HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The term was first coined during a 1964 commencement address by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and came to represent his domestic agenda. The main goal was the total elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major federal programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation were launched during this period. The program and its initiatives were subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s and years following. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. Johnson's success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democratic landslide victory in the 1964 elections that brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938. In the 88th Congress it was estimated that there were 56 liberals and 44 conservatives in the Senate, and 224 liberals and 211 conservatives in the House. In the 89th Congress it was estimated that there were 59 liberals and 41 conservatives in the Senate, and 267 liberals and 168 conservatives in the House. Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare,
Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and per ...
, the Older Americans Act and federal education funding, continue to the present. The Great Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Republican Presidents
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
and
Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
.


Economic and social conditions

Unlike the old New Deal, which was a response to a severe financial and economic calamity, the Great Society initiatives came during a period of rapid economic growth. Kennedy proposed an across-the-board tax cut lowering the top marginal income tax rate in the United States by 20%, from 91% to 71%, which was enacted in February 1964, three months after Kennedy's assassination, under Johnson. The tax cut also significantly reduced marginal rates in the lower brackets as well as for corporations. The
gross national product The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product ( GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreig ...
rose 10% in the first year of the tax cut, and economic growth averaged a rate of 4.5% from 1961 to 1968. GNP increased by 7% in 1964, 8% in 1965, and 9% in 1966. The unemployment rate fell below 5%, and by 1966 the number of families with incomes of $7,000 a year or more had reached 55%, compared with 22% in 1950. In 1968, when John Kenneth Galbraith published a new edition of ''
The Affluent Society ''The Affluent Society'' is a 1958 (4th edition revised 1984) book by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. The book sought to clearly outline the manner in which the post– World War II United States was becoming wealthy in the private s ...
,'' the average income of the American family stood at $8,000, double what it had been a decade earlier.Chafe, William H. ''The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II''


Johnson's speeches in Ohio and Michigan

Johnson's first public reference to the "Great Society" took place during a speech to students on May 7, 1964, at
Ohio University Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subse ...
in Athens, Ohio:
And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build a Great Society. It is a society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled.
He later formally presented his specific goals for the Great Society in another speech at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 22, 1964.
We are going to assemble the best thought and broadest knowledge from all over the world to find these answers. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of conferences and meetings—on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. From these studies, we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society.


Presidential task forces

Almost immediately after the Ann Arbor speech, 14 separate task forces began studying nearly all major aspects of United States society under the guidance of presidential assistants Bill Moyers and Richard N. Goodwin. In his use of task forces to provide expert advice on policy, Johnson was following Kennedy's example, but unlike Kennedy, Johnson directed his task forces to work in secret.Woods, Randall (2007).
LBJ: Architect of American Ambition
'. Simon and Schuster. p. 557. .
His intent was to prevent his program from being derailed by public criticism of proposals that had not yet been reviewed. The average task force had five to seven members and generally was composed of governmental experts and academics. After the task force reports were submitted to the White House, Moyers began a second round of review. The recommendations were circulated among the agencies concerned, and strategies were developed for getting the proposed legislation through Congress. On January 4, 1965, Johnson announced much of his proposed program in his State of the Union Address.


The election of 1964

With the exception of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Great Society agenda was not a widely discussed issue during the 1964 presidential election campaign. Johnson won the election with 61% of the vote, and he carried all but six states. Democrats gained enough seats to control more than two-thirds of each chamber in the Eighty-ninth Congress, with a 68–32 margin in the Senate and a 295–140 margin in the House of Representatives. Johnson won a large majority of the Jewish vote, a liberal constituency that gave strong support to the Great Society.


