Franklin Roosevelt is considered by many historians of the American West to be the most important president for western USA, because FDR's massive public investments in energy, water, and credit greatly developed the infrastructure of the region and made the region more viable for private economic investment. Massive investments were also made in the Pacific Northwest, parts of the South, and other areas. These investments helped fuel the decades of booming economic expansion that followed - the great post-war boom.
Examples of these investments include the Norris Dam, Humboldt River Aqueduct, Los Angeles Aqueduct, Bonneville Navigation Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, Pocatello Reservoir, All American Irrigation Canal, Wyoming Drought Canal, Houston Ship Canal, Denver Water Tunnel, Nebraska Power Project, Fort Peck Dam, Mississippi erosion Mattress, and 26 Dams and Locks on the St. Louis-Minneapolis Waterway. Thousands of schools, bridges and tunnels were also built - too many to list.
This book profiles the New Dealers who worked to further the economic developments of their areas of interest. Some profiles are more interesting than others. A stronger overall history weaved throughout would have made the book even better. Big investments in the infrastructure were made.
Other kinds of investments made too. FDR's GI Bill also made a huge investment in America's human capital. Thousands of Americans were able to attend college for the first time. This helped greatly expand the middle class and helped lead to the great post-war boom. FDR brought electricity to hundreds of thousands of people who had no electricity before FDR became president. Huge amounts of credit also were extended to regions to foster development. Decades of booming, stable prosperity followed - the great post-war boom.
A great book on the economic history of America, to put these investments in context, is John Gordon Steele's "An Empire of Wealth." There had been other big investments previously in American history but not on this broad of a scale and usually only for the Northeast.
So much emphasis has been placed on Roosevelt's Great Depression relief programs and Social Security - his basic welfare state (later expanded by subsequent presidents and Congress) - that the New Deal's long-term economic achievements often get overlooked.
In addition, FDR's economic stabilizers created lasting economic stability and prevented another depression. These reforms included the SEC to police financial markets, FDIC to end bank runs and save the banking industry, Federal Reserve Open Market Committee to control the money supply, and other regulatory agencies to prevent detrimental economic behavior, etc. Prior to FDR, there had been several depressions in American history. After FDR, a depression never happened again. Decades of booming, stable prosperity followed - the post-war boom.
The New York Times review of this book, by Alonzo Hamby, said that the idea of New Deal investment in the infrastructure "had its origins in the huge Federal spending and economic planning of World War I and... was midwifed in the 30's... by regional politicians, especially the Texans Jesse Jones, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson.
"Carried out by public administrators (especially David E. Lilienthal) and furthered by private entrepreneurs (foremost among them Henry J. Kaiser), the New Deal brought the comforts of modernity and the blessings of industrialization to the Pacific Northwest, the Tennessee Valley and thousands of farms and small towns in the 'colonial' areas of a nation dominated by a Northeastern imperial metropole. World War II consolidated these changes, Mr. Schwarz writes, creating shipyards and aircraft factories that stretched from the Canadian border to San Diego, spilled over into Texas and dotted the Gulf Coast. After the war, he says, state capitalism manifested itself in numerous foreign development schemes that provided markets for American goods and in massive enterprises like the space program.
"Let no one assume that this is simply interesting academic history with no relevance to today's policy debates. The New Deal, Mr. Schwarz tells us, 'built the world's largest middle-class society by following an experimental industrial policy'...
"Mr. Schwarz tells his story through a series of biographical profiles of New Deal precursors... [and] invariably wanders down side issues that are often intriguing... but take attention away from his central argument...
"In truth, if the term applies to any Federal expenditure that promotes economic development, then it is part of an American tradition shared by conservatives and liberals, dating back to Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and encompassing the transcontinental railways, the Panama Canal and, above all, the river and harbor appropriations that were a key ingredient of politics long before World War I. One concludes this book uncertain just where the pork barrel ends and state capitalism begins, but it clearly is an important and suggestive work, essential to a comprehension of the age of Roosevelt."
Finally, Eisenhower continued the investment in the infrastructure by building the interstate highway system. Lyndon Johnson greatly expanded public investment through his Great Society programs. (Some of his welfare programs, by the way, received fair critisims). Perhaps his best investments were in education: Head Start, student loans/grants, K-12 funding, etc. That helped greatly expand the pool of educated workers needed for the information age. LBJ also made huge investments in space programs and other infrastructure investments.
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