The New Deal Turns 90
“Promote the General Welfare"
Bas relief by Lenore Thomas Straus, Greenbelt, Maryland. Photo by Susan Ives
The nation was spiraling into the worst economic crisis in its history when presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt pledged “a new deal for the American people.” Upon taking office in 1933, FDR launched an all-out mobilization to beat back the Great Depression. “Neither before nor since have Americans so rallied around an essentially peaceable form of patriotism,” writes historian Eric Rauchway. “The New Deal matters because we all live in it…it gives structure to our lives in ways we do not ordinarily bother to count or catalog.” In 2023, the 90th birthday of the New Deal, the Living New Deal is counting, cataloging—and celebrating—the New Deal’s vast legacy.