Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Act during the banking crisis accompanying the 1933 stock-market recovery.
Roosevelt took office in March 1933, when thousands of U.S. banks had failed or suspended operations during the Great Depression. Public confidence was extremely weak, and depositors were withdrawing cash from banks they feared might collapse. Roosevelt proclaimed a nationwide bank holiday shortly after his inauguration.
Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act on March 9, 1933. The law gave the federal government additional authority to examine banks, reopen financially sound institutions and reorganize those that were not. Roosevelt explained the policy in his first radio “fireside chat,” helping calm depositors and encouraging them to return money to banks.
The act did not itself end the Great Depression or erase the earlier stock-market crash. It addressed the banking panic and formed part of the broader First New Deal response. The Dow rose sharply when markets reopened on March 15, 1933, but that rebound should not be confused with a return to the market’s 1929 peak.