Drifting Toward Mayhem: The Bank Crisis in the United States, 1930-1933 (Paperback)

On March 6, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order to close all of the banks in the United States. This bold stroke was intended to halt the mounting bank crisis that had plagued Americans since 1930 and worsened the economic slump. This work argues that this order was an ill-considered overreaction by the new president that did little to end the banks' plight while plunging the country to the lowest depths of the Great Depression. It investigates how after 1929 the deteriorating economy undermined a weakened financial system, pushing many banks to fail. The waves of crashing banks further aggravated political tensions unleashed by the Depression, leading the country to the harrowing denouement of March 1933.