The two sessions of the Eighty-Ninth Congress

The political realignment allowed House leaders to alter rules that had allowed
Southern Democrats Southern Democrats, historically sometimes known colloquially as Dixiecrats, are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States. Southern Democrats were generally much more conservative than Northern Democrats wi ...
to kill New Frontier and civil rights legislation in committee, which aided efforts to pass Great Society legislation. In 1965, the first session of the Eighty-Ninth Congress created the core of the Great Society. It began by enacting long-stalled legislation such as Medicare and federal aid to education and then moved into other areas, including high-speed mass transit, rental supplements, truth in packaging, environmental safety legislation, new provisions for mental health facilities, the Teacher Corps, manpower training, the Head Start program, aid to urban mass transit, a demonstration cities program, a housing act that included rental subsidies, and an act for higher education. The Johnson Administration submitted 87 bills to Congress, and Johnson signed 84, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in US congressional history.Unger, Irwin, 1996: ''The Best of Intentions: the triumphs and failures of the Great Society under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.'' Doubleday, p. 104.


The major policy areas


Privacy

'' The Naked Society'' is a 1964 book on privacy by Vance Packard. The book argues that changes in technology are encroaching on privacy and could create a society in the future with radically different privacy standards. Packard criticized advertisers' unfettered use of private information to create marketing schemes. He compared a recent Great Society initiative by then-president Lyndon B. Johnson, the National Data Bank, to the use of information by advertisers and argued for increased data privacy measures to ensure that information did not find its way into the wrong hands. The essay led
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
to create the Special Subcommittee on the Invasion of Privacy and inspired privacy advocates such as Neil Gallagher and
Sam Ervin Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, he liked to call himself a "country lawyer", and often ...
to fight what they perceived as Johnson's flagrant disregard for consumer privacy. Ervin criticized Johnson's domestic agenda as invasive and claimed that the unfiltered database of consumers' information as a sign of presidential abuse of power. Ervin warned that "The computer never forgets". Jerry M. Rosenberg dedicated a chapter of his 1969 book ''The Death of Privacy'' to the National Data Bank.


Civil rights

Historian Alan Brinkley has suggested that the most important domestic achievement of the Great Society may have been its success in translating some of the demands of the civil rights movement into law. Four civil rights acts were passed, including three laws in the first two years of Johnson's presidency. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade job discrimination and the segregation of public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 assured minority registration and voting. It suspended use of literacy or other voter-qualification tests that had sometimes served to keep
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
s off voting lists and provided for federal court lawsuits to stop discriminatory poll taxes. It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by authorizing the appointment of federal voting examiners in areas that did not meet voter-participation requirements. The
Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The la ...
abolished the national-origin quotas in immigration law. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and extended constitutional protections to Native Americans on reservations. Johnson recognized the benefits and costs of passing civil rights legislation. His support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act was despite his personal opinions on racial matters, as Johnson regularly articulated thoughts and disparaging language against racial minorities, including against African-Americans and Asians.Serwer, Adam. "Lyndon Johnson was a civil rights hero. But also a racist". MSNBC. April 11, 2014. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism. Scholar and biographer Robert Caro suggested that Johnson used racially charged language to appease legislators in an effort to pass civil rights laws, including adapting how he said the word 'negro' based upon where the legislator's district was located.


The "War On Poverty"

The most ambitious and controversial part of the Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The Kennedy Administration had been contemplating a federal effort against poverty. Johnson, who, as a teacher, had observed extreme poverty in
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
among Mexican-Americans, launched an "unconditional war on poverty" in the first months of his presidency with the goal of eliminating hunger, illiteracy, and unemployment from American life. The centerpiece of the
War on Poverty The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a nationa ...
was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. Federal funds were provided for special education schemes in slum areas, including help in paying for books and transport, while financial aid was also provided for slum clearances and rebuilding city areas. In addition, the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 created jobs in one of the most impoverished regions of the country. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 provided various methods through which young people from poor homes could receive job training and higher education. The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that the best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of the poor but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Central to its mission was the idea of " community action", the participation of the poor in framing and administering the programs designed to help them.


