Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the 1933 banking legislation that created federal deposit insurance after the 1929 stock-market crash.
The Banking Act of 1933, commonly associated with the Glass–Steagall Act, established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Roosevelt signed it on June 16, 1933. Deposit insurance was intended to protect eligible bank depositors and reduce the panic withdrawals that had helped destabilize the banking system during the Great Depression.
The law also separated commercial banking from investment banking and introduced other banking reforms. It did not directly repair stock prices or end the Depression, but it addressed financial-system weaknesses that had amplified the crisis. A frequent mix-up is to credit the act to President Herbert Hoover, who was in office when the 1929 crash occurred. Roosevelt became president in March 1933, during the banking crisis, and signed the legislation later that year.