When a new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933, banks in all 48 states had either closed or had placed restrictions on how much money depositors could withdraw. FDR's first act as President was to declare a national "bank holiday" – closing the banks for a three-day cooling off period.
The most memorable line from the President's speech was directed to the bank crisis – "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Some economists and historians have argued that the bank crisis caused the Great Depression. But others have looked at fundamental economic factors and regional histories and argued that banks failed as a result of the economic collapse.
Whether the fear of bank failures caused the Depression or the Depression caused banks to fail, the result was the same for people who had their life savings in the banks – they lost their money. At the beginning of the 30s, there was no such thing as deposit insurance. If a bank failed, you lost the money you had in the bank. Carla Due's family experienced the fear that a bank failure would wipe out savings.
Thurman Hoskins, Birdie Farr's father-in-law, Jack Farr, lost his savings in a Grand Island bank, but he was philosophical about it. Birdie says, "There wasn't nothing for him to do. He said, 'Standing there crying isn't going to help.'"
Louise Dougherty's father owned a bank in Perkins County. When the Depression hit, he worked hard to keep the bank afloat. But the Depression went on too long, and eventually he was forced to go out of business. |
