Reintroducing the contingency that marked those fateful days, Badger humanizes Roosevelt and suggests a far more useful yardstick for future presidents: the politics of the possible under the guidance of principle. Badger emphasizes Roosevelt's political gifts even as the president and his brain trust of advisers, guided by principles, largely felt their way toward solutions to the nation's manifold problems.
Several of the programs created during those three and a half months are still around in the federal government today. From legalizing the sale of beer to providing mortgage relief to millions of Americans, Roosevelt launched the New Deal that conservatives have been working to roll back ever since. Between 8 March and 16 June, in what later became known as the 'First Hundred Days,' Congress followed Roosevelts lead by passing an incredible fifteen separate bills which, together, formed the basis of the New Deal. Declaring that Americans had "nothing to fear but fear itself," Roosevelt entered the White House in 1933 confronting 25 percent unemployment, bank closings, and a nationwide crisis in confidence.From March 9 to June 16, FDR sent Congress a record number of bills, all of which passed easily. Badger cuts through decades of politicized history to provide a succinct, balanced, and timely reminder that Roosevelt's accomplishment was above all else an exercise in exceptional political craftsmanship.
Congress members stayed at their task from March 9 through June 16 in a session dubbed 'the Hundred Days' and passed much of the legislation that formed the New Deal. The idea comes from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd US president, who passed 15 major pieces of legislation and 76 laws during the first 100 days of his presidency in 1933. The Hundred Days, Franklin Roosevelt's first fifteen weeks in office, have become the stuff of legend, a mythic yardstick against which every subsequent American president has felt obliged to measure himself. He also called a Democrat-dominated and very green Congress into special session. Teachable Moments are short films that provide a quick overview of important topics and events from the Roosevelt Era.