Work in progress — cycles are added one at a time. Every quote is machine-verified against an archived source; follow the links to read it.
Timeline 1933–1945
Yearly indicator series (each archived from its publisher), an event lane (red = war, amber = economic, grey = political), election years
(dotted), and presidential actions — follow-through mechanisms — placed on the indicators their position's category targets (data/schema/indicator_links.yaml).
The before/after table shows the indicator in the action's year and 1, 2 and 4 years later. That is a reading of what happened next, not a measurement of what the action caused:
many actions and events share the same years.
Events
1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
National Prohibition (1920-01-17 – 1933-12-05): 18th Amendment in force; repeal a major 1932 issue. The Great Depression (1929-10-24 – 1941-12-07): Economic collapse following the 1929 crash; ~25% unemployment by 1933. The Great Depression Dust Bowl (1930-01-01 – 1940-12-31): Prolonged drought and soil erosion across the Plains. Dust Bowl Banking panics of 1930–1933 (1930-11-01 – 1933-03-06): Successive waves of bank failures culminating in the March 1933 bank holiday. European war-debt crisis (1931-06-20 – 1934-06-15): Hoover moratorium (1931), Lausanne conference (1932), general default by 1934. European war-debt crisis Townsend old-age pension movement (1933-09-30 – 1936-11-03): Dr. Francis Townsend's $200-a-month pension plan built about two million club members by 1936, pushed Congress toward Social Security, and fed the Union Party. Townsend old-age pension movement Share Our Wealth movement and Huey Long's assassination (1934-02-23 – 1935-09-10): Long's Share Our Wealth clubs (7.5 million claimed members) threatened a 1936 third-party run until he was shot in Baton Rouge on Sept. 8, 1935; his following passed to Gerald L. K. Smith and the Union Party. The "Second New Deal" (1935) (1935-04-08 – 1935-08-30): Emergency Relief Appropriation Act (WPA), Wagner Act, Social Security Act, Banking Act, Public Utility Holding Company Act and the Wealth Tax Act, all enacted April–August 1935. Schechter decision voids the NIRA (1935-05-27): The Supreme Court unanimously struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act's code system; the NRA and its wage-hour codes lapsed. Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935-10-03 – 1936-05-09): Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia; League sanctions failed; the U.S. applied the 1935 Neutrality Act arms embargo. Butler decision voids the AAA (1936-01-06): United States v. Butler (6–3) held the Agricultural Adjustment Act's processing tax and production-control scheme unconstitutional; Congress substituted the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (Feb. 29, 1936). Drought of 1936 (1936-06-01 – 1936-09-30): The hottest, driest summer on record across the Plains and Midwest; Roosevelt toured the drought states and called a Des Moines drought conference (Sept. 3) that Landon attended. Spanish Civil War (1936-07-17 – 1939-04-01): Nationalist rising against the Spanish Republic; Germany and Italy aided Franco; the U.S. extended its arms embargo to the conflict in January 1937. Spanish Civil War Sit-down strikes (GM Flint and after) (1936-12-30 – 1937-03-12): The UAW's Flint sit-down forced General Motors to recognize the union (Feb. 11, 1937); a wave of sit-downs followed, and U.S. Steel signed with the SWOC without a strike. The court-reorganization ("court-packing") fight (1937-02-05 – 1937-07-22): Roosevelt's bill to add up to six Supreme Court justices; defeated in the Senate after the Court upheld the Wagner Act and Social Security and Justice Van Devanter retired. Recession of 1937–38 (1937-05-01 – 1938-06-01): Sharp contraction after federal spending cuts and Fed tightening. Recession of 1937–38 1938 midterm elections and the failed "purge" (1938-06-24 – 1938-11-08): Roosevelt campaigned against conservative Democrats in primaries and lost; Republicans gained 81 House and 8 Senate seats, cementing the conservative coalition. World War II (US participation) (1941-12-08 – 1945-09-02): Pearl Harbor declaration to the Japanese surrender. World War II (US participation)
Average hours worked per week, manufacturing — hours · FRED (St. Louis Fed) · annual mean of published observations · NBER Macrohistory M0829A; monthly, averaged to annual. 1920–1948.
National Prohibition The Great Depression Dust Bowl Banking panics of 1930–1933 European war-debt crisis Townsend old-age pension movement Share Our Wealth movement and Huey Long's assassination The "Second New Deal" (1935) Schechter decision voids the NIRA Italian invasion of Ethiopia Butler decision voids the AAA Drought of 1936 Spanish Civil War Sit-down strikes (GM Flint and after) The court-reorganization ("court-packing") fight Recession of 1937–38 1938 midterm elections and the failed "purge" World War II (US participation) 1936 election
33.6 39.6 45.6
1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
1933: 36.417 1934: 34.7 1935: 37.158 1936: 39.458 1937: 38.742 1938: 34.308 1939: 37.625 1940: 38.558 1941: 41.225 1942: 43.033 1943: 45.033 1944: 45.583 1945: 44.15 3
1933: 3 action(s)
• 1933-06-16 statute: National Industrial Recovery Act — National economic planning on the model of the 1917 war mobilization
• 1933-06-16 statute: National Industrial Recovery Act wage and hour codes — A more equitable distribution of national income — higher reward to labor, lower to speculative capital
• 1933-06-16 statute: National Industrial Recovery Act — code hours — Spread employment by substantially reducing hours of labor, starting in government service
1
1937: 1 action(s)
• 1937-05-24 message: Message on establishing minimum wages and maximum hours — Shorter hours, higher wages, end child labor and sweatshops
2
1938: 2 action(s)
• 1938-06-25 statute: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 — Revive the NRA's principles 'by one device or another' (imputed; the President would not say)
• 1938-06-25 statute: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 — Shorter hours, higher wages, end child labor and sweatshops
6 presidential action(s) in 3 year(s) on this series — before/after
Year Actions At year +1 +2 +4 Δ 4y 1933 36.42 34.7 37.16 38.74
+2.33 1937 38.74 34.31 37.62 41.23
+2.48 1938 34.31 37.62 38.56 43.03
+8.72