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Conservative scholars have argued that some relief efforts actually helped to prolong the [[Great Depression]]. However, government spending and prosperity combined after World War II, the most costly war in American history.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0829/p15s01-cogn.html|author=Francis, David R. |title=More Costly than "The War to End All Wars"|date=2005-08-29|accessdate = 2006-10-24 |work=Christian Science Monitor}}</ref> The amount spent on the New Deal 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>

Conservative scholars have argued that some relief efforts actually helped to prolong the [[Great Depression]]. However, government spending and prosperity combined after World War II, the most costly war in American history.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0829/p15s01-cogn.html|author=Francis, David R. |title=More Costly than "The War to End All Wars"|date=2005-08-29|accessdate = 2006-10-24 |work=Christian Science Monitor}}</ref> The amount spent on the New Deal 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==

==Eleanor Roosevelt==

Franklin Roosevelt studied law at Columbia University where he failed to graduate. Secretary of Labor [[Frances  Perkins]], the first woman ever appointed to a cabinet post and knew FDR from his early manhood up to his death, says he was not a student, that he knew nothing of economics and that he admitted he had never read a book on the subject. <ref>''The Roosevelt I Knew,'' Frances Perkins, New York, Viking Press, 1946. p. 34.</ref>

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.

 

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.

 

FDR was elected as a Democrat to the New York State Senate in 1910, but the family remained in New York City. In 1913 the family moved to Washington where Franklin was the powerful and popular Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I.

 

Very shy at first, Eleanor kept a low profile during World War I. She became more accustomed to the limelight when Franklin was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920 (he lost), and when he ran for governor of New York (he won in 1928 and 1930). After he contracted polio she became much more active, serving as his spokesperson at many meetings around the state.  She advocated for womens issues and joined the [[League of Women Voters]] and the [[Women's Trade Union League]], and worked for the New York State Democratic Committee, in the women's Division.

 

The Roosevelt marriage collapsed in 1918 when Eleanor discovered Franklin had a lover.<ref> Lucy Mercer (later Lucy Rutherfurd) was only the first of several known FDR lovers; Lucy was with FDR when he died. Joseph Persico, ''Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life'' (2008) </ref>  Divorce was impossible, love was absent. The solution was to build up Franklin's career.

In 1920 Roosevelt was the Democratic nominee for Vice President.  He lost in the harding landslide, but the fact that he won the nomination demonstrates that Democrats looked upon him as their new hero.  In 1921 FDR became ill with [[poliomyelitis]], Eleanor became his helpmate through his serious health problems. The polio left FDR without the use of his legs, confined to a wheelchair for the most part. However, he did not allow this disability to end his political career, Eleanor was supportive of his political ambitions. 

 

In 1928 Franklin Roosevelt was elected governor of [[New York]], in the face of a landslide by Republican [[Herbert Hoover]]. FDR was reelected in his own landslide in 1930. As governor of the leading financial state he did not to prevent the Wall Street Crash of 1929 or solve the emerging depression, but he did begin a relief program that followed the Hoover Administration guidelines.

 

== Election of 1932 ==

== Election of 1932 ==

Roosevelt is an admired but still hotly debated president. Many credit Roosevelt with helping the United States survive the Great Depression and with providing solid leadership during World War II. Others, especially conservatives, assert that he uselessly expanded the welfare state, abused executive powers, and badly botched diplomacy before and during World War II.

Roosevelt is an admired but still hotly debated president. Many credit Roosevelt with helping the United States survive the Great Depression and with providing solid leadership during World War II. Others, especially conservatives, assert that he uselessly expanded the welfare state, abused executive powers, and badly botched diplomacy before and during World War II.

Roosevelt's image now appears on the [[Dime]].

Roosevelt's image appears on the dime.

==See also==

==See also==

*[[New Ordeal]]

*[[Eleanor Roosevelt]]

*[[Michael Whitney Straight]]

==Further reading==

==Further reading==

*H.W. Brands, ''Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt'' (2008)

*Alter, Jonathan. ''The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope'' (2006), popular [http://www.amazon.com/Defining-Moment-FDRs-Hundred-Triumph/dp/B000Q6GY1W/ref=sr_1_1/103-4827826-5463040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193881373&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]

*Smith, Jean Edward. ''FDR'' (2007) [http://www.amazon.com/FDR-Jean-Edward-Smith/dp/1400061210/ref=pd_ts_b_3?ie=UTF8&s=books excerpt and text search]

*Brands, H.W. ''Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt'' (2008)

*Smith, Jean Edward. ''FDR'' (2007) 885pp; good recent biography[http://www.amazon.com/FDR-Jean-Edward-Smith/dp/1400061210/ref=pd_ts_b_3?ie=UTF8&s=books excerpt and text search]

 

 

==References==

==References==