Programs

The War on Poverty began with a $1 billion appropriation in 1964 and spent another $2 billion in the following two years. It gave rise to dozens of programs, among them the Job Corps, whose purpose was to help disadvantaged youth develop marketable skills; the
Neighborhood Youth Corps A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural a ...
, established to give poor urban youths work experience and to encourage them to stay in school; Volunteers in Service to America ( VISTA), a domestic version of the
Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John ...
, which placed concerned citizens with community-based agencies to work towards empowerment of the poor; the
Model Cities Program The Model Cities Program was an element of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty. The concept was presented by labor leader Walter Reuther to President Johnson in an off-the-record White House meeting on May 20, 1965. ...
for urban redevelopment; Upward Bound, which assisted poor high school students entering college; legal services for the poor; and the Food Stamp Act of 1964 (which expanded the federal food stamp program). Programs included the
Community Action Program In the United States and its territories, Community Action Agencies (CAA) are local private and public non-profit organizations that carry out the Community Action Program (CAP), which was founded by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act to fight po ...
, which initiated local Community Action Agencies charged with helping the poor become self-sufficient; and Project Head Start, which offered preschool education for poor children. In addition, funding was provided for the establishment of community health centers to expand access to health care, while major amendments were made to
Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
in 1965 and 1967 which significantly increased benefits, expanded coverage, and established new programs to combat poverty and raise living standards. In addition, average AFDC payments were 35% higher in 1968 than in 1960, but remained insufficient and uneven.


Education

The most important educational component of the Great Society was the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1965. Part of Johnson's "War on Poverty", the act has been one of the most far-r ...
of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education
Francis Keppel Francis Keppel (April 16, 1916 – February 19, 1990) was an American educator. As U.S. Commissioner of Education (1962–1965) he was instrumental in developing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and in overseeing enforcement of t ...
. It was signed into law on April 11, 1965, less than three months after it was introduced. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, initially allocating more than $1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs to schools with a high concentration of low-income children. During its first year of operation, the Act authorized a $1.1 billion program of grants to states, for allocations to school districts with large numbers of children of low-income families, funds to use community facilities for education within the entire community, funds to improve educational research and to strengthen state departments of education, and grants for the purchase of books and library materials. The Act also established Head Start, which had originally been started by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer program, as a permanent program. The Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, which was signed into law by Johnson a month after becoming president, authorized several times more college aid within a five-year period than had been appropriated under the Land Grant College in a century. It provided better college libraries, ten to twenty new graduate centers, several new technical institutes, classrooms for several hundred thousand students, and twenty-five to thirty new community colleges a year. This major piece of legislation was followed by the
Higher Education Act of 1965 The Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) () was legislation signed into United States law on November 8, 1965, as part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society domestic agenda. Johnson chose Texas State University (then called "Southwest Tex ...
, which increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships and low-interest loans for students, and established a national Teacher Corps to provide teachers to poverty-stricken areas of the United States. The Act also began a transition from federally funded institutional assistance to individual student aid. In 1964, basic improvements in the National Defense Education Act were achieved, and total funds available to educational institutions were increased. The yearly limit on loans to graduate and professional students was raised from $1,000 to $2,500, and the aggregate limit was raised from $5,000 to $10,000. The program was extended to include geography, history, reading, English, and civics, and guidance and counseling programs were extended to elementary and public junior high schools. The
Bilingual Education Act The Bilingual Education Act (BEA), also known as the Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments of 1967, was the first United States federal legislation that recognized the needs of limited English speaking ability (LESA) s ...
of 1968 offered federal aid to local school districts in assisting them to address the needs of children with limited English-speaking ability until it expired in 2002. The Great Society programs also provided support for postgraduate clinical training for both nurses and physicians committed to work with disadvantaged patients in rural and urban health clinics.


