Conservative scholars have argued that some relief efforts actually helped to prolong the [[Great Depression]]. However, World War II brought a return to prosperity for every sector of the economy. The amount spent on the New Deal before the war was less than the $21 billion borrowed by the government over two years during World War I.<ref>David M. Kennedy, ''Freedom From Fear,'' page 178</ref>
==Early Life==Franklin was born to two old families, both based in upstate New York: the Dutch Roosevelts, and the Yankee Delanos. His father, a wealthy railroad executive, died when he was young. Franklin was the only son of Sara Roosevelt (1854-1941), who exerted tight control over the family money, and tight psychological control over Franklin, until the day she died in 1941. The Delanos made their money in trading with China (originally, in selling opium); Sara was a world traveler who raised her son with the aid of tutors until he went to [[Groton]] at age 14; by that time Franklin had been to Europe many times and spoke fluent French and German. He was a gentleman at Harvard College, where he edited the student newspaper. He graduated from Columbia Law School, and was a successful lawyer before entering politics in 1910, and again while out of politics in the mid-1920s.
==Eleanor Roosevelt==
see [[Eleanor Roosevelt]]
Eleanor Roosevelt, a fifth cousin, became engaged to FDR in 1903; they were married on March 17, 1905 in New York; her uncle President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] gave the bride away. She and Franklin lived with his mother Sara, who controlled financed and controlled the raising of her grandchildren. By the 1920s Eleanor was living apart in a separate cabin on the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park.
Six children followed in rapid succession, with all but one surviving infancy: Anna Eleanor, James, Franklin (died 1909), Elliott, a second Franklin Delano, and John Aspinwall.
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:Broke with FDR]]
[[Category:People who were Educated at Home]]