President FDR & the New Deal

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

In 1932, amidst the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected the 32nd President of the United States. He was more than a leader; he was a beacon of hope, steering the nation through its darkest days... and the newly-elected president had a plan.

In this episode, Don is joined by historian Eric Rauchway to explore the New Deal, an ambitious set of federal initiatives aimed at pulling America out of the Great Depression.

Edited by Matthew Peaty. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Archive audio courtesy of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. "Presidential Speeches: Downloadable Data." Accessed December 20, 2024.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933, the Great Depression had reached its worst point.
0:12.0	Nearly 15 million Americans were out of work. The economy had contracted by 30%.
0:17.0	A relentless banking crisis was toppling one institution after another. The country
0:22.5	teetered on the edge of collapse. Roosevelt had run on the promise of bold, decisive action
0:28.5	by the federal government. It was essential to reverse course. But for his initiatives to succeed,
0:34.7	he needed the American people to be with him, to trust in the dramatic
0:38.4	measures undertaken. And so, at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, March 12, 1933, one week after
0:45.9	his inauguration, Roosevelt's voice crackled to life over radios across the country. In modest
0:51.6	apartments and stately homes, around kitchen tables and in living rooms,
0:56.4	Americans settled in to listen as their new president spoke in plain, reassuring terms,
1:02.0	explaining the steps ahead. We had a bad banking situation, he said.
1:07.2	Some of our bankers have shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people's funds.
1:14.6	They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans.
1:20.6	This was of course not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people of the United
1:29.7	States for a time into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they
1:36.2	did not differentiate but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them
1:42.5	all. And so it became the government's job to straighten out this situation,
1:48.2	and to do it as quickly as possible, and that job is being performed.
1:53.6	FDR had a plan.
1:56.9	He would stabilize the chaos by first closing all banks,
2:02.2	carefully assessing their viability, then reopened those deemed secure. When they reopened, he assured Americans,
2:08.6	their money would be safe. It was the first of many such transformative actions the Roosevelt
	...

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