The "New Deal"

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New Deal

1. Introduction

New Deal, name given to the peacetime domestic program of United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, and especially to the innovative measures taken between 1933 and 1938 to counteract the effects of the Great Depression.

Both Roosevelt and the Congress of the United States, in trying to reduce unemployment and restore prosperity, endorsed a wide spectrum of new federal programs and agencies, most popularly identified by acronym titles. Roosevelt, a skillful political leader, helped win support for an unprecedented array of new services, regulations, and subsidies. Yet no single political philosophy or set of coherent goals ever unified these disparate programs, most of which he developed with the aid of an informal group of advisers known as the Brain Trust. These individuals from outside government included professors, lawyers, and others who came to Washington to advise Roosevelt, in particular on economic affairs. The central legacy of the New Deal was increased government involvement in the lives of the people.

2.Background

The stock market crash in October 1929 marked the beginning of the Great Depression, a difficult economic period for the United States and other countries. Unemployment increased and the economic security of many people was threatened. Farmers lost their land, homeowners their homes, and workers their jobs. In the years following the stock market crash, thousands of banks closed and many Americans lost their savings. The incumbent president, Herbert Hoover, lost the election of 1932 to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt campaigned on promises of a new deal for the American people. In his first inaugural address he declared:

"...in the event that Congress shall fail to take these courses and in the event that the national emergency is still critical I shall not evade the clear course or duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis-broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in ...