Rural banks failed without these payments, placing more pressure on a banking system already shaky, due to the stock market crash. After , drought conditions plagued the Midwest, further compounding existing problems. If the economic outlook looked bleak from the nation's fields, they appeared just as dreary from its factory floors.
While industrial productivity and profits increased in the s, wages remained stagnant. These profits, more often than not, were placed in the in the stock market or in speculative schemes, rather than re-invested in new factories or used to fund new businesses, both of which theoretically would create new jobs. The combination of agricultural woes and industrial stagnation conspired to grind America's economy to a halt in the early s. Moreover, the world economy was suffering from a general slowdown in the late s.
The Treaty of Versailles that ended the Great War required Germany to pay reparations to France and Britain, which, in turn, owed money to American banks. The German economy, wrecked by the war, could not sustain these payments, and the German government turned to the United States for cash.
Europe's economic health, then, was built on a web of financial arrangements and hinged on a robust American economy. Each of these factors helped create and sustain a severely unequal distribution of wealth in the United States, where a tiny minority possessed incredible riches.
Five percent of the populace held nearly a third of the money and property. Over 80 percent of Americans held no savings at all. Moreover, the American economy depended upon consumption, but because of the stagnation in wages, the collapse of agricultural markets, and rising unemployment all of which led to the growing gap between rich and poor , most Americans could not buy the products that made the economy hum.
Wealthier Americans, by contrast, failed to spend their money, choosing instead to invest it. It was a consumer economy in which few consumed. Between and , 5, American banks collapsed, one in four farms went into foreclosure, and an average of , jobs vanished each week. By , over 12 million Americans—nearly one-quarter of the workforce—were unemployed. Statistics alone, however, cannot tell the story of the "Great Depression. The nation's will sagged and its future seemed, at least to some, in doubt.
President Hoover took substantive steps to alleviate the crisis, but accomplished little. His political fortunes sagged accordingly. In New York, Governor Roosevelt reacted slowly at first, hoping, much like Hoover, that the economy would turn around. When it did not, FDR determined that "there is a duty on the part of government to do something about this. As the depression deepened, FDR got the New York state legislature to pass a public works program for the unemployed and to grant relief to the needy.
All of these actions established FDR's credentials as a liberal reformer. Roosevelt won re-election in , no mean feat for a governor serving during the Great Depression. President Hoover faced no such rosy outlook. As the Great Depression worsened in the early s, Republican prospects for the presidential election withered.
The Democrats, on the other hand, looked to the rising star of their party, Franklin D. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Life Before the Presidency. Breadcrumb U. Presidents Franklin D. Franklin D.
Roosevelt , the 32nd president of the United States of America, was one of the greatest and most influential figures in its history. He was often referred to by his initials, FDR. This extraordinary man, guided the United States through its most noteworthy personal crisis, besides the Civil War, and its greatest foreign crisis. His administration—which spanned twelve years—was unmatched, not only in length but also in scope.
In August , while on a summer vacation in Campobello Island, Canada, 39 years old, Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio, a disease at that time with no known cure. Some of the symptoms of his condition were fever, increasing symmetric paralysis, facial paralysis, and so on. FDR was permanently paralyzed, starting from the waist down and experienced long periods of careful physical restoration to attempt to regain his legs.
Even though he gained some ground by figuring out how to move short distances with the aid of a steel brace and a stick, it was, in reality, a difficult time for him since he could neither dress nor wash on his own.
Admirers compared her voice to velvet and swore her smile was radiant. They insisted every man she met fell in love with her.
I waded through the syrupy tributes in hope of a crumb of real insight. That is undoubtedly true. Three days a week he also came home to her social secretary, who laughed at his jokes and responded to his teasing and saw no reason to question his version of the way things had happened.
But many women worshiped FDR—the spunky Missy LeHand, the willfully spinsterish Daisy Suckley, the flirtatious Princess Martha of Norway, whose sexy high heels and stillunrationed black silk stockings the press gleefully reported. FDR flattered and flirted with them all, but it was Lucy for whom he had almost left his wife before he had polio, and Lucy whom the White House operators were instructed to put through no matter when she called, and Lucy whom he was with when he succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage on that clement April afternoon in Warm Springs.
Lucy Mercer had a talent, though it is not one held in high regard today. She made other people happy. I am not talking about giving up a career to stay home and raise children, or nursing an aging parent, or other instances of worthy self-sacrifice. I mean a contagious genius for living joyously. Her descendants speak of the insouciance with which she met early hardship.
Her parents squandered a fortune with stunning panache, and one morning she and her sister awakened to find they were stranded penniless at their convent school in Austria. They mention her soft heart. She once bought out an entire farm stand so the woman running it could close for the day. They speak of her need to make surroundings beautiful, and days bright, and loved ones glad to be alive.
That glimpse of a vigorous ambulatory self was not the only reason he returned to her at the end, but surely it was a happy side effect. She was an exquisitely sensitive and engaging companion and later a constant and competent nurse to a husband who doted on her. She was a devoted and successful mother to five stepchildren and one biological daughter, all of whom adored her.
FDR and ER, in contrast, battled endlessly to make America a more inclusive society at home and a force for democracy abroad. Their marriage may have been a failure, but their partnership was a triumph. The President sent his wife out as his investigator and ambassador, valued her opinion, boasted of her achievements, and defended her weaknesses. Surely the monumental demands ER made on her husband were proof of her belief in his ability to rise to them. But their public accomplishments took a personal toll.
Moreover, while I do not believe that parents are responsible for the acts of adult offspring, and the nature-nurture debate is far from settled, the five surviving Roosevelt children married a total of 19 times. I discovered secrets I wanted to sweep under the rug.
I never wish to hear money, jewels, or labels mentioned again. And what was the future First Lady who would champion female equality doing opposing woman suffrage?
Moreover, when it comes to historical cover-ups, many FDR and ER partisans would like to bury Lucy Mercer along with the inconvenient prejudices of their youth.
But whitewashing the weaknesses of the great is a disservice to them as well as history. During the four years I spent with Franklin D. When I looked at their early prejudices, I saw signposts indicating how far they had traveled. When I thought about their personal flaws, I marveled at the public good to which they put them.
He had long suffered the effects of poorly controlled hypertension, high blood pressure in an era when one of the only medications available to lower it a bit was the soporific phenobarbital. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the palace in Yalta in February Signal Corps. On the morning of the 12th, Roosevelt woke up at a. He complained of a mild headache and some neck stiffness but the latter seemed to resolve with mild massage. Despite the warm and humid clime, FDR felt a chill and asked for a warm cape to be draped on his shoulders.
As the president casually read the newspapers and composed a few letters at a card table that served as his make-shift desk, the artist Shoumatoff set up her easel and painted away.
At that point, Daisy thought Franklin had dropped one of his ever-present cigarettes because his head drooped forward and he seemed unable to raise it. She asked her cousin what was wrong. Despite the ministrations of his doctors, he was declared dead at pm. The immediate cause was a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
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