Franklin D. Roosevelt

Served as president from 1933-1945
Era: The Great Depression and WWII
American Identity and Culture
During Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency, there were many new things in American society. For example in the scientific world, there were a lot of new advancements. One of these advancements was the creation of plutonium. Fermi was the one who created it. By creating plutonium, the Americans were now able to find out more about nuclear power and radiation from this. Another advancement was the development of plastic. Dow Chemicals developed plastics. There were also artistic advancements such the international School of Surrealism. This school helped young artists advance in the surrealist art movement, which was very popular and fancy during this time period.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president right in the middle of America’s greatest economic depression in history, The Great Depression. He became president and his goal was to counter this depression and help all of the citizens of the United States get away from unemployment and back into action. He accomplished this by creating the “alphabet soup” of programs from his New Deal legislation. He made many new agencies and administrations to help bring the unemployment rate down in America. For example, he made the Works Progress Administration in 1935. This administration employed millions of citizens of the United States in working to build roads, canals, and other internal improvements for the society. He also made the Social Security Act in 1935 to provide pensions to people and to aid those older than the age of 65.
Environment
As the wartime president for World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took full advantage of the environment that they were fighting in, as it had changed since past wars. Now that the world has become industrialized people now had to fight in the seas and the air. In all of the battles that American fought in, the majority of the battles were fought in the air, away from the mainland and in the middle of the Ocean. Americans now fought against Germany and Japan through air raids as they slowly liberated small islands in the Pacific to gain control over Japan. To win the war they had to take control over small islands near Japan so that they could pin Japan down into their own island. Along with using airplanes to fight now, people also industrialized and fought with new bombs. Most American battles were air raids where the United States Air Force dropped bombs and bombed whole enemy cities in just one night, obliterating everything.
Politics and Citizenship
Franklin Delano Roosevelt left a large legacy in the United States. He was a president that ran for four consecutive terms in office and won all four of them. Because of his four consecutive terms in office as the president, the federal government made it a law forbidding any president to serve in office as the president for more than two terms. Franklin Roosevelt also made a lot of political reforms in the United States. He made a lot of associations and reforms to try and better the environment as well as try to stop the Great Depression from getting any worse from his New Deal program; however, the Supreme court invalidated many of his programs for being unlawful.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was known as a major hero to minorities, including African Americans. In his Civilian Conservation Corps, he provided African Americans with help in their economic background and also helped them revitalize their services; however Franklin Roosevelt did not push and anti-lynching legislations because it might have threatened any further ability to further push this priority programs in economics. Even though he could not pass any legislation he did denounce lynching in the south as being “a vile form of collective murder.” There was also the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This organization worked to help civil rights cases in courts that dealt with brutality from policemen, lynching and also people abusing voting rights.
War and Diplomacy
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president during World War II and even furthered his time as president as he took on a third term and even a fourth term to fight against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy. Before the world had begun he tried to make the United States be a neutral nation even taking the form the Neutrality Acts; however it was unsuccessful because the United States was still biased towards Great Britain as companies had sold them firearms and other miscellaneous items for war and refusing the sell things to countries like Germany and other Axis powers. Roosevelt was also president during the war with Japan as Japan had begun their raid in Pearl Harbor. In this attack Japan had ruthlessly bombed the naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, injuring lots of people. Because of this ruthless raid from the Japanese, Franklin Roosevelt had no choice but to declare war on the Japanese as they began the war. The war began with Japan as they fought head to head in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese at first were winning however the United States pushed them back as they liberated many islands and won in the turning battle of the Midway in 1942. The process of slowly liberating the islands was known as island hopping to take lands so that the Japanese could not build bases there because we were first.