Health


Medicare

On August the 31st 1964 an amendment to the proposed Social Security Amendments of 1964, which further increased the proposed level of Social Security benefits and added hospital insurance to the program, was passed in the Senate by a vote of 49 to 44. The following day the entire bill passed the Senate by 60 to 28 votes. Following this vote, as noted by one study, “Seeking to ensure that the health insurance proposal emerge from the conference committee as part of the report, the administration flirted with an effort to have the full House of Representatives vote to instruct the conference to yield to the Senate version. Though the health insurance provision appeared to have majority support in the House, the tactic did not, and the idea was dropped. Sure enough, the House conferees voted 3 to 2 against the Senate health provision; the Senate conferees voted 4 to 3 to accept a bill only if Medicare were included.” Medicare finally came about with the
Social Security Act of 1965 The Social Security Amendments of 1965, , was legislation in the United States whose most important provisions resulted in creation of two programs: Medicare and Medicaid. The legislation initially provided federal health insurance for the elder ...
which authorized Medicare and provided federal funding for many of the medical costs of older Americans. The legislation overcame the bitter resistance, particularly from the
American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's sta ...
, to the idea of publicly funded health care or "
socialized medicine Socialized medicine is a term used in the United States to describe and discuss systems of universal health care—medical and hospital care for all by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation. Because of ...
" by making its benefits available to everyone over sixty-five, regardless of need, and by linking payments to the existing private insurance system.


Medicaid

In 1966 welfare recipients of all ages received medical care through the
Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and per ...
program. Medicaid was created on July 30, 1965 under Title XIX of the Social Security Act of 1965. Each state administers its own Medicaid program while the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) monitors the state-run programs and establishes requirements for service delivery, quality, funding, and eligibility standards.


Welfare

A number of changes were made to the Social Security program in terms of both coverage and adequacy of benefits. The Tax Adjustment Act of 1966 included a provision for special payments under the social security program to certain uninsured individuals aged 72 and over. The Social Security Amendments of 1965 included a 7% increase in cash benefits, a liberalization of the definition of disability, a liberalization of the amount a person can earn and still get full benefits (the so-called retirement test), payment of benefits to eligible children aged 18–21 who are attending school, payment of benefits to widows at age 60 on an actuarially reduced basis, coverage of self-employed physicians, coverage of tips as wages, liberalization of insured-status requirements for persons already aged 72 or over, an increase to $6,600 the amount of earnings counted for contribution and benefit purposes (the contribution and benefit base), and an increase in the contribution rate schedule. The Social Security Amendments of 1967 included a 13% increase in old-age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits, with a minimum monthly benefit of $55 for a person retiring at or after age-65 (or receiving disability benefits), an increase from $35 to $40 in the special age-72 payments, an increase from $1,500 to $1,680 in the amount a person may earn in a year and still get full benefits for that year, monthly cash benefits for disabled widows and disabled dependent widowers at age 50 at reduced rates, a liberalization of the eligibility requirements for benefits for dependents and Survivors of women workers, and an alternative insured-status test for workers disabled before age 31. Additionally, new guidelines for determining eligibility for disability insurance benefits, additional non-contributory wage credits for servicemen, broadened coverage of clergy and members of religious orders who have not taken a vow of poverty, and an increase in the contribution and benefit base from $6,600 to $7,800, beginning in 1968. In addition, the Social Security Amendments of 1967 provided the first major amendments of Medicare. These social security amendments extended the coverage of the program to include certain services previously excluded, simplified reimbursement procedures under both the hospital and medical insurance plans, and facilitated the administrative procedures concerning general enrollment periods. The Food Stamp Act of 1964 made the program permanent, while the Social Security Amendments of 1967 specified that at least 6% of monies for maternal and child health should be spent on family planning. By 1967, the federal government began requiring state health departments to make contraceptives available to all adults who were poor. Meal programs for low-income senior citizens began in 1965, with the federal government providing funding for "congregate meals" and "home-delivered meals." The Child Nutrition Act, passed in 1966, made improvements to nutritional assistance to children such as in the introduction of the School Breakfast Program.


The arts and cultural institutions

Johnson promoted the arts in terms of social betterment, not artistic creativity. He typically emphasized qualitative and quantitative goals, especially the power of the arts to improve the quality of life of ordinary Americans and to reduce the inequalities between the haves and the have-nots. Karen Patricia Heath observes that, "Johnson personally was not much interested in the acquisition of knowledge, cultural or otherwise, for its own sake, nor did he have time for art appreciation or meeting with artists."


