# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is the Securities Exchange Act of 1934? Reach and History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 was created to govern securities transactions on the secondary market and ensure fairness and investor confidence.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Visitors to the Platt Historic District find a remarkable and inviting landscape of swimming holes, winding trails and roads, campgrounds, and rustic stone buildings that provide a quiet, intimate place to relax and explore the natural environment. These features reflect the hard work of young men whose lives were changed by an organization that lasted only nine years but left an indelible mark on the landscape of the United States. These "Men Who Built the Parks" left a legacy in parks and forests across the country, and decades later, millions of people still enjoy their work.

A Troubled Economy

Many people who had enjoyed the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties found themselves in soup lines and tattered clothes by the early 1930s. Sputtering Model Ts rumbled down dusty roads, carrying passengers and their few possessions toward dreams of a better tomorrow. The growing depression devastated the nation's economy and left many in dire straits. By 1933, nearly ten thousand banks had failed and more than 16 million Americans were unemployed. Fifteen percent fewer children were born in 1933 than in 1929; a reflection of severely diminished expectations.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was elected president by a landslide in 1932 with his promise of a "New Deal" for the American people. Within days of his inauguration, FDR called Congress into special session to work on emergency legislation to aid the economy and the American people. Many new agencies and programs were created to provide relief and restore the economy. President Roosevelt kept his promise and the New Deal was born.

Roosevelt's "Tree Army"

Probably the most popular New Deal program was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Designed to reduce unemployment while also conserving natural resources, the CCC affected the lives of millions of Americans, and transformed the American landscape. Nicknamed "Roosevelt's Tree Army," the CCC was operated through the cooperative efforts of four departments. The Department of Labor oversaw the selection of enrollees, the Army ran the camps, and the Interior and Agriculture departments provided work projects. The work of the CCC initially focused on reforestation, but quickly evolved to include soil conservation and development of recreational park facilities.

Initially, unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25 whose families were on relief could apply. They enrolled for six months, with an option to reenlist for up to two years. Enrollees earned $30 a month, $25 of which was sent to their families. Eventually, "Local Experienced Men" and World War I veterans were allowed to enroll. African-Americans and American Indians also participated, generally in segregated CCC companies.

A New Deal for Platt National Park

From 1906 until 1976 the present-day Platt Historic District was known as Platt National Park. Established as Sulphur Springs Reservation in 1902 to protect mineral springs and water resources, the site evolved from a settlement and town site into a national park. This evolution required almost equal amounts of obliteration and construction of buildings, roads, and other features.

The early appearance of Platt National Park was not what we imagine today when we think of national parks. Early park features included not only mineral springs, but flower beds, animal pens, and a golf course.

The small size and humble resources of Platt National Park were somewhat atypical, when compared to the great landscape parks with their sublime scenery and monumental hotels. Yet visitors didn't seem to notice; in 1914, Platt's visitation exceeded that of both Yellowstone and Yosemite and was second only to the Hot Springs Reservation in Arkansas.

Because of its limited size and the unusually large number of visitors, portions of Platt were heavily impacted by camping, cars, and people. Balancing visitor needs while protecting park resources was a constant struggle in the early years of Platt National Park. The programs and federal dollars of the New Deal were seen as "a golden opportunity" by park staff.

Camp and Community

The community of Sulphur had some apprehension about a CCC camp, concerned over the possible presence of unruly young men. This attitude swiftly changed as the camp was established and work began. The city demonstrated their appreciation in 1935, by donating thirty gallons of paint to improve the appearance of the camp buildings. Enrollee Earl Pollard remembered, "Sulphur used to be a lively place. Very lively. The camp didn't have any air conditioning, and we'd open the windows and doors at night, and the music from the honky tonk would put us to sleep every night."

Camp facilities included a headquarters building, day room, and a little canteen where enrollees could buy cigarettes, gum, and candy; in the middle of the camp were a shop, educational and supply buildings. Two barracks, a latrine, and a mess hall were on the west end. Three more barracks were located on the south side and a flagpole in the parade ground. The camp cook would prepare hot lunches, including sliced pies, which were brought into the field to feed work crews.

Company 808's masonry, forestry, and landscaping work was exemplary, but the development of the young men "mentally, physically and morally" was the most outstanding part of the program. Enrollee Jay Pinkston remembered working "harder in Platt National Park than I ever worked for any contractor or expected to." In June 1940, after eight years of work, Company 808 moved from Platt National Park to Rocky Mountain National Park. When the CCC boys left, one writer remembered, "a feeling like that accompanying an irreparable loss settled on the community."

