Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the thirty-second President of the United States. He was the longest serving president, serving between 1933 and 1945. Coming into office in 1933, his administration was faced with the "Great Depression", and in 1941 he led the country through World War II transforming it from a global power to a superpower. He died shortly after his fourth term began in 1945, leaving it to his new Vice-President (and somewhat unprepared) Harry Truman to carry on.
Roosevelt was a political genius, a skill he would develop over time, first as a New York Senator, then as U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, then as a Vice-Presidential nominee (he and James Cox lost in the running against Calvin Coolidge), and then as Governor of New York. All of this was a similar path taken by his distant cousin Teddy Roosevelt; With one main exception: polio. Roosevelt was stricken with the disease after his run for vice-president, and it looked like his political career was over. But after recovering and somehow making it appear that he could walk again, he got back into politics. He first started back by helping to boost the campaigns of prominent Democrats such as Al Smith, and then he managed his own comeback by winning as Governor of New York.
As president, Congress gave Roosevelt a nearly free-hand to fix the economy, passing most of his programs. The successes in his first "one-hundred days" probably has no equal. He even had a "second hundred days" during his first term that was also hugely successful.
In his effort to solve the Great Depression, Roosevelt led one of the biggest expansions of the federal government ever, but it is surprising to know that initially he was not a believer in big government and he was a fiscal conservative. When the Great Depression started, Roosevelt was Governor of New York. He thought industry leaders were better suited to solve the problem, and when then President Herbert Hoover tried out public works programs to solve the economic crisis, Roosevelt thought Hoover was a radical. Even as president, Roosevelt didn't really like deficit spending and in his second term he cut the government budget. After the budget was cut, he saw the economy flail once again and then he became less concerned about deficits.
His impacts are still being felt today:
Social Security
Unemployment Insurance and Payroll taxes
FDIC (although FDR was hesitant to sign it)
Federal Housing Administration
Securities and Exchange Commission
Atomic Bomb (Manhattan Project)
Tennessee Valley Authority (this had actually been in the works before FDR), and rural electrification
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
We can't leave without mentioning a couple of Roosevelt's notable downsides:
Womanizer - Even though Franklin was married to Eleanor (a distant cousin), he had an affair with Lucy Mercer, Eleanor's secretary. It caused a rift in their marriage that would have ended in divorce, had it not been for Franklin's mother threatening to disinherit him if he did. This left Franklin in a loveless marriage causing him to seek the attention of other women (which was done in secrecy with help of the Secret Service and in some cases with help from his daughter Anna).
Internment of Japanese Americans - Franklin didn't come up with the idea himself but he did issue the Executive Order that started the internment of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast during the start of World War II. Around 120,000+ were interned with two-thirds of these being American Citizens.
Court Packing - Roosevelt had grown frustrated that the Supreme Court had ruled against several of his New Deal programs, so he pushed to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court, which of course would allow him to pick the additional ones himself. Congress and many of his supporters however put their foot down and it left Roosevelt weakened and unable to further his New Deal.
And finally, historians continue debating whether or not some of Roosevelt's decisions ultimately led to the cold war and also led to impacts in Asia that are still being felt today. Towards the end of World War II as the Allies were close to triumph, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had a number of conferences where they would decide the make up of post-war Europe. During these conferences, Roosevelt made it a priority to get the Soviet Union to commit itself in the war against Japan. In doing so, he probably let Stalin have more say about Europe than he would have otherwise as Churchill had been warning Roosevelt about Soviet expansion. Perhaps even worse, when the Soviets finally did come into the war against Japan, they started in Manchuria. This location allowed them to provide assistance to the Chinese Communists in their civil war against the Chinese Nationalists. Up until that point, the Chinese Communists had been nearly defeated, but it was Manchuria where the Communists started their rout of the Chinese Nationalist, leaving China being ruled by the Chinese Communist Party which they still do today. Manchuria also gave the Soviets influence in North Korea where they installed Kim Il-sung (who later invaded South Korea and started the Korean War) and the Kim family has continued to rule ever since.
You can read (a lot) more about Franklin Roosevelt in my paper here.
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