National Endowments for the arts and the humanities

In September 1965, Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act into law, creating both the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
and
National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
as separate, independent agencies. Lobbying for federally funded arts and humanities support began during the Kennedy Administration. In 1963 three scholarly and educational organizations—the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Council of Graduate Schools in America, and the United Chapters of
Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
—joined together to establish the National Commission on the Humanities. In June 1964, the commission released a report that suggested that the emphasis placed on science endangered the study of the humanities from elementary schools through postgraduate programs. In order to correct the balance, it recommended "the establishment by the President and the Congress of the United States of a National Humanities Foundation." In August 1964, Representative
William S. Moorhead William Singer Moorhead (April 8, 1923 – August 3, 1987) was an American politician serving as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Moorhead was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, th ...
of Pennsylvania proposed legislation to implement the commission's recommendations. Support from the White House followed in September, when Johnson lent his endorsement during a speech at
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
. In March 1965, the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
proposed the establishment of a National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities and requested $20 million in start-up funds. The commission's report had generated other proposals, but the White House's approach eclipsed them. The administration's plan, which called for the creation of two separate agencies each advised by a governing body, was the version that the Congress approved.
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
dramatically expanded funding for NEH and NEA.


Public broadcasting

After the First National Conference on Long-Range Financing of Educational Television Stations in December 1964 called for a study of the role of noncommercial education television in society, the Carnegie Corporation agreed to finance the work of a 15-member national commission. Its landmark report, ''Public Television: A Program for Action,'' published on January 26, 1967, popularized the phrase "public television" and assisted the legislative campaign for federal aid. The
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 () issued the congressional corporate charter for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private nonprofit corporation funded by taxpayers to disburse grants to public broadcasters in the United St ...
, enacted less than 10 months later, chartered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a private, non-profit corporation. The law initiated federal aid through the CPB for the operation, as opposed to the funding of capital facilities, of public broadcasting. The CPB initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television system, but in 1969 decided to start the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). A public radio study commissioned by the CPB and the Ford Foundation and conducted from 1968 to 1969 led to the establishment of
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
, a public radio system under the terms of the amended Public Broadcasting Act.


Cultural centers

Two long-planned national cultural and arts facilities received federal funding that would allow for their completion through Great Society legislation. A National Cultural Center, suggested during the
Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
Administration and created by a bipartisan law signed by Dwight Eisenhower, was transformed into the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...
, a living memorial to the assassinated president. Fundraising for the original cultural center had been poor prior to legislation creating the Kennedy Center, which passed two months after the president's death and provided $23 million for construction. The Kennedy Center opened in 1971. In the late 1930s the U.S. Congress mandated a
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
art museum for the National Mall, and a design by Eliel Saarinen was unveiled in 1939, but plans were shelved during World War II. A 1966 act of the U.S. Congress established the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as part of the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
with a focus on modern art, in contrast to the existing National Art Gallery. The museum was primarily federally funded, although New York financier
Joseph Hirshhorn Joseph Herman Hirshhorn (August 11, 1899 – August 31, 1981) was an entrepreneur, financier, and art collector. Biography Born in Mitau, Latvia, the twelfth of thirteen children, Hirshhorn emigrated to the United States with his widowed mothe ...
later contributed $1 million toward building construction, which began in 1969. The Hirshhorn opened in 1974.


Transportation

Transportation initiatives started during President Johnson's term in office included the consolidation of transportation agencies into a cabinet-level position under the Department of Transportation. The department was authorized by Congress on October 15, 1966 and began operations on April 1, 1967. Congress passed a variety of legislation to support improvements in transportation including The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 which provided $375 million for large-scale urban public or private rail projects in the form of matching funds to cities and states and created the Urban Mass Transit Administration (now the
Federal Transit Administration The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is an agency within the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) that provides financial and technical assistance to local public transportation systems. The FTA is one of ten modal administratio ...
), High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 which resulted in the creation of high-speed rail between New York and Washington, and the
National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was enacted in the United States in 1966 to empower the federal government to set and administer new safety standards for motor vehicles and road traffic safety. The Act was the first mandatory fede ...
—a bill largely taken credit for by
Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...
, whose book '' Unsafe at Any Speed'' he claims helped inspire the legislation.


