Key Figures of the Great Depression
Herbert Hoover
President when the stock market crashed in October 1929. Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932 to provide emergency loans to banks and railroads, but his broader response was widely seen as too limited, and he lost the 1932 election to Roosevelt in a landslide.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Took office in March 1933 and launched the New Deal, an sweeping set of relief, recovery, and reform programs. His radio addresses, known as "fireside chats," became a defining feature of his effort to reassure the public.
Frances Perkins
The first woman to serve in a U.S. Cabinet position, Perkins served as Secretary of Labor under FDR and was a key architect of the Social Security Act.
Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz
Decades later, these economists co-authored "A Monetary History of the United States," arguing the Federal Reserve's failure to act as lender of last resort during the banking panics significantly deepened the Depression — a highly influential later reassessment of the era.