Fdr New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was relatively unknown to politics until his campaign for presidency in 1932. He won the landslide election not because the public was sure he was capable of pulling the country out of the depression, but more because they wanted change from Hoover who seemed to have no set plan for dealing with the depression. The nation was hoping for a miracle. Their wish was granted when the enthusiastic and charismatic president Roosevelt proposed a record of 15 bills to congress within the first 100 days of office. Thus was the start of the new deal and for the first time the government took an active role in the organizing of private businesses and farms, as well as in individual people's lives. In Roosevelt's inaugural speech he states, "I pledge to you, I pledge to myself, to a new deal for the American people. Give me your help, not to win votes alone but to win this crusade to restore America to its own people. The most important effect of the first 100 days is that it rekindled hope in the American people and gave the feeling of progress. FDR's New Deal created many new roles for the government, such as directly helping the needy in society, managing industry as well as reforming the economy to prevent a depression of that scale from happening again.

The New Deal was a series of acts designed to pull the country out of economic strife. FDR started his presidency off with a bang when he passed the Emergency Banking Act. Under this act the federal government ordered an official bank holiday in which all banks across the nation shut down for a period of time and were permitted to reopen with the government's approval. After the trust in the banking system was restored, Roosevelt turned his head toward the needy in society, the lower class. Congress passed the Civilian Conservation Corps or the CCC to provide jobs and training to 10000 unemployed men and restored many of the country's resources by planting trees, fighting fires, and building roads. Though the number of citizens directly affected by this was small it instilled hope in the nation that the federal government was taking initiative towards helping the poor and unemployed. This was only the start of acts passed to directly relieve the poor; others were: the Federal Emergency Relief Administration which benefited those ineligible for the CCC, the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act was designed for the relief of farmers, and the Home Owners' Loan Corporation which helped homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes.

Although it tried, the federal government could not help every citizen individually, the Roosevelt administration turned towards the recovery of the nation and its economy as a whole. Roosevelt believed he could end the depression with one act when it came to recovering the economy; he introduced to congress what was known as the National Industrial Recovery Act which in turn established the National Recovery Administration (NRA). The NRA acted primarily against the big businesses and for the employees, it acted as a third party arbitration between employers and the unions on issues such as negotiating salary and working conditions (hours, breaks, etc.). The NRA also fixed prices on goods along with standards on the quantity of certain products made by a single company. Stephanie Fitzgerald talks of this in her book The New Deal "The government had never been more deeply involved in the practices of individual businesses before." (Fitzgerald 59). Evidentially the NRA failed to bring the country out of the depression and was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court during Roosevelt's second term.

The first New Deal focused on the individuals of the country, during Roosevelt's second term he initiated the second New Deal to reform the system altogether and