Consumer protection

In 1964, Johnson named Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson to be the first presidential assistant for consumer affairs. The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 required packages to carry warning labels. The Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 set standards through creation of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA ) is an agency of the U.S. federal government, part of the Department of Transportation. It describes its mission as "Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes" relat ...
. The
Fair Packaging and Labeling Act The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act is a U.S. law that applies to labels on many consumer products. It requires the label to state: *The identity of the product; *The name and place of business of the manufacturer, packer, or distributor; and *T ...
requires products identify manufacturer, address, clearly mark quantity and servings. The statute also authorized the HEW and the FTC to establish and define voluntary standard sizes. The original would have mandated uniform standards of size and weight for comparison shopping, but the final law only outlawed exaggerated size claims. The Child Safety Act of 1966 prohibited any chemical so dangerous that no warning can make it safe. The Flammable Fabrics Act of 1967 set standards for children's sleepwear, but not baby blankets. The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 required inspection of meat which must meet federal standards. The Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968 required lenders and credit providers to disclose the full cost of finance charges in both dollars and annual percentage rates, on installment loan and sales. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 required inspection of poultry which must meet federal standards. The Land Sales Disclosure Act of 1968 provided safeguards against fraudulent practices in the sale of land. The Radiation Safety Act of 1968 provided standards and recalls for defective electronic products.


The environment

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Joseph Anthony Califano Jr. (born May 15, 1931) is an American attorney, professor, and public servant. He is known for the roles he played in shaping welfare policies in the cabinets of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter and for ser ...
has suggested that the Great Society's main contribution to the environment was an extension of protections beyond those aimed at the conservation of untouched resources.What Was Really Great About The Great Society: The truth behind the conservative myths
by Joseph A. Califano Jr.
In a message he transmitted to Congress, President Johnson said: At the behest of Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, the Great Society included several new environmental laws to protect air and water. Environmental legislation enacted included: * Water Quality Act of 1965 * Clean Air Act of 1963 * Wilderness Act of 1964 *
Endangered Species Preservation Act The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
of 1966 * National Trails System Act of 1968 * Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 * Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965 * Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 *
Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the United States' primary federal air quality law, intended to reduce and control air pollution nationwide. Initially enacted in 1963 and amended many times since, it is one of the United States' first and most infl ...
of 1965 *
National Historic Preservation Act The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA; Public Law 89-665; 54 U.S.C. 300101 ''et seq.'') is legislation intended to preserve historic and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic ...
of 1966 *
National Environmental Policy Act The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.Un ...
of 1969


Housing

In 1964, the quality of the housing program was improved by requiring minimum standards of code enforcement, providing assistance to dislocated families and small businesses and authorizing below market interest loans for rehabilitating housing in urban renewal areas. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 included important elements such as rent subsidies for low-income families, rehabilitation grants to enable low-income homeowners in urban renewal areas to improve their homes instead of relocating elsewhere, and improved and extended benefits for relocation payments. The Demonstration Cities Act of 1966 established a new program for comprehensive neighborhood renewal, with an emphasis on strategic investments in housing renovation, urban services, neighborhood facilities, and job creation activities.


