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Frances Perkins Became First Female Cabinet Member
When then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins as the secretary of labor, she became the first woman to hold a Cabinet position in a U.S. president's administration. She would go on to serve the longest term of any secretary of labor to date. -
Sacco & Vanzetti
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. -
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s -
Scopes Trial
The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in -
Stock Market Crash (Black Tuesday)
On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. Shown: the interior of the New York Stock Exchange on Black Friday, October 25, 1929. -
Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act
Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods. An Act To provide revenue, to regulate commerce with foreign countries, to encourage the industries of the United States, to protect American labor, and for other purposes. -
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors and manmade factors -
Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam) Built
Hoover Dam, formerly called Boulder Dam, dam in Black Canyon on the Colorado River, at the Arizona-Nevada border, U.S. Constructed between 1930 and 1936, it is the highest concrete arch dam in the United States -
Bonus Army Gassed
On July 28, 1932 the U.S. government attacked World War I veterans with tanks, bayonets, and tear gas, under the leadership of textbook heroes Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was a government corporation administered by the United States Federal Government between 1932 and 1957 that provided financial support to state and local governments and made loans to banks, railroads, mortgage associations, and other businesses -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Elected
In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican incumbent president Herbert Hoover in a landslide. During his first 100 days as president, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal. -
The Hundred Days Began
On July 25, 1933, Roosevelt gave a radio address in which he coined the term "first 100 days." Looking back, he began, "we all wanted the opportunity of a little quiet thought to examine and assimilate in a mental picture the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of -
First Fireside Chat
This week marks the 88th anniversary of FDR's first “Fireside Chat.” Though not identified as such on March 12, 1933, the President's address to the nation marked a key moment in his new Administration. He would speak directly to the American people over the airwaves about the banking crisis. -
The New Deal Began
New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate -
FDIC was Created
On June 16, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Banking Act of 1933, a part of which established the FDIC. -
The AAA was Created
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a federal law passed in 1933 as part of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The law offered farmers subsidies in exchange for limiting their production of certain crops. The subsidies were meant to limit overproduction so that crop prices could increase. -
NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation
National Labor Relations Board v Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, 301 U.S. 1, was a United States Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act. -
Wagner Act
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes -
Congress of Industrial Organization Created
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) by John L. -
The WPA was Created
On May 6, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was just one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which Roosevelt had signed the month before. -
The SSA was Created
The United States Social Security Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability and survivor benefits -
Mary Bethune Made Head of the Division of Negro Affairs and the National Youth Administration
In 1936, in an effort to better address the needs of black youth, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Mary McLeod Bethune as Director of the NYA's Division of Negro Affairs. With this appointment, the prominent civil rights leader became the first black female administrator in the federal government. -
Court-Packing Plan
The bill came to be known as Roosevelt's "court-packing plan", a phrase coined by Edward Rumely. In November 1936, Roosevelt won a sweeping re-election victory. In the months following, he proposed to reorganize the federal judiciary by adding a new justice each time a justice reached age 70 and failed to retire. -
Grapes of Wrath Published
Since the day it was published on April 14, 1939, The Grapes of Wrath has captured the American imagination, pulling back the curtain on a way of life that most of us could scarcely imagine, and showing us the powerful ways that literature can touch society. -
Glass-Steagall Act
The Glass-Steagall Act effectively separated commercial banking from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, among other things. It was one of the most widely debated legislative initiatives before being signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1933.