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During the 1920s, the U.S. stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929, a period of wild speculation. By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks in great excess of their real value.
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President Herbert Hoover says, "Any lack of confidence in the economic future or the basic strength of business in the United States is foolish."
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The street corners of New York City are crowded with apple-sellers. Nearly 6,000 unemployed individuals work at selling apples for five cents apiece.
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Food riots broke out and workers marched on Detroit and foreign workers were deported
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Three thousand unemployed workers march on the Ford Motor Company's plant in River Rouge, Michigan. Dearborn police and Ford's company guards attack the workers, killing four and injuring many more.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt launches the New Deal including dozens of federal programs to help agriculture. He calls for social security, a more fair tax system and a host of federal jobs programs to get people back to work.
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The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) is established. Designed as a relief and employment program for young men between the ages of 17 and 27, the CCC is made up of groups of young men who work in national forests, parks, and federal land for nine-month stints. FDR envisions the program as a kind of volunteer "army." The first 250,000 young men are housed in 1,468 camps around the country. At its peak in 1935, the CCC will include 500,000 young men.
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Twenty-First Amendment repealed Prohibition and alcohol was once again legal.
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Criticism from both conservatives and liberals prompted Roosevelt to push a second wave of New Deal legislation through Congress from 1935 to 1936. This legislation included the sweeping Social Security Act to provide government pensions to the elderly, the Indian Reorganization Act to allow Native American tribes to own land, and the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act to help farmers.
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Father Charles E. Coughlin establishes the Union for Social Justice. Using the radio airwaves as his pulpit, Father Coughlin railes against "predatory capitalism." His criticism of the banking industry and disdain of communism soon dovetails into a troubling gospel of anti-Semitism.
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The slow economic recovery made possible by New Deal programs suffers a setback as unemployment rises. FDR's detractors call it the start of the "Roosevelt recession."
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On July 18, 1940, Roosevelt was nominated for a third presidential term at the Democratic Party convention in Chicago. The president received some criticism for running again because there was an unwritten rule in American politics that no U.S. president should serve more than two terms.
