Honors Blog

Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office during a rough time in America’s history, we are in the middle of the depression, unemployment is at an all time high, people are still getting laid off, and everyone is worried if we can ever get back to what we once were. There were many things that Franklin D. Roosevelt did to help soften this blow, and took his job very seriously and to heart because he knew everyone was looking to him for answers. To bring the U.S. economy out of the depression Roosevelt, and his brain trust, proposed a “First Plan,” proposed the “Second New Deal.”

First thing Franklin did when he entered office was put together a brain trust of economists and other professors who all had one goal, to help the failing U.S. economy. Roosevelt experimented with many things like the price of the dollar, putting money into banks and starting relief for the unemployed. One of Roosevelt’s advisers, Hopkins, persuaded Roosevelt to enact the Civil Works Administration that would, “Do something socially useful… preserves a man’s morals.” Due to the high price of this program Roosevelt soon disbanded this program but used it as a guide for future programs. Roosevelt then started a program that is still known of today for making some of the most important structures in U.S. History. The PWA is called the Public Works Administration that put unemployed workers to work by hiring contractors to build big jobs like the Triborough Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and two Aircraft Carriers. This gave people a job as well as allowed consumer spending since people were getting money once more.

This second plan was during a time of huge up rest of workers, there were strikers everywhere around 1900 at one time and it was telling Roosevelt he needs to work faster. He felt his answer was the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 with a record of 4.8billion dollars for relief and employment. Some went to the NYA to help get jobs for younger people but the bulk of it went the WPA. “Before its end in 1943, the WPA employed at least 8.5 million people and built or improved 100,000 schools, post offices, and other public buildings.” Social Security was also a plan that was put in place to help those people who could not help themselves the aged poor, the infirm and dependent children. These new programs brought relief to workers and helped those that needed it; people believed he was answering their prayers.

The last thing that brought the U.S. out of the depression was war. World War 2 was happening and the U.S. was being dragged into it. It was the Bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought up rest at home and it was the invasion and axis pacts that forced the U.S. to side with the failing British and French governments. This war allowed a record number of jobs for building weapons. “Within two weeks Churchill was in Washington, meeting with Roosevelt to coordinate production schedules for ships, planes, and armaments.” The newspapers laughed at them saying it was outrageous but in the end, they made more than scheduled which probably brought the turn around of the war and the U.S. economy.

In the end, Roosevelt was a great man and with the help of advisors and his first lady, brought the United States out of the depression. There are some who say he didn’t do much, that the U.S. would get back to its pre depression status on his own but if he got elected for four terms, he must have been doing something right. From my knowledge of this period he changed the federal government as not just a maker of rules and protector of lives, he used to delegate everything from money to jobs. He used the federal government for the people rather than the people working for the federal government. It was through his first and second plans that change started and new policies were in place but it wasn’t until World War 2 for us to get out of the depression and focus on a scapegoat which at the time was the axis evil.