The period between 1929 and 1939 in the United States of America is known today as “The Great Depression“. That name marks the greatest economic crisis that enveloped not only the United States of America, but the whole world as well. The causes of the crisis are numerous, ranging from stock speculation to the unpreparedness of the market for hyperproduction, new technologies, a new consumerist society and new industries. The authorities at the time were unprepared as well, and the Federal Reserve System did not maintain watch or control over the stock market or the banks. The banks and the stock trading companies were acting heedlessly without oversight, and the accumulation of profit was of utmost importance to them, so they resorted to stock speculation, which was one of the key factors of the 1929 stock market crash which crippled the US economy. As Herbert Hoover’s administration could not counter the effects of the crisis, in 1933 the people voted Franklin Delano Roosevelt into office. Roosevelt proved to be a capable administrator during his two tenures as New York’s governor, and he quickly gained the love of the masses with his first reforms by halting the closure of many banks and by calmly explaining his actions over the radio to his people. His talks are nowadays known as The Fireside Chats, and they have served to bring the president closer to the population. Roosevelt enacted many reforms with unprecedented speed, reforms known as The New Deal. They affected every aspect of life in the USA but were mostly characterized by inefficiency or at least partial success, contradictoriness, and government control or oversight of the economy. Although some reforms, like the Banking Act of 1933 or the Social Security Act of 1935 did indeed help the banking system or the poorest layers of the US society in a short run respectively, the crisis prevailed. The unemployment level did not change, the industry was stagnating along with the financial sector. The Congress then struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1936, declaring them as unconstitutional, which was a serious blow to the New Deal. After other attempts at recovery in 1938, with the new Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Fair Labours Act, the New Deal was dead in its tracks. In the end, the USA were saved by nothing other than World War II, whose need for hyperproduction and new industries helped the country recover faster than the New Deal ever could.