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THE NEW DEAL IN ST. JOSEPH COUNTY Glory -June Greiff After suffering through three years of the Great Depression, in 1932 the American people eagerly listened to a man who offered them a "new deal" and swept Franklin D. Roosevelt into the presidency. Immediately after his inauguration in March 1933, Roosevelt began to effect several innovative battle plans to fight the depression and restore the health of the nation's economy. With his advisors, Roosevelt.created numerous "alphabet agencies" that launched a mind-boggling number of programs during the administration's first one hundred days. Overcoming the multiplicity of problems facing the United States in the midst of 0 depression required a variety of imaginative tactics involving relief, recovery, and reform, the "three R's" of the New Deal.' Many influences combined to produce various programs of the New Deal. For example. in the midst of a demoralizing depres- sion, the need to increase public recreational facilities seemed more acute because of the abundance of forced leisure time during lengthy periods of unemployment. Still popular was the notion of the restorative power of the (Treat outdoors. accompanied by ' Works abound. both primary and secondary. explaining and interpreting the New Deal and its plethora of programs. Still among the best and most readable is Arthur M. Schlesinger. Jr.'s The Aae of Roosevelt (three volumes to date), which unfortunately takes the reader only through the election of 1936. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston, the individual volumes are The Crisis of the Old Order (1957), The Coming of the New Deal (1959), and The Politics of Upheaval (1960). Another useful work is Frank Freidel. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Launchina the New Deal (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973). Among the best primary sources, albeit brief, is Arthur Meier Schlesinger [Sr.], The New Deal in Action (New York: Macmillan Company, 1940).