Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The Beginning
• Distant cousin to President Theodore Roosevelt
– Wealthy New York family
– Educated at Harvard & Columbia Law School
– Married Eleanor Roosevelt
• 1910 won New York Senate
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Progressive reformer
Appointed Assistant Secretary to the Navy
1920 was the VP candidate
Contracted polio
• 1928 won Governor of New York
– Cut taxes, reduced utility fees, set up relief agency
– Energy & optimism
• 1932 presidential nomination
Roosevelt is Inaugurated
• Bank runs increased
– Gold Standard
• One ounce of gold =a set number of dollars
• To reduce the value of the dollar, the U.S. would stop
exchanging dollars for gold making paper money worthless
• 4,000 banks closed
– Bank holiday
– Closing remaining banks before bank runs
• 25% unemployment rate
• People admired his energy & optimism
– Fireside chats
The New Deal
• FDR was willing to experiment
– Chose advisors who disagreed with him
• 3 main ideas in his administration
– Joint government-business cooperation
– Government control of business
– More competition
• First Hundred Days
– Between March 9th & June 16th
– Congress passed 15 major acts
The New Deal
• Created the New Deal
– A series of government programs meant to pull
the country out of the Great Depression
– Goals
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Fix the Banks
Manage Industry
Provide Debt relief- business and private
Create Jobs
– Cost money
Assignment
• Look through chapter 18 section 2
• Describe three of the New Deal Initiatives
– What was it called?
– Who was it meant to help?
– What did it do?
– Was it successful?
• Journal entries
– Pretend that you are living during the Great
Depression
– Write three journal entries that describe how your
daily life would be.
– Include 4 events from the notes, or chap 17
section 2-3, that would describe what is
happening at the time
– Each journal entry needs to be at least a
paragraph long
Assignment
• Create a timeline that shows the different
events of the Great Depression
– Start with Hoover’s Inauguration
– End with FDR’s Inauguration
• Must include 10 events in order
• Provide a description of each event and how it
contributed to, or helped, the Great
Depression