Great Depression and President Franklin D. Rousevelt

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The Great Depression in USA began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. The Depression caused major political changes in America. Three years into the depression, Herbert Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a sweeping landslide. Roosevelt's economic recovery plan, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief, recovery and reform, and brought about a major realignment of American politics. The Depression also resulted in an increase of emigration of people to other countries for the first time in American history. For example, some immigrants went back to their native countries, and some native US citizens went to Canada, Australia, and South Africa. 

The memory of the Depression also shaped modern theories of economics and resulted in many changes in how the government dealt with economic downturns, such as the use of stimulus packages, Keynesian economics, andSocial Security. It also shaped modern American literature, resulting in famous novels such as John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men".

Rede more here:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm
http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd President of the United States (1933–1945) and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession.

As World War II loomed after 1938, with the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, FDR gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and Great Britain, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy" which would supply munitions to the Allies. In March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, providedLend-Lease aid to the countries fighting against Nazi Germany with Britain. With very strong national support, he made war on Japan and Germany after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, calling it a "date which will live in infamy". He supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the Allied war effort. As an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented an overall war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and the development of the world's first atom bomb.

Roosevelt dominated the American political scene not only during the twelve years of his presidency, but also for decades afterward. He orchestrated the realignment of voters that created the Fifth Party System. FDR's New Deal Coalition united labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans and rural white Southerners. He also influenced the later creation of the United Nations andBretton Woods. Roosevelt is consistently rated by scholars as one of the top three U.S. Presidents, along with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

You can read more information here:

http://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt

http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/

http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/a/fdr.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArooseveltF.htm