who was the director of the agricultural adjustment act
Agricultural Adjustment Act When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression.[8] "Farmers faced the most severe economic situation and lowest agricultural prices since the 1890s."[8] "Overproduction and a shrinking international market had driven down agricultural prices."[9] Soon after his inauguration, Roosevelt called the Hundred Days Congress into session to address the crumbling economy.[9] From this Congress came the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to replace the Federal Farm Board. The Roosevelt Administration was tasked with decreasing agricultural surpluses.[9] Wheat, cotton, field corn, hogs, rice, tobacco, and milk and its products were designated as basic commodities in the original legislation. Subsequent amendments in 1934 and 1935 expanded the list of basic commodities to include rye, flax, barley, grain sorghum, cattle, peanuts, sugar beets, sugar cane, and potatoes.[10] The administration targeted these commodities for the following reasons:
Dawes Act The Act was named for its creator, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts. The objectives of the Dawes Act were to abolish tribal and communal land ownership of the tribes into individual land ownership rights in order to transfer lands under Native American control to white settlers and stimulate assimilation of them into mainstream American society, and thereby lift individual Native Americans out of poverty. Individual household ownership of land and subsistence farming on the European-American model was seen as an essential step. The act provided that the government would classify as "excess" those Indian reservation lands remaining after allotments, and sell those lands on the open market, allowing purchase and settlement by non-Native Americans.