"Improving" Nature

Between 1933-1940, a series of landscapes-including spring pavilions, creek dams, swimming holes, wooded picnic grounds, hiking trails, a new road system, and campgrounds-were created or improved with the labor of the CCC in Platt National Park. Old restrooms, roads, and other features were removed and the land rehabilitated. Master planning treated the landscape as a whole, enhancing and revealing its natural, geological, and water-based marvels, while providing for visitor recreation in and enjoyment of nature. Constructed of native materials, the resulting New Deal landscape of Platt National Park is of exceptional quality and demonstrates outstanding workmanship that has proven extremely durable.

According to CCC mason Frank Beaver, soil and rock was removed from the front of Antelope Springs to reveal the fresh water spring emerging from the solid rock formation below. Enrollee Earl Pollard commented that, "The construction supervisor said that all landscaping was 'nature faking.' The shoulders had been graded and they wanted to make it grow back natural." Enrollee Truman Cobb commented that he "took care of those slopes. They put us to doin' somthin' that would last, and make something beautiful. You go today, where they're building highways and it's just an old barren cut there and nothin' pretty about it. But we sloped those things, leaving the boulders, leaving the outcroppings that would be picturesque.... We might work half a day around one boulder... kinda like an artist"

The CCC planted 800,000 plants, including 60 tree species throughout Platt National Park. Enrollee Delbert Gilbert, who served on the 'sapling crew' remembered, "They schooled us on not hurting the trees. Don't break no green limbs off, you know, and we took that schooling."

Although the Platt Historic District's landscape features-stone bridges and culverts, scenic vistas, rustic buildings constructed of native limestone, and plantings of cedars and wildflowers-are important individually, together they compose a cohesive and seemingly natural recreational environment. Thus the CCC design of Platt National Park transformed an eroded resort landscape into a holistic place of great beauty, whose enduring recreational and scenic values visitors still experience and appreciate today.

The Legacy

Nationwide, the CCC operated 4,500 camps in national parks and forests as well as state and community parks. More than three million men enrolled between 1933 and 1942, planting three billion trees, protecting 20 million acres from soil erosion, and aiding in the establishment of 800 state parks.

The CCC advanced natural resource conservation in this country by decades, and provided education, training, and experience for a generation of young men.

Remembering the work of the CCC at Platt National Park, enrollee Truman Cobb observed that, "all of the pavilions are just kind of monuments to some real good construction work. Even the restrooms are made with permanence ...."

Millions of visitors to the Platt Historic District have enjoyed the work of the CCC. During your visit take a drive along the perimeter road, hike the trails along Travertine Creek or through Flower Park, and remember the young men who worked there many years ago. As Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., wrote, the Civilian Conservation Corps has "left its monuments in the preservation and purification of the land, the water, the forests, and the young men of America."

To learn more:

Cohen, Stan. The Tree Army : A Pictorial History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1980.

Steely, James Wright. Parks for Texas: Enduring Landscapes of the New Deal. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.

Maher, Neil M. Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the roots of the American environmental movemment. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

McClelland, Linda Flint. Building the National Parks: Historic Landscape Design and Construction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Civilian Conservation Corps at Platt National Park - Chickasaw National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visitors to the Platt Historic District find a remarkable and inviting landscape of swimming holes, winding trails and roads, campgrounds, and rustic stone buildings that provide a quiet, intimate place to relax and explore the natural environment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
" Back to Glossary Index

President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The law was wide-ranging. While most Americans know Social Security for its old-age pension system, the act also addressed unemployment benefits, aid to dependent children, maternal and child welfare, public health services, and aid to the blind [1]. It launched what would be called 'the welfare state' or 'the social safety net' of the postwar era.

The social security idea had been gestating in Europe, starting with the pension system of Bismarck's Germany and many countries had introduced old age benefits before the United States. Social security in America had some precedent in veterans' benefits and state welfare payments, but there was no systematic provision for retirement, unemployment or disability [2]. As a result, the poverty rate among senior citizens was extremely high and a huge burden on state welfare funds. So President Roosevelt created the Committee on Economic Security in 1934 to study the problem and make recommendations.

Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins led the committee's efforts and recommended a universal social insurance type program, with everyone paying in and everyone equally eligible for benefits. They even went so far as to suggest, "...the provision of public employment for those able-bodied workers whom industry cannot employ at a given time. Public work programs...may be needed in normal times...to help meet the problems of stranded communities and overmanned or declining industries" [3]. In the end, the Social Security Act emerged from Congress with compromises on several fronts, including the absence of employment assurance, disability benefits and health insurance (disability and health provisions would be added decades later). A major restriction was that funding came from a (regressive) tax on employers and employees, rather than (progressive) income taxes.

