Lyndon Johnson's Great Society

LBJ's Effort to Continue Kennedy's Idealism and Roosevelt's New Deal

Oct 3, 2009

The Great Society was LBJ's legislative program that continued Kennedy's War on Poverty and furthered the ideas of Roosevelt's New Deal and Truman's Fair Deal.

The Great Society was a large legislative program and idea formed by Lyndon Johnson during the nineteen-sixties shortly after Kennedy’s assassination in his effort to continue the work of the slain president. The Great Society was an idea that was based on conservative values and instituted many government funded programs to aid, assist, and better the lives of many Americans, especially those who lived in poverty with little or no education, but it also reached into many other aspects of American life such as health care, the environment, and the arts.

The Creation of The Great Society

What helped make the Great Society possible were several factors beginning with the boost in the American economy caused by Johnson’s passage of Kennedy’s proposed tax cut. The tax cut caused an increase in spending and revenue, which helped illustrate the gap between the wealthy and the poor. This increase in spending along with the popularity of Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America, brought poverty to the forefront of domestic issues.

The strong economy, coupled with the idea that the government could actually win the war on poverty made the Great Society appear as though it could be turned into reality. The prosperity of the nation and strength of the American economy made it believable that if things continued as they did that no one would have to live in poverty in the future and that the Great Society programs would have enough funding to achieve their goals. The idealism of “the sixties” also contributed to the growing belief in the Great Society and gave people the belief that the programs would actually be successful.

The Great Society was also the successor of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and even Harry Truman’s Fair Deal. It was made possible through the support of the political “liberal consensus.”

Great Society Programs and Initiatives

The programs, organizations and institutions created by the Great Society were widely varied and far-reaching. Some were successful but many others failed. The arts programs started under Johnson’s Great Society were largely successful:

Another program which did not deal with the arts but which was also successful dealt with the needs of employees in urban cities, the Urban Mass Transit Act which saw the creation of public transit in many large cities throughout America including Atlanta and Washington DC. This Act paved the way for subway systems to be built, including the Metro, which provides transportation to the District of Columbia and its suburbs.

Other Achievements of The Great Society

Arts and improved public transportation were not the only achievements of the Great Society. Great Society programs also created many successes in the arena of education. It supported higher education through expanded student loan programs and helped create and fund programs for more basic education as well.

Head Start was begun under the Great Society in cities to help prepare children from poor families for kindergarten in public schools. Head Start not only educated the children, but also improved the education of some parents as they learned with their children.

The school breakfast program was also developed under the umbrella of Great Society. This program provided free or low-cost meals to children before school started in the mornings and also emphasized the importance of better nutrition in school lunches. It also provided free or low-cost lunches to students who needed them as well.

The Great Society Today

While specific programs have endured to present times and achieved much there are also more general failures. The eradication of poverty in America is the most glaring failure. Millions of Americans, including children and the elderly, still live below the poverty line. Pollution continues to be a problem in America despite the many environmental programs started under the umbrella of the Great Society. While individual programs have been very successful in some instances the idealistic goals of the Great Society were never actually reached.

Sources

Bloom, Alexander and Wini Breines, eds. Takin' it to the streets: A Sixties Reader (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Isserman, Maurice and Michael Kazin. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Monhollon, Rusty. This Is America?: The Sixties in Lawrence, Kansas (New York: Palgrave, 2004).

The copyright of the article Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in Modern US History is owned by Tracey Carter. Permission to republish Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Oct 27, 2009 1:32 PM

Guest :

The idealistic goals of the Great Society were not achieved because it has been proven that federal intervention in society in general and the economy in particular is most often a failure. When the federal government attempts to legislate what can best be done on a local or state level, it almost always falls short in its goals.