On this day in history, March 12th, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives his first “fireside chat” broadcast from the White House. Roosevelt gave these chats to relieve fears and anxiety caused by the Great Depression. The Great Depression of course being the greatest economic recession the United States and even the world have ever experienced. The Covid pandemic was a bad one, but not nearly as bad as the Great Depression. At its peak, unemployment in America hit 33%, during the COVID recession unemployment only ever reached half of that. The Great Depression not only was more severe but it lasted much longer than other recessions that we’ve seen. It started with the stock market crash in 1929 and began to spiral out of control with people demanding their money from banks causing mass foreclosures and loss of people’s accounts. Banks simply couldn’t pay people their own money back, and millions of Americans watched as their life savings disappeared seemingly overnight. The Great Depression was also coupled with the Dust Bowl which affected the breadbasket of the United States in the Midwest. Large dust storms and bad harvests crippled American agriculture due to poor agricultural practices that depleted soil. All of these factors combined destroyed the American economy and we only pulled out of the Great Depression with the onset of World War Two. Fireside chats are relevant to us today because of what they represented. In these chats, Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined his policies that he had would enact to combat the Great Depression. Things like social security, medicare, and FDIC insurance are all Great Depression-era programs that affect our lives in tremendous ways even today. Every time you pay taxes, or put money into the bank, or even pay medical bills, you are seeing first hand the relevance of the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies.

Cites:  https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

https://www.insider.com/great-depression-photos-of-america-unemployment-2020-5

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-gives-first-fireside-chat