AllMovie

This video is part of a PBS series narrated by journalist Bill Moyers that looks at influential ideas, events, and people of the 20th century. This episode examines the New Deal programs instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he entered office in 1933, at the time of the Great Depression. Programs such as the WPA, the CCC, and Social Security were intended to improve the lives of the working class. The governmental bureaucracy burgeoned to administer the programs. Big government was born. Archival film clips tell the story of government's helping hands.