By November 1932 the United States economy was in a deep depression. The unemployment rate was above 20 per cent, the highest it had ever been, and the production of goods and services had fallen by 28 per cent since its peak in 1929. America needed fresh ideas.

It found them in a new president. During the first hundred days of his presidency Franklin D. Roosevelt, together with a largely Democratic Congress, instituted a broad range of spending and lending programmes and various new regulations that would collectively become known as the New Deal. The range of programmes included things such as state and local public works initiatives, temporary relief for the unemployed and the payment of farm subsidies.