Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Act during the banking panic surrounding the 1933 stock-market crisis.
Roosevelt signed the law on 9 March 1933, shortly after taking office during a nationwide banking emergency. Many banks had closed or restricted withdrawals, and public fear threatened to deepen the financial collapse that had followed the 1929 crash and the Great Depression.
The act gave the federal government stronger powers over banks and supported a temporary nationwide bank holiday. Banks were inspected, and institutions judged sound were allowed to reopen. Roosevelt then used a radio address, later called a fireside chat, to explain why keeping money in reopened banks was safer than hoarding cash at home.
The law did not end the stock-market crash by itself, and it is sometimes confused with the later Glass-Steagall Act. The Emergency Banking Act dealt with immediate banking stabilization. The following legislation created federal deposit insurance and imposed structural separation between commercial and investment banking, addressing longer-term weaknesses in the financial system.