The USA 1919-1941 - Did Roosevelt's upbringing, background, and character make it easy for him to understand the concerns and fears of ordinary Americans? Explain your answer.

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Deeba Syed

The USA 1919-1941

Did Roosevelt’s upbringing, background, and character make it easy for him to understand the concerns and fears of ordinary Americans? Explain your answer.

Roosevelt may not have been able to understand the concerns and fears of ‘ordinary Americans’, although American was not ordinary in comparison to others during the 1930s. He attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School, both extremely prestigious establishments. He became a successful lawyer, rich and upper class.

However ‘ordinary Americans’ were not the same. They had lost their money, homes, their businesses; their banks had become bankrupt and their shares had collapsed in the Wall Street Crash. Roosevelt did not have direct experience with financial loss of this multitude. However he was intelligent enough to recognize it.

He was an optimist without being patronising and a good orator.

Even his wife Eleanor was very conscious about pressing issues such as Women Rights.  

How far was Roosevelt himself responsible for his election victory in 1932?

Roosevelt helped Americans regain faith in the American system. He bought hope as he promised; promptly with vigorous action he stated in his Inaugural Address, ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ Roosevelt himself did not win the victory but rather what his policy (the New Deal) offered won the election. He travelled through most of America in his attempt to reach individuals that had been harshly affected by the Depression.

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Roosevelt had precise objectives for his New Deal. They included reducing unemployment, reforming banks, and providing welfare for the ill, elderly and unemployed. He strived to make manufacturing industries to recuperate and to for agriculture to recover. These polices appealed to Americans because it was what the country needed in order to overcome the Depression.

However Roosevelt may have owed his victory to Herbert Hoover’s unpopularity. Hoover was unpopular because he was unable to find a solution to the Depression while Roosevelt’s New Deal was a solution. Hoover insisted that ‘prosperity is just around the corner’. However many Americans were ...

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