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The Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt
With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, no president has ever taken office against a darker backdrop than Franklin D. Roosevelt did on March 4, 1933. With banks failing and unemployment at 28 percent, a total national collapse seemed possible, and the day's gray weather only reinforced the bleak mood. The carefully chosen words of Roosevelt's inaugural speech, however, briefly lifted the gloom, and when he broke into a confident smile at the close, the crowd cheered in relief. The optimism of that moment grew in the coming months as Roosevelt's New Dealers launched a series of innovative measures to end the Great Depression.
Mexican caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias produced this rendering of Roosevelt's inauguration for Vanity Fair, which billed it as a panorama of "magnificos, diplomats, and military commanders." In the lower right is the doleful "Forgotten Man," wearing a sandwich board -- a grim reminder of the country's dire straits.
Miguel Covarrubias, 1933 |