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Woodrow Wilson
Congress divides the Department of Commerce and Labor into two departments, with each having cabinet status -
Woodrow Wilson
March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921 -
Woodrow Wilson
President Wilson appears before Congress to speak about revising tariffs. Not since John Adams in 1800 had a President addressed Congress personally. -
Woodrow Wilson
The Ford Motor Company institutes the first automobile assembly line to produce the Model T. Company founder Henry Ford breaks precedence and pays his line workers $5 a day, believing that higher wages would lead to greater worker productivity and loyalty. -
Woodrow Wilson
President Wilson extends official recognition to the new Republic of China. -
Woodrow Wilson
President Wilson signs the Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act, considerably reducing rates set by previous Republican administrations. -
Warren G. Harding
March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923 -
Warren G. Harding
Harding signs the Emergency Quota Act into law, limiting the number of immigrants from any given country to 3 percent of that nationality already in the United States by 1910. The temporary act lasts three years and serves as the precursor to the harsher and permanent 1924 act. The law represents the growing nativism of the 1920s, motivated, in part, by the massive influx of south and east European immigrants into the United States following the end of World War I. -
Warren G. Harding
In response to American public opinion, Harding and Congress pass the Emergency Tariff Act. Raising tariffs, especially on farm products, the temporary bill will be replaced one year later by the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, a permanent bill with even higher tariff rates. Designed to protect American products and end the post-war recession, such protectionist legislation ultimately destabilizes international commerce by heightening economic nationalism. -
Warren G. Harding
In a relatively unnoticed move, Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby transfers control of the naval oil reserves in California and Wyoming to the Department of the Interior, headed by Albert B. Fall. The reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, will later figure prominently in the scandals that stain the Harding administration. -
Warren G. Harding
Harding signs a joint congressional resolution declaring the official end of war with Germany. The question of reparations will continue to be debated over the next few years. -
Warren G. Harding
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover presides over a conference on unemployment in Washington, D.C., as unemployment reaches a post-war high of 5.7 million. In addition, the nation witnesses a wave of violence by a revitalized Ku Klux Klan. Blacks, returning from the war, are not as ready to return to their previous condition of subservience and are met by whippings, brandings, and lynchings by the KKK. -
Calvin Coolidge
August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1929 -
Calvin Coolidge
In his first State of the Union address, Coolidge expresses his support for prohibition and U.S. involvement in the World Court. He also states his opposition to government interference with business and calls for lowering taxes, thereby extending Harding's policies. It is the first broadcast of an official presidential address, made possible by the more than 2.5 million radios in U.S. homes; in 1920 there had been less than 5,000. -
Calvin Coolidge
Providing twenty-year annuities for veterans at an overall cost of $2 billion, the Soldiers' Bonus Bill is passed by the House. One month later, the Senate also passes the bill only to have Coolidge veto it; Congress will later override the veto. -
Calvin Coolidge
Congress passes a new immigration law with even more restrictive quotas than those established by a temporary act two years earlier. Japanese immigrants are barred completely while Canadians and Mexicans remain exempted from the quotas. -
Calvin Coolidge
The Dawes Plan is signed by the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium to solve the German reparations problem and to end the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgium troops. Overseen by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, the plan was drawn up by Coolidge's running-mate, Charles G. Dawes, and based the reparations schedule on what Germany could pay rather than on what she could be forced to pay. For his part, Dawes would win the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. -
Calvin Coolidge
Charles A. Lindbergh completes the first transatlantic flight, traversing the distance from New York to Paris in his monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in less than thirty-four hours. A year later, Amelia Earhart will become the first woman to make the flight. -
Herbert Hoover
March 4, 1929 – March 4, 1933 -
Herbert Hoover
The State Department begins its effort to help Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) attain oil rights in Bahrain from the Gulf Oil Company. Since the 1880s, the Sheikhdom of Bahrain had been a British protectorate and by treaty was required to sell its oil to British companies. Through a Canadian subsidiary the two sides were able to agree to terms and by 1935, SOCAL would have 16 operating oil wells in Bahrain. -
Herbert Hoover
Hoover signs the Agricultural Marketing Act to revitalize the increasingly poor market for farm products. It represents a marked reversal in federal policy; Coolidge had vetoed a number of similar bills designed to aid farmers during his presidency. The act creates the Federal Farm Board, designed to promote the sale of agricultural products through cooperatives and stabilization corporations. In addition, it provides for the purchase of surplus goods by the federal government to maintain price -
Herbert Hoover
The construction contract for the Empire State Building is awarded. It will be completed in 1931 -
Herbert Hoover
On “Black Thursday,” the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) experiences a collapse in stock prices as 13 million shares are sold. Even wealthy investors J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, in an effort to save the market by furiously buying stock, cannot check the fall. -
Herbert Hoover
A major bootlegging operation in Chicago is shut down with the arrest of 158 people from 31 organizations. Together, these groups were estimated to have distributed more than seven million gallons of whiskey nationwide with an estimated worth of around $50 million. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
March 4, 1933 – April 12, 1945 -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Congress meets beginning what is later known as Roosevelt's “Hundred Days.” During this period, Congress enacts many of the principal programs of FDR's “New Deal.” It passes the Emergency Banking Act on March 9, allowing banks to reopen as soon as they can prove they are solvent; within three days, more than 1,000 banks will reopen, helping to raise the nation's confidence almost overnight -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR delivers his first “fireside chat” radio address to the nation. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Congress passes the Reforestation Relief Act, which provides for the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC offers immediate work to some 250,000 young men (ages 18-25) through a national reforestation program; by its conclusion in 1941, it will have employed more than 2 million young men. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
With unemployment hovering at around 14 million, Congress passes the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA). It provides immediate grants to states for relief project, unlike Hoover's earlier proposals, which only provided loans. The legislature also passes the Agricultural Adjustment Act, establishing the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which restricts the production of certain crops and pays farmers not to till their land. Roosevelt hopes that the AAA will reduce agricultural produc -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Congress passes the Tennessee Valley Act, establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), to control flooding in the Tennessee River Valley and provide for rural electrification in the seven states comprising the region. The goal is to raise the social and economic standards of the residents of this relatively remote section of the country; critics view the TVA as dangerously socialistic, while admirers will view it as one of the nation's most successful social projects
