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The U.S. appeared to be poised for economic recovery following the stock market crash of 1929, until a series of bank panics in the fall of 1930 turned the recovery into the beginning of the Great Depression. -
Herbert Hoover's tenure as the 31st president of the United States began on his inauguration on March 4, 1929, and ended on March 4, 1933. Hoover, a Republican, took office after a landslide victory in the 1928 presidential election over Democrat Al Smith of New York. -
The Wall Street crash of 1929, also called the Great Crash, was a sudden and steep decline in stock prices in the United States in late October of that year.The 1929 crash lasted until 1932, resulting in the Great Depression, a time in which stocks lost nearly 90% of their value -
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms and drought in the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada during the 1930s, caused by a combination of poor farming techniques, including plowing up native grasslands, and a prolonged drought. -
Hoovervilles were shantytowns of makeshift shelters that sprung up across the United States during the Great Depression. These communities provided housing for people who had lost their homes due to the economic collapse and were built from scavenged materials like scrap wood and cardboard. -
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, passed in 1930, was a U.S. law that significantly raised import duties to protect American farmers and manufacturers during the early Great Depression. -
The Scottsboro Boys case involved nine African American teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. The highly publicized series of trials and appeals that followed exposed deep-seated racial injustice in the American South and played a significant role in the developing Civil Rights Movement. -
The Bonus Army was a protest in Washington, D.C., in 1932, where thousands of World War I veterans and their families marched to demand the early payment of a bonus they were promised for their service. -
The "Black Cabinet" was an unofficial advisory group of African American federal employees who served during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, from 1933 to 1945. -
Roosevelt began on January 20, 1941, when he was once again inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the fourth term of his presidency ended with his death on April 12, 1945. Roosevelt won a third term by defeating Republican nominee Wendell Willkie in the 1940 presidential election. -
"The bank holiday" most often refers to the National Bank Holiday of 1933, a four-day closure of U.S. banks by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to restore public confidence in the financial system during the Great Depression. -
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first fireside chat on March 12, 1933, explained his administration's actions to stabilize the banking system, using plain language to build public confidence during the Great Depression. The informal and direct address, intended to avoid panic and explain complex issues clearly, connected with millions of Americans and set a new standard for presidential communication. -
The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933 and signed into law on June 16, 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its establishment was a direct response to the Great Depression, a period marked by thousands of bank failures and widespread public panic. -
The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, also known as the Wheeler-Howard Act, reversed the assimilationist policies of the past by ending the forced allotment of tribal lands and providing tribes with the right to self-determination -
The National Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to provide mortgage insurance, stimulate the housing market and construction industry during the Great Depression, and help Americans get more affordable, longer-term home loans with smaller down payments. -
The Social Security Act is a foundational U.S. federal law, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 14, 1935, that created the social insurance program to provide income to retired workers, as well as benefits for survivors and people with disabilities.