The Great Depression was the longest and most severe “ economic slump in...industrialized areas of the world” from 1929-1939 and it’s important because it gave the federal government more control of people’s lives through the entitlement programs(2). Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were both president during the Depression. FDR’s policies of “ banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs” affected the Great Depression by helping to aid the unemployed and businesses(1). Hoover’s major policies as president were conservation, labor rights, higher taxes, a moratorium for debt payments, and stabilizing the country’s financial structures (Hamilton). Hoover’s policies didn’t help ease the Depression (“Herbert Hoover, millercenter”). Underlying economic weaknesses, agricultural overproduction, a fall in money supply, and the Wall Street Crash led to the Great Depression (1). Life for Americans was a struggle during the Great Depression. Farmers were hardest hit because crop prices were down, they already had large debts, and they couldn’t grow things because of droughts. Many farms and ranches were abandoned because of the Dust