The Presidents of the 1930s

Herbert Hoover

• Herbert Hoover was born in Iowa in 1874. He went to school at Stanford University during its inaugural year in 1891 and graduated with a mining engineer degree. He had been appointed head of Food Administration during World War I and helped to administer aid to those suffering from famine in Soviet Russia in 1921. Hoover became the Republican presidential nominee during the 1928 elections. He began his presidency in 1929, right before the stock market crash on Oct. 27, 1929. Hoover served four years in the White House from 1929 until 1933.
  
  

Hoover's Presidency

• Hoover's plan to get the country out of the Depression was to give more opportunity for public works spending. One of the projects that was undertaken during Hoover's presidency that helped boost the economy a bit was the building of Boulder Dam on the Colorado River in the Arizona and Nevada desert. This dam was later named the Hoover Dam. Many voters blamed the Depression on Hoover, and he lost the presidency during the 1932 election to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover became an outspoken opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal policies during Roosevelt's presidency.
  
  

Franklin D. Roosevelt

• Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, in 1882. Roosevelt went to Columbia Law School and Harvard University. Roosevelt was governor of New York in 1928, despite being diagnosed with polio and was elected to the White House as a Democrat. Roosevelt was elected to four terms in the White House, before the two-term cap was put on the presidency. This was the longest a president had ever served in the White House. Roosevelt served from 1933 until his death in 1945.
  
  

Roosevelt During the 1930s

• Roosevelt came up with a plan to help the 130 million unemployed workers in the United States. He proposed a plan called the New Deal that would provide the nation with several federally funded programs. Roosevelt pledged to have a series of relief and recovery measures enacted by Congress during the first hundred days of him taking office. Some of the programs established during these days included the Civilian Conservation Corps, which offered work to more than 3 million young men, and the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which handed out about $500 million to states to provide relief.