Columbia Law School (attended) Occupation. Politician. lawyer. Signature. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ( / ˈroʊzəvəlt /, /- vɛlt / ROH-zə-velt; January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.
As the 1932 presidential election approached, Roosevelt increasingly turned his attention to national politics. He established a campaign team led by Howe and Farley and a " brain trust " of policy advisers, primarily composed of Columbia University and Harvard University professors. With the economy ailing, many Democrats hoped that the 1932 elections would result in the election of the first Democratic president since Woodrow Wilson.
After winning Congressional authorization for further funding of relief efforts, Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Under the leadership of Harry Hopkins, the WPA employed over three million people in its first year of existence. The WPA undertook numerous construction projects and provided funding to the National Youth Administration and arts organizations.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York, to businessman James Roosevelt I and his second wife, Sara Ann Delano. Roosevelt's parents, who were sixth cousins, both came from wealthy old New York families, the Roosevelts, the Aspinwalls and the Delanos, respectively. Roosevelt's patrilineal ancestor migrated to New Amsterdam in the 17th century, and the Roosevelts flourished as merchants and landowners. The Delano family progenitor, Philip Delano, traveled to the New World on the Fortune in 1621, and the Delanos prospered as merchants and shipbuilders in Massachusetts. Franklin had a half-brother, James "Rosy" Roosevelt, from his father's previous marriage.
The Public Works Administration (PWA), under the leadership of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, was created to oversee the construction of large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, and schools. The most popular of all New Deal agencies – and Roosevelt's favorite – was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on local rural projects. Roosevelt also expanded a Hoover agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, making it a major source of financing for railroads and industry. Congress gave the Federal Trade Commission broad new regulatory powers and provided mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners. Roosevelt also made agricultural relief a high priority and set up the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to leave land uncultivated and to cut herds.
While the Roosevelts were vacationing at Campobello Island in August 1921, he fell ill. His main symptoms were fever; symmetric, ascending paralysis; facial paralysis; bowel and bladder dysfunction; numbness and hyperesthesia; and a descending pattern of recovery. Roosevelt was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis at the time, but his symptoms are now believed to be more consistent with Guillain–Barré syndrome – an autoimmune neuropathy which Roosevelt's doctors failed to consider as a diagnostic possibility.
During the first 100 days of the 73rd United States Congress, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief, recovery, and reform.
In his 1932 run for the presidency, Roosevelt asserted that he would help “the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid,” and pledged himself to “a new deal for the American people.” In his First Inaugural Address, saying “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he sought to reassure the public amid the anxieties of the Great Depression.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in 1932. He immediately embarked on an ambitious plan to get the country out of the Great Depression. Google Classroom Facebook Twitter.
During his presidency he delivered thirty “fireside chats,” explaining to the public in reassuring tones and plain-spoken language his New Deal policies and the Second World War through the medium of radio. Roosevelt delivering one of his fireside chats, September 1936. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
In an ill-fated move in 1937, President Roosevelt sought to pack the US Supreme Court, which had ruled against many of his programs, with justices who would be more favorable to the New Deal. His “ court packing ” plan called for adding an additional justice to the Court for every justice over the age of 70. The measure was widely denounced by the public and failed in Congress.
His signature domestic legislation, the New Deal, expanded the role of the federal government in the nation’s economy in an effort to address the challenges of the Great Depression.
Roosevelt's life and long career. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, fifth cousin of former President Teddy Roosevelt, was raised amid privilege in Hyde Park, New York. He attended Harvard University, was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910, and served as assistant secretary of the Navy during the First World War.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Image courtesy Library of Congress. Known as FDR, Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. He served as the nation’s 32nd president from March 4, 1933 to his death in 1945. At age thirty-nine, Roosevelt contracted polio.
In the New York Senate Roosevelt learned much of the give-and-take of politics, and he gradually abandoned his patrician airs and attitude of superiority. In the process, he came to champion the full program of progressive reform. By 1911 Roosevelt was supporting progressive New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson for the Democratic presidential nomination of 1912. In that year Roosevelt was reelected to the state senate, despite an attack of typhoid fever that prevented him from making public appearances during the campaign. His success was attributable in part to the publicity generated by an Albany journalist, Louis McHenry Howe. Howe saw in the tall, handsome Roosevelt a politician with great promise, and he remained dedicated to Roosevelt for the rest of his life.
After war broke out in Europe in 1914, Roosevelt became a vehement advocate of military preparedness, and following U.S. entry into the war in 1917, he built a reputation as an effective administrator. In the summer of 1918 he made an extended tour of naval bases and battlefields overseas.
Franklin D. Roosevelt with his wife, Eleanor, and their five children, 1919. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum website; version date 2009. Roosevelt attended Columbia University Law School but was not much interested in his studies.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States (1933–45). He was the only president elected to the office four times.
The family lived in unostentatious and genteel luxury, dividing its time between the family estate in the Hudson River valley of New York state and European resorts.
In so doing, he greatly expanded the powers of the federal government through a series of programs and reforms known as the New Deal, and he served as the principal architect of the successful effort to rid the world of German National Socialism and Japanese militarism. Key events in the life of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in full Franklin Delano Roosevelt, byname FDR, (born January 30, 1882, Hyde Park, New York, U.S.—died April 12, 1945, Warm Springs, Georgia), 32nd president of the United States (1933–45). The only president elected to the office four times, Roosevelt led the United States through two of the greatest crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II. In so doing, he greatly expanded the powers of the federal government through a series of programs and reforms known as the New Deal, and he served as the principal architect of the successful effort to rid the world of German National Socialism and Japanese militarism.