Which U.S. president’s 1933 bank holiday followed the banking panic worsened by the 1929 crash?

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 bank holiday followed the banking panic worsened by the 1929 crash.

After taking office on 4 March 1933, Roosevelt proclaimed a nationwide bank holiday beginning 6 March. The measure temporarily closed banks so officials could inspect their financial condition and prevent further runs. Congress then passed the Emergency Banking Act, and sound banks were allowed to reopen under federal oversight.

The banking emergency was part of the wider Great Depression, not simply a delayed stock-market trading event. Thousands of U.S. banks had failed since 1929, and depositors’ attempts to withdraw cash intensified the crisis. Roosevelt explained the policy in his first radio fireside chat on 12 March 1933.

Herbert Hoover was president when the 1929 stock-market crash occurred. Roosevelt became president in 1933, when the financial crisis had broadened from falling share prices into a severe banking and economic emergency.