Throughout Franklin Roosevelt's presidency campaign he was a well respected voice to many Americans, preaching “I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”-Roosevelt. When he was inaugurated in march 1933 he was immediately faced with a broken economy and unemployment at an all time high, The Great Depression.
Many believe that the stock market crashing was the cause of The Great Depression, but this is false. It did however have a big influence, adding to the uncertainty at the time. One of the causes was a lack of consumerism. People were handling their money a little more conservatively. When no one is buying stuff it lowers income and forces you to spend less money. In order for our economy to work properly people need to spend money because you end up with an abundance of product which in turn lowers the price. It seems like a never ending cycle. It didn’t help that banks lost money to the stock market and couldn’t pay the people trying to withdraw money because it wasn’t backed up by gold. The Great Depression started around 1929 and ended in 1939. Roosevelt’s resolution to the depression was The New Deal. The New Deal pumped federal funds into the economy through several work programs. The New Deal helped unemployed people and farmers, it gave people jobs and the farmers received compensation to not farm so they wouldn’t flood the market and lower food costs. The New Deal was oriented around the three R’s. The work projects gave relief to the unemployed, recovery time was needed from the economical crisis, and laws were reformed, like restrictions on banking policies to prevent another depression. |
Sources
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/newdeal/ https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMq9Ek6jnA&t=223s Franklin Delano Roosevelt was our 32nd president representing the Democratic party. He served as our president from 1933 to 1945 when he died from an intracerebral hemorrhage.
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The Dust bowl was going on at the same time as The Great Depression. After planting and harvesting a crop it is good to change what you grow because it will replace the nutrients in the soil for the next season. That is what wasn't happening on a lot of farms, so the soil got overworked, dried out, and blew away. This cost many people there jobs and left them to broke to move somewhere with fertile ground. This all added to the hardship during the Great Depression.