The New Deal

It’s been 70 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first sat down in front of a radio microphone to host his famous Fireside Chats. It would be a medium through which he would make a case for his New Deal. But the New Deal has been around for a long time. Jeremiah explains.

It may have been your grandfather who went to the bank that day, about 70 years ago.

He saw scores of people clustered about the entrance of the bank and others peering in through the windows.

Getting closer, he saw the sign hanging in the window: Closed.

Like millions of other Americans at the beginning of the Great Depression, he panicked. He thought the bank was holding his cash in a vault, and that all he needed to do was to walk in and reclaim it whenever he wanted. And now, he wanted.

His family needed it. But the banks were closed.

Then the president of the United States, did something no president had ever done before. It was 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, March 12, 1933. Franklin Delano Roosevelt cozied up to a microphone, and with a fire lit in the fireplace behind him and his dog, Fala, at his feet, he had a little chat with Americans.

It was his first of 30 “Fireside Chats.” A little over 70 years ago.

It came only eight days after his inauguration, but it was a brilliant and ...