page_title: New Deal
section_title: NRA "Blue Eagle" campaign
hierarchical_section_title: New Deal / First New Deal (1933–1934) / Recovery / NRA "Blue Eagle" campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: NRA (National Recovery Administration) member: We Do Our Part
context_page_description: The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. It responded to needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the Great Depression. Major federal programs and agencies included the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Civil Works Administration, the Farm Security Administration, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Social Security Administration. They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly. The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  The programs focused on what historians refer to as the "3 Rs": relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.
context_section_description: From 1929 to 1933, the industrial economy suffered from a vicious cycle of deflation. Since 1931, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the voice of the nation's organized business, promoted an anti-deflationary scheme that would permit trade associations to cooperate in government-instigated cartels to stabilize prices within their industries. While existing antitrust laws clearly forbade such practices, organized business found a receptive ear in the Roosevelt Administration.
  Roosevelt's advisers believed that excessive competition and technical progress had led to overproduction and lowered wages and prices, which they believed lowered demand and employment (deflation). He argued that government economic planning was necessary to remedy this. New Deal economists argued that cut-throat competition had hurt many businesses and that with prices having fallen 20% and more, "deflation" exacerbated the burden of debt and would delay recovery. They rejected a strong move in Congress to limit the workweek to 30 hours. Instead their remedy, designed in cooperation with big business, was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). It included stimulus funds for the WPA to spend and sought to raise prices, give more bargaining power for unions (so the workers could purchase more) and reduce harmful competition.
  At the center of the NIRA was the National Recovery Administration (NRA), headed by former General Hugh S. Johnson, who had been a senior economic official in World War I. Johnson called on every business establishment in the nation to accept a stopgap "blanket code": a minimum wage of between 20 and 45 cents per hour, a maximum workweek of 35–45 hours and the abolition of child labor. Johnson and Roosevelt contended that the "blanket code" would raise consumer purchasing power and increase employment. To mobilize political support for the NRA, Johnson launched the "NRA Blue Eagle" publicity campaign to boost what he called "industrial self-government". The NRA brought together leaders in each industry to design specific sets of codes for that industry—the most important provisions were anti-deflationary floors below which no company would lower prices or wages and agreements on maintaining employment and production. In a remarkably short time, the NRA announced agreements from almost every major industry in the nation. By March 1934, industrial production was 45% higher than in March 1933.
  NRA Administrator Hugh Johnson was showing signs of mental breakdown due to the extreme pressure and workload of running the National Recovery Administration. After two meetings with Roosevelt and an abortive resignation attempt, Johnson resigned on September 24, 1934 and Roosevelt replaced the position of Administrator with a new National Industrial Recovery Board, of which Donald Richberg was named Executive Director.
  On May 27, 1935, the NRA was found to be unconstitutional by a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Schechter v. United States. After the end of the NRA, quotas in the oil industry were fixed by the Railroad Commission of Texas with Tom Connally's federal Hot Oil Act of 1935, which guaranteed that illegal "hot oil" would not be sold. By the time NRA ended in May 1935, well over 2 million employers accepted the new standards laid down by the NRA, which had introduced a minimum wage and an eight-hour workday, together with abolishing child labor. These standards were reintroduced by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
caption: National Recovery Administration Blue Eagle
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