Herbert Hoover And The Great Depression

The role of the federal government greatly expanded into Americans' lives as a result of the Great Depression. Although Herbert Hoover did not do much to expand the federal government involvement with his ideas of volunteerism and localism, Franklin Roosevelt did with the first and second New Deals.

Herbert Hoover is often blamed for the Great Depression. Hoover’s ideas of volunteerism tried to get the wealthy to donate to charity and the poor.Although it would be great if that worked, the human nature is not made that way. Humans are way too selfish just to willingly give the money they earned to people who need it. Needless to say, Hoover’s plan ultimately failed. Still persistent to try and solve this problem Hoover moved to more activist policies. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation use trickle-down economics and loaned out over a billion dollars to railroad companies, banks, and large businesses. Trickle-down economics is the thought that if you give money to the larger businesses that it will flow down to the lower class. This shows how Herbert Hoover trusted the American citizens to sort the Great Depression out by themselves. This

Within the first 100 days Franklin brought the New Deal into action by creating programs. He created many programs including, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Civilian Conservation Corporation (CCC) ,and the National Recovery Administration (NRA). The FDIC promised all people in America, that if their banks went under, they would receive their money back up to $5000. The Civilian Conservation Corporation, gave over two million young jobs planting forests, building trails, digging irrigation ditches, and fighting fires. The final example, the NRA, worked to create minimum wages so that people could buy more goods. That is how Hoover’s first New Deal started the growth of involvement of the Federal