Teaching Resource
The New Deal: Legislation & Policies
Historical Background
When the stock market crashed in October of 1929, American citizens faced economic challenges unlike anything previously experienced in U.S. history. By the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President in 1933, the nation’s unemployment rate hovered at 25%. In a vast departure from previous Presidents, who believed that the federal government has no place in trying to regulate and/or control the cyclical nature of markets, Roosevelt believed that the sheer scope of the...