Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered office amidst an historic internal disaster. Although FDR exuded a confidence to inspire a nation, he had no clear action plan for managing the Great Depression. Instead, the 31st President experimented and experimented with a vengeance. In the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, he hewed to the “faith that the right solution to a vexing problem would eventually turn up.” The net result was a New Deal that renewed a paralyzed nation.