Nevertheless, the Social Security Act was a watershed in American life. As FDR declared:

"The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last...This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens....[We] have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age...It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness" [4].

The Social Security Act is the most effective poverty mitigation program in the United States. "Prior to Social Security, the elderly routinely faced the prospect of poverty upon retirement. For the most part, that fear has now dissipated" [5]. As of 2009, over 52 million Americans were receiving some type of Social Security benefit [6]. Unfortunately, despite its effectiveness and popularity, Social Security has repeatedly been questioned by conservative forces that seek to cut benefits on the false argument that the Social Security Trust Fund is going bankrupt (it is not). Wall Street financiers have long wished to privatize the system, promising higher returns if the funds were invested in capital markets [7]. This argument, too, is bogus, as proven by the massive losses suffered by private retirement funds in the market crises of 2000 and 2008.

Sources: (1) "1935 Social Security Act," Social Security Administration, http://www.ssa.gov/history/35actinx.html, accessed May 11, 2015. (2) Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. (3) "Report of the Committee on Economic Security," Social Security Administration, http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/ces/ces5.html, accessed May 11, 2015. On the roles of Perkins and Hopkins, see Kirstin Downey, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, New York: Nan Talese (Doubleday), 2009; June Hopkins, Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer; A Biography of the Man Who Started the Welfare System, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999, pp. 183-186. (4) "Statement on Signing the Social Security Act," The American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14916, accessed May 11, 2015. (5) "Social Security Act (1935)," Our Documents, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=68, accessed May 11, 2015. (6) "Annual Statistical Supplement, 2010," Table 5.A4, Social Security Administration, http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2010/5a.html#table5.a4, accessed May 11, 2015. (7) See, e.g., "Peter Peterson Spent Nearly Half A Billion In Washington Targeting Social Security, Medicare," Huffington Post, May 15, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/peter-peterson-foundation-half-billion-social-security-cuts_n_1517805.html.

" Back to Glossary Index

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Security Act (1935) - Living New Deal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
" Back to Glossary IndexPresident Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The law was wide-ranging. While most Americans know Social Security for its old-age pension system, the act also addressed unemployment benefits, aid to... read more

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
The Works Progress Administration, created in 1935, aimed to alleviate the mass unemployment due to the Great Depression. The WPA built infrastructure, such as bridges, airports, schools, parks, etc. Women were also employed for the WPA. They worked in sewing rooms, classrooms, and cafeterias. By the time of its termination, the WPA had employed over 8.5 million Americans into the workforce.

# data[].attributes.body
"The SEA created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates securities, markets, financial disclosures, and the conduct of financial professionals." The purpose of this was to ensure an environment of fairness and investor confidence. This is important because it helps with antifraud, tender offers, proxy solicitation, and insider trading. The sea prohibits pools as ways to manipulate stock prices. "he SEA requires that anyone who wishes to make a tender offer, or a direct purchase, of 5% or more of a company's shares must disclose certain material information. This allows shareholders to make an informed decision about these types of offers, which are usually made to gain control of a company." Insider trading was prohibited by 1934.

# data[].attributes.body
"The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses." The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The AAA was important because it helped farmers by raising the prices of crops and paying them for land not used. It brought stability to the industry and raised crop prices at the same time people were being put back to work and could finally afford to purchase food again.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
The Civilian Conservation Corporations act was sworn into office by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The CCC was designed to put young unemployed men into work, especially on public land projects. These projects included preventing forest fires, plant pest and disease control, the construction, maintenance and repair of paths, and many others. Dr. Robert Leighninger Jr. of the University of South Carolina refers to this as the "largest peacetime mobilization in U.S. history".

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
The Social Security Act was created in 1935 by President Roosevelt. The act helped those who were unemployed, as well as dependent children, maternal and child welfare, public health services, and even aid to the blind. Most importantly, it began what was known as "the welfare state" or "the social security net" of the postwar era. Veteran's benefits and state welfare programs were thriving, yet there was no services for unemployed, disabled, or retired citizens. This caused the poverty rate to increase substantially amongst senior citizens. So, Roosevelt created the The Committee on Economic Security in 1934 to study this problem.

# data[].attributes.body
"The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is an independent agency created by Congress to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system." The FDIC was important because it played an important role in stabilizing the banking systems during many periods in America including during the great depression. "The Banking Act of 1933 authorized the FDIC to pay up to $2,500 to depositors in insured banks that failed."