Coming to power in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt engaged the United States in a New Deal in an attempt to emerge from the depression into which the country had fallen, particularly since 1929. He initially took a series of emergency measures. On the 10th of March 1933 the banks were closed for four days, transactions in gold were forbidden and exchange control restrictions were imposed. This enabled the banking system, which had been paralysed by bankruptcy and savers’ panic, to function once again. It was also at this time that a clear distinction had to be made between deposit banks and investment banks and an that a federal insurance organisation was created in order to guarantee a minimum of deposits made by savers.

The President also adopted a series of longer-term measures: incentives to reduce agricultural production, suspension of anti-trust laws and price-fixing of industrial products, and the creation of public utility re-employment programmes. Two years later, in 1935, Roosevelt put the finishing touches to his edifice by taking measures in favour of freedom of organisation, and the creation of a federal pension scheme for the over 65s and compulsory unemployment insurance.

These measures did significantly improved the country’s economic situation but did not succeed in recreating full employment, which only became a reality with the military orders sparked by the war in Europe and with the United States’ entry into war.