Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in 1892 into a wealthy New York family.

He studied
History and Government at Harvard University. Then he began to work as a lawyer.

In 1910, He entered politics as a senator in New York. He was a great supporter of

Woodrow Wilson. In 1913 he was made Assistant Secretary for the Navy.

In 1920 he was a vice-president candidate. Sadly a year later (1921), he contracted

polio, but this disaster didn't stop him, so in 1924 he returned to politics.

In 1928 he stood as governor of New York. So when the Wall Street Crash happened,
he insisted that governments should do something for those in need. A sum of 20
million dollars was spent on schemes to provide work. These actions that he made
attracted a lot of interest.

In 1932 he was chosen to stand for president against Hoover by the Democratic party
and won easily. Then in 1933, he ended the prohibition. He was re-elected president in
1936, in this time the actions of Hitler were worrying him and he hated all Hitler stand
for. He was also worried about the Japanese, who were threatening the stability of the
Pacific and the far East. A year after, 1937, he warned his people that the USA would
not be able to steer clear of a major war if it broke out. However when war came and
Hitler overran Europe he sent help to Britain. Then he was re-elected again in 1940, and
a year later he met Winston Churchill and drew up the Atlantic Charter (which provided
a broad statement of USA and Britain war aims) and was re-elected again in 1944 until
he died in 1945.

The New Deal

National Industrial Recovery Act, also known as NIRA, this act had many sections. Two
of them are the National Recovery Administration and the Public Works Administration.

Firstly, the most important is the National Recovery Administration (NRA). Wich animate
workers and employers to get together to work out a code of fair conditions: minimum
wages, maximum hours and standards were agreed. Goods made under these codes
were sold with a "Blue Eagle" tag.

Secondly, the Public Works Administration (PWA). This one spent more than 1.000
million dollars on all sorts of projects: airports, hospitals, city halls, bridges, harbours
and battleships. Another organisation was the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
organised similar schemes on a smaller scale. In 1938 it spent 1400 million dollars on
schools, libraries, and roads and gave work to artists, writers, photographers, actors
and historians and paid them to improve life in local towns.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration, The FERA, millions of dollars were spent on
providing soup kitchens, and nursery schools for poor children and provide employment.
This act was found to give quick relief where it was needed the most.

Civilian Conservation Corps, The CCC, this act was made because Roosevelt was
worried about how many young men were unemployed. So in this act young men could
work for several months in the American countryside. They helped in the National parks,
worked in forests and tidied up rivers and lakes. In the end two and half million young
men took part in this scheme.

However, some people didn’t like The New Deal, by 1935 both, Roosevelt and The New
Deal were running into criticism. For some people, the change didn’t come quickly
enough. Father Charles E. Coughlin, a popular radio speaker, first supported the New
Deal and then later proposed that America should adopt a form of fascism. For other
people change had come too fast: government spending, higher taxes and increased
trade union membership were attacked by conservatives. Then the bigger attack came
from the American Supreme Court, which declared The NIRA unconstitutional.

They said the NIRA “delegated legislative powers to the president and attempted to
regulate local businesses that did not engage in interstate commerce”