FDR's First Inaugural Address: Declaring 'War' on the Great Depression. The Constitution Community: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945).

By late winter 1933, the United States had already endured more than 3 years of economic depression. During the previous summer, the Democratic Party platform had unveiled a generalized plan for economic recovery. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set about to prepare the nation to accept expansion of federal power since he recognized that the programs he was about to introduce for congressional legislative action to relieve the dire effects of the Great Depression were unprecedented in peacetime. In his 1933 inaugural address, President Roosevelt recommended extreme measures. This lesson relates to the duties and powers of the President and Congress as set forth in the Preamble, in Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 18, and in Article II, Section 3, Paragraph 1, that resulted in measures to provide for national relief from the economic disaster of the Great Depression. The primary sources for the lesson are six informative photographs of the era and President Roosevelt's inaugural address. The lesson correlates to the National History Standards and to the National Standards for Civics and Government. It presents historical background on the Great Depression, the catalyst for President Roosevelt's speech (two resources), and suggests diverse teaching activities for classroom implementation, including vocabulary development, document analysis, group research project, group document analysis, essay writing, Internet research, and class discussion. (BT)