Key Terms
- Brains Trust
- an unofficial advisory cabinet to President Franklin Roosevelt, originally gathered while he was governor of New York, to present possible solutions to the nations’ problems; among its prominent members were Rexford Tugwell, Raymond Moley, and Adolph Berle
- Civilian Conservation Corps
- a public program for unemployed young men from relief families who were put to work on conservation and land management projects around the country
- interregnum
- the period between the election and the inauguration of a new president; when economic conditions worsened significantly during the four-month lag between Roosevelt’s win and his move into the Oval Office, Congress amended the Constitution to limit this period to two months
- Social Security
- a series of programs designed to help the population’s most vulnerable—the unemployed, those over age sixty-five, unwed mothers, and the disabled—through various pension, insurance, and aid programs
- Supreme Court Packing Plan
- Roosevelt’s plan, after being reelected, to pack the Supreme Court with an additional six justices, one for every justice over seventy who refused to step down
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- a federal agency tasked with the job of planning and developing the area through flood control, reforestation, and hydroelectric power projects
- Works Progress Administration
- a program run by Harry Hopkins that provided jobs for over eight million Americans from its inception to its closure in 1943