another president, so that the United States could go to war if the country was attacked. He kept the country neutral during the early part of the Second World War by sending supplies to Britain and France, but no troops. That all changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Roosevelt declared war on Japan.

Roosevelt was the president of the United States all through the

Second World War and met several times with Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Britain. Roosevelt played a very important part in the development of the United Nations. He hoped that this organization would be the way any future problems between countries would be settled rather than through wars.

Roosevelt spent much of his life in a wheelchair due to the polio. He became very ill as the war was almost over and died on April 12,

1945.

Name: ______Date: ______Class:______

A NEW DAY, A NEW DEAL: ROOSEVELT, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT

Directions: Using the passage that you just read, answer the following questions on a separate sheet of notebook paper in your own words. Answers do not have to be in complete sentences.

  1. When was Roosevelt elected president?
  2. What did he accomplish in his first 100 days as president?
  3. Roosevelt created a plan to help those struggling during the Great Depression. What was that plan called?
  4. Did businesses like Roosevelt’s policies? Why or why not?
  5. What was Roosevelt’s new plan? What did it do?
  6. Was the United States neutral during World War II? Why or why not?
  7. What international organization did Roosevelt help develop? Why was this organization important?

Name: ______Date: ______Class:______

MAKING CONNECTIONS: HOOVER VS. ROOSEVELT

VEN DIAGRAM AND PERSUASIVE POSTER

Directions, Part I: Using the answers to the questions that you just answered about Hoover and Roosevelt, complete the VENN diagram. Write at least two complete sentences in each section.

Directions, Part II: After you have completed your VENN diagram, think about each president: how did each help the United States?, what kinds of programs did each implement to help the economy?, in your opinion, what did each president do that was good?, in your opinion, what did each president do that was bad? Why?

Now, you must convince me, the teacher, who was the better president: Hoover or Roosevelt. Using the materials provided by your teacher, create a poster that will persuade your teacher and your classmates that Hoover/Roosevelt was the better president. Your poster must include at least three facts about the president you chose AND state why you think he was the better president.