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What did FDR promise to the American people upon taking office?

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Upon taking office, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised to address the Great Depression's impact on the American people, popularly known as his "new deal". He aimed to restore confidence in the banking system, stating that money would be safer in banks than at home. Roosevelt launched relief, recovery, and reform programs in his first Hundred Days in office to support various sectors of the U.S. economy, thereby demonstrating government's concern for the people's problems.

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Franklin Roosevelt promised the American people a "new deal," a pledge he made actually before he was elected, at the Democratic National Convention in 1932. What he was promising, in effect, was government action to combat the effects of the Great Depression which gripped the nation in 1932. The phrase, which recalled his distant relative Theodore Roosevelt's promise of a "Square Deal" for working people, stuck, and was used by the media and Roosevelt himself to describe the vast array of government programs implemented after he became President in 1933. He immediately took action upon his inauguration by addressing the bank panic that broke out in the aftermath of the 1932 election. Announcing a bank holiday, he told the nation that banks would remain closed until their capital reserves had been deemed safe for reopening. Later, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured bank deposits to promote investor confidence. His response to the banking crisis was the beginning of what was known as the "Hundred Days," during which a number of programs intended to create work, stabilize agricultural prices, and pump money into the industrial and financial sectors went into effect.

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