The New Deal

Hello everyone. I'm trying to revise for my paper tomorrow, and as the New Deal comes up every year, I thought I'd start with that. I'm fine with relief, recovery, reform and opposition, but I get a little confused with the comparison questions - so I'm asking you lovely people for some help. :smile:

'The Second New Deal rather than the First New Deal was Roosevelt's major domestic achievement.' How far do you agree?

I've got; opposition - he was able to deal with it better during the First New Deal, it was not as strong, during the later Second New Deal after 1937 he essentially became a 'lame duck President'. However, in the early part of the second new deal at least he responded to his main critics and opposition with new laws which could be seen as a compromise with them, this shows political skill and achievement - Social Security, Wealth Tax etc.

Objectives; the first was seen by many as crisis management, and an attempt to stop the decline - could be considered that this succeeded. The second is seen by historians as an attempt to deal more comprehensively with the problem, it was seen as building on the first and planning for the future, but did this really happen? Despite wanting 'relief, recovery and reform', neither deal really brought that fully - only the war brought recovery.

Anyway, as you can see I'm a little stuck, so, how would you all do it?

A similar question that I'm also stuck with is this:

How far do you agree that the Second New Deal (1935-37) was more significant than the First New Deal (1933-35) in bringing the US out of economic depression?

With this I've been comparing agencies.
Help for the farmers.
Help for the banks.
Help for industry.
Help for the homeless.
Help for the unemployed.

And assessing each. Would you take a different approach? Thanks a lot, hope someone can help me!