Rural development

A number of measures were introduced to improve socio-economic conditions in rural areas. Under Title III of the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, Special Programs to Combat Rural Poverty, the Office for Economic Opportunity was authorized to act as a lender of last resort for rural families who needed money to help them permanently increase their earning capacity. Loans could be made to purchase land, improve the operation of family farms, allow participation in cooperative ventures, and finance non-agricultural business enterprises, while local cooperatives which served low-income rural families could apply for another category of loans for similar purposes. Title III also made loans and grants available to local groups to improve housing, education, and child care services for migrant farm workers, while Titles I and II also included potentially important programs for rural development. Title I established the Job Corps which enrolled school dropouts in community service projects: 40% of the corpsmen were to work in a Youth Conservation Corps to carry out resource conservation, beautification, and development projects in the National Forests and countryside. Arguably more important for rural areas were the Community Action Programs authorized by Title II. Federal money was allocated to States according to their needs for job training, housing, health, and welfare assistance, and the States were then to distribute their shares of the Community Action grants on the basis of proposals from local public or non-profit private groups. The Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 reorganized the Areas Redevelopment Administration (ARA) into the Economic Development Administration (EDA), and authorized $3.3 billion over 5 years while specifying seven criteria for eligibility. The list included low median family income, but the 6% or higher unemployment applied to the greatest number of areas, while the Act also mentioned outmigration from rural areas as a criterion. In an attempt to go beyond what one writer described as "ARA's failed scattershot approach" of providing aid to individual counties and inspired by the European model of regional development, the EDA encouraged counties to form Economic Development Districts (EDDs) as it was recognized that individual distressed counties (called RAs or Redevelopment Areas) lacked sufficient resources for their own development. EDDs encompassed from 5 to 15 counties and both planned and implemented development with EDA funding and technical assistance, and each EDD had a "growth center" (another concept borrowed from Europe) called a redevelopment center if it was located in an RA or development center if in another county. With the exception of the growth centers, EDD counties were ineligible for assistance unless they were RAs, but they were all expected to benefit from "coordinated districtwide development planning."


Labor

A number of measures concerning labor were also introduced during Johnson's presidency. Amendments made to the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in 1964 extended the prevailing wage provisions to cover fringe benefits, while several increases were made to the federal minimum wage. The Service Contract Act of 1965 provided for minimum wages and fringe benefits as well as other conditions of work for contractors under certain types of service contracts. A comprehensive minimum rate hike was also signed into law that extended the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act to about 9.1 million additional workers.


Conservative opposition

In the 1966 midterm elections, the Republicans made major gains in part through a challenge to the "War on Poverty." Large-scale civic unrest in the inner-city was escalating (reaching a climax in 1968), strengthened demand for Law and order. Urban white ethnics who had been an important part of the New Deal Coalition felt abandoned by the Democratic Party's concentration on racial minorities. Republican candidates ignored more popular programs, such as Medicare or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and focused their attacks on less popular programs. Furthermore, Republicans made an effort to avoid the stigma of negativism and elitism that had dogged them since the days the New Deal, and instead proposed well-crafted alternatives—such as their "Opportunity Crusade." The result was a major gain of 47 House seats for the GOP in the
1966 United States House of Representatives elections The 1966 United States House of Representatives elections was an election for the United States House of Representatives in 1966 which occurred in the middle of President Lyndon B. Johnson's second term. As the Vietnam War continued to escalate ...
that put the conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats back in business. Despite conservatives who attacked Johnson's Great Society making major gains in Congress in the 1966 midterm elections, and with anger and frustration mounting over the Vietnam War, Johnson was still able to secure the passage of additional programs during his last two years in office. Laws were passed to extend the Food Stamp Program, to expand consumer protection, to improve safety standards, to train health professionals, to assist handicapped Americans, and to further urban programs. In 1968, a new Fair Housing Act was passed, which banned racial discrimination in housing and subsidized the construction or rehabilitation of low-income housing units. That same year, a new program for federally funded job retraining for the hardcore unemployed in fifty cities was introduced, together with the strongest federal gun control bill (relating to the transportation of guns across state lines) in American history up until that point. By the end of the Johnson Administration, 226 out of 252 major legislative requests (over a four-year period) had been met, federal aid to the poor had risen from $9.9 billion in 1960 to $30 billion by 1968, one million Americans had been retrained under previously non-existent federal programs, and two million children had participated in the Head Start program.


