Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

Who They Were

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) was the 32nd president of the United States and the central political figure of the Great Depression and the Second World War. A New York Democrat who had served as governor of the state, he defeated the incumbent Herbert Hoover in the 1932 election, having introduced the phrase New Deal in his Democratic nomination acceptance speech that summer. He took office in March 1933 amid a banking panic and immediately declared a national bank holiday, closing every bank in the country to halt the runs. Over the following years his administration built an activist federal state, and his reassuring radio fireside chats became a hallmark of his leadership. He was elected to an unprecedented four terms and died in office in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war in Europe.

Key Contributions

Roosevelt's first hundred days in 1933 produced an extraordinary burst of legislation that gave the New Deal its name and shape. The Emergency Banking Act allowed sound banks to reopen after the bank holiday and restored confidence in the system. Congress went on to pass the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking, and to create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to insure bank deposits. Later New Deal measures established Social Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission, institutions that still anchor American economic life. Working with cabinet members such as Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, Roosevelt oversaw the design of Social Security and a broad expansion of the federal role in relief, regulation, and social insurance. Together these programs permanently enlarged the federal responsibility for economic stability.

On EconRecall

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• The Great Depression 1929