FDR

=Franklin D. Roosevelt=

After becoming president, he promoted a wide variety of federally funded programs made to restore the American economy, help relieve the pain of the unemployed, and change the system so a problem so severe never occurs again. However, while the New Deal did help restore the GNP to its 1929 level and introduced basic banking and welfare reforms, FDR refused to run up the deficits that were required to end the depression. Only when the federal government imposed rationing, recruited 6 million defense workers (including women and African Americans), drafted 6 million soldiers, and ran massive deficits to fight World War II did the Great Depression finally end.