AskHistorians

My grandfather credited the new deal with not only his life, but the lives of everyone in town. His father ran the local CCC camp and it provided the majority of the local work and food. Whatever food was leftover my grandfather would walk miles delivering to people who were starving.

At his funeral nearly 80 years later he had hundreds of people show up who were descended from people who he had delivered spare food to. I never really understood how serious his stories were until hearing so many people credit him with their lives. And all of that was directly possible because of the new deal.

To this day the hiking trails they made in the area are still in use as well. So the work was also meaningful.

FDR's New Deal was massive because it was an expansion of the peacetime intervention of the Federal government in the national economy. Even progressive-leaning presidents prior to FDR often had a strict view of Federalism which precluded this approach. FDR's New Deal was a significant contributor to his lasting popularity and the weakness of the Republican Party, and especially the lassiez-faire wing of the Republican Party, for the next 30 years.