Roosevelt's New Deal
Roosevelt took office on 4 March 1933 with a quarter of the workforce unemployed and the banking system closed. Some 9,000 banks had failed since 1929, depositors had lost their savings, and governors in most states had declared bank holidays to stop the runs. His first act was to close every bank in the country by proclamation, pass an emergency banking act through Congress in a single day, and explain on the radio that the banks reopening would be sound. Deposits came back the following week. The hundred days that followed produced fifteen major acts. The Civilian Conservation Corps put a quarter of a million young men into forestry work within months; the Agricultural Adjustment Act paid farmers to cut production; the National Industrial Recovery Act suspended antitrust law in exchange for codes on wages and hours; the Tennessee Valley Authority built dams and electrified a region; and Glass-Steagall separated commercial from investment banking and created deposit insurance. The second wave in 1935 was more durable: Social Security, the Wagner Act guaranteeing collective bargaining, and the Works Progress Administration, which employed some eight million people building roads, schools and airports and paying artists, writers and musicians. The Supreme Court struck down the NIRA and the AAA, and Roosevelt's attempt to pack it in 1937 failed and cost him his coalition. Unemployment fell from 25 to about 14 per cent by 1937 and rose again when spending was cut. The war ended the Depression; the New Deal rebuilt the state.
- Year: 1933 CE
- Category: Political
