Part I
The Architects
They designed the machinery — and argued about whether it could work at all.
01
Article
Federal Reserve Chairman
Marriner Eccles
1890 — 1977
The Utah banker who reached Keynes’s conclusions independently, then rebuilt the Federal Reserve to act on them.
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02
Article
Economist
John Maynard Keynes
1883 — 1946
Demolished classical economics while it was still the only theory governments had, then supplied a better one.
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03
Article
Secretary of Labor
Frances Perkins
1880 — 1965
Took the job on one condition: that Roosevelt back the entire list. Social Security, the minimum wage, the forty-hour week.
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Part II
The Builders
They had to find the votes, spend the money, and answer for what actually got built.
04
Article
Mayor of New York
Fiorello La Guardia
1882 — 1947
Broke Tammany Hall, professionalised a city government, and spent federal money faster than any mayor in America.
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05
Article
Relief Administrator
Harry Hopkins
1890 — 1946
Spent five million dollars on his first afternoon and hired four million people in thirty days.
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06
Article
Director of Negro Affairs
Mary McLeod Bethune
1875 — 1955
First Black woman to head a federal agency. Convened the Black Cabinet at her own house on Sunday evenings.
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Part III
The Dissenters
They said the New Deal was not enough — and disagreed violently about why.
07
Article
Senator from Louisiana
Huey Long
1893 — 1935
Built the roads and broke the state. The man Roosevelt’s circle privately considered the most dangerous in America.
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08
Article
Radio Priest
Father Coughlin
1891 — 1979
Thirty million listeners and a voice like a confessional. Then he decided the crisis had a name.
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09
Article
Labor Organiser
A. Philip Randolph
1889 — 1979
No office, no access, no appointment — and a federal executive order anyway.
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Part IV
The Witnesses
They recorded it, and shaped how everyone since has seen it.
10
Article
Novelist
John Steinbeck
1902 — 1968
Seven weeks in the labour camps before a word was written. He believed the novelist owed them that.
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11
Article
Photographer
Dorothea Lange
1895 — 1965
Six exposures in ten minutes at a pea-pickers’ camp produced the permanent face of the decade.
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12
Article
Catholic Worker
Dorothy Day
1897 — 1980
The same encyclicals as Coughlin, the same anger, the opposite destination: a kitchen on Mott Street.
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Part V
The Politicians
They held the office — and defined, by contrast, what it was for.
13
Article
31st President
Herbert Hoover
1874 — 1964
The engineer who believed the crisis would correct itself, and staked a presidency on being wrong.
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14
Article
32nd President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1882 — 1945
Took office with the banks closing across the country, and gave the New Deal its name within a hundred days.
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