Legacy

Interpretations of the War on Poverty remain controversial. The Office of Economic Opportunity was dismantled by the Nixon and Ford administrations, largely by transferring poverty programs to other government departments. Funding for many of these programs was further cut in President Ronald Reagan's Gramm-Latta Budget in 1981.
Alan Brinkley Alan Brinkley (June 2, 1949 – June 16, 2019) was an American political historian who taught for over 20 years at Columbia University. He was the Allan Nevins Professor of History until his death. From 2003 to 2009, he was University Provost. ...
has suggested that "the gap between the expansive intentions of the War on Poverty and its relatively modest achievements fueled later conservative arguments that government is not an appropriate vehicle for solving social problems."Alan Brinkley, "Great Society" in ''The Reader's Companion to American History'', Eric Foner and John Arthur Garraty eds., , Houghton Mifflin Books, p. 472 One of Johnson's aides,
Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Joseph Anthony Califano Jr. (born May 15, 1931) is an American attorney, professor, and public servant. He is known for the roles he played in shaping welfare policies in the cabinets of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter and for ser ...
, has countered that "from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century." In the long run, statistical analysis shows that the Official Poverty Rate fell from 19.5 percent in 1963 to 12.3 percent in 2017. However, using a broader definition that includes cash income, taxes, and major in-kind transfers and inflation rates, the "Full-income Poverty Rate" based on President Johnson's standards fell from 19.5 percent to 2.3 percent over that period. The percentage of African Americans below the poverty line dropped from 55 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 1968. From 1964 to 1967, federal expenditures on education rose from $4 billion to $12 billion, while spending on health rose from $5 billion to $16 billion. By that time, the federal government was spending $4,000 per annum on each poor family of four, four times as much as in 1961.LBJ: Architect of American Ambition by Randall B. Woods


See also

*
Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure as the 36th president of the United States began on November 22, 1963 following the assassination of President Kennedy and ended on January 20, 1969. He had been vice president for days when he succeeded to the p ...
* Interest group liberalism *
Modern liberalism in the United States Modern liberalism in the United States, often simply referred to in the United States as liberalism, is a form of social liberalism found in American politics. It combines ideas of civil liberty and equality with support for social justice a ...
* Social programs in the United States * Social safety net


References


Citations


Further reading

* Andrew, John A.. ''Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society.'' I.R. Dee, (1998) * Ginzberg, Eli and Robert M. Solow (eds.) ''The Great Society: Lessons for the Future''
(1974), 11 chapters on each program
* Gordon, Kermit (ed.) ''Agenda for the Nation'', The Brookings Institution. (1968) * Helsing, Jeffrey W. ''Johnson's War/Johnson's Great Society: the guns and butter trap'' Praeger Greenwood (2000) * Jordan, Barbara C. and Elspeth D. Rostow (editors) ''The Great Society: a twenty year critique'': Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (1986) * Kaplan, Marshall, and Peggy L. Cuciti; ''The Great Society and Its Legacy: Twenty Years of U.S. Social Policy'' Duke University Press, (1986) * Milkis, Sidney M. and Jerome M. Mileur, eds. ''The Great Society And The High Tide Of Liberalism'' (2005) * Shlaes, Amity ''Great Society: A New History'' Harper, (2019) * Unger, Irwin ''The Best of Intentions: the triumphs and failures of the Great Society under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon'': Doubleday, (1996) * Woods, Randall B. ''Prisoners of Hope: Lyndon B. Johnson, the Great Society, and the Limits of Liberalism'' (2016), 480pp., a scholarly history. * Zarefsky, David. ''President Johnson's War on Poverty'' (1986). * Zeitz, Joshua. ''Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House'' (2018
excerpt
* Zelizer, Julian E. ''The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society'' (2015
excerpt


Primary sources

* Johnson, Lyndon B. ''My Hope for America'': Random House, 1964


External links


President Johnson's speech at the University of Michigan from the LBJ Library

80,000 people filled Michigan Stadium to hear President Lyndon Johnson



Johnson's Great Society speech on CNN



The Great Society Congress Digital Exhibition
{{Lyndon B. Johnson * Liberalism in the United States