What Did Hoover Do During The Great Depression Of The 1930s

The Great Depression of the 1930s solidified in American conscience as a decisive crossroad event, where something completely different and new happened. During the decade, the United States experienced an unprecedented scale and longevity economic collapse, clearer in retrospect than at first during those years. By the mid-1930s, it had become increasingly apparent that neither unfettered capitalism nor Western ideas of governmentality were coping with the challenges thrown up by the collapse in industrial production, high unemployment, and the rapid erosion of the rule of law (Foner 824). Herbert Hoover, the US president at the time, had the deepest commitment to Western ideas of governmentality: minimal government interference in private

As unemployment rose and businesses failed, Hoover came to be seen as uncaring and ineffective in his approach to the growing crisis. (Fonner 811). While Hoover tried to get businesses to cooperate with each other and local government, the breadth and scope of the crisis meant that a stronger response was required (Foner 814). Roosevelt’s landslide victory over Hoover in the 1932 presidential election marked a huge change in the American political system (Foner 821). Roosevelt’s promise to Americans of a New Deal and the opportunity to have relief from unemployment, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economy captured the imagination of the country (Foner 822). The New Deal, first introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a broad range of legislation in response to the multi-faceted challenges of the Great Depression. Owing to the sheer scope of the economic system’s failure during this time, there was a pressing need for governmental support to ease the pain, spur production and clear the way for a return to

Before the Great Depression, the classical liberal ideology of limited government intervention in the economy and of individual self-reliance framed Republican and Democratic literacies on the economy. This ideology asserted that the natural tendency of markets was towards equilibrium. After the stock market crash of 1929, though, Republican President Herbert Hoover and his party became responsive to the demands of the electorate for the country’s workers and investors, as people experienced a growing abyss between the benefits they felt were their due and the actual conditions of their lives. Given that predicted outcomes differed markedly from the actual conditions of life, President Franklin D. Roosevelt – from the onset of the New Deal – asserted that the federal government must intervene to positively affect the ‘result’ (Foner 821). By institutionalizing this novel ideology he embedded the ‘precedent’ that in times of crisis, particularly economic crisis, the requirements of the public welfare of the American ‘people’ must trump the tenets of