Contents

Author’s Note

Prologue: Sunday, March 5, 1933

Part One Lightweight Steel

Chapter One Security

Chapter Two “My Boy Franklin”

Chapter Three “Miss Nancy”

Chapter Four Eleanor and Sara

Chapter Five Dilettante

Chapter Six “The Medieval Gnome”

Chapter Seven The Operator

Chapter Eight The “Ghastly Affliction”

Chapter Nine Warm Springs Dress Rehearsal

Chapter Ten “I’ve Got to Be It Myself”

Part Two The Ascent: 1932

Chapter Eleven “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”

Chapter Twelve “This Doesn’t Go for Above the Neck”

Chapter Thirteen “Try Something” for “the Forgotten Man”

Chapter Fourteen The Brain Trust

Chapter Fifteen The Hair-Splitter

Chapter Sixteen The “Corkscrew Candidate”

Chapter Seventeen Off the Reservation

Chapter Eighteen Flight to Chicago

Chapter Nineteen The Bonus Army

Chapter Twenty The Trial of Jimmy Walker

Chapter Twenty-one “Hang Hoover!”

Part Three The Crisis: Winter 1933

Chapter Twenty-two The Perfect Foil

Chapter Twenty-three Under the Mattress

Chapter Twenty-four “Wooden Roof” and Other Cabinetry

Chapter Twenty-five Nearly Martyred in Miami

Chapter Twenty-six “Damn the Secretary”

Chapter Twenty-seven “Gabriel Over the White House”

Chapter Twenty-eight The Hairy Hand

Chapter Twenty-nine Reluctant First Lady

Chapter Thirty “Like Hell I Will!”

Part Four The Hundred Days

Chapter Thirty-one “Fear Itself”

Chapter Thirty-two The Consecration

Chapter Thirty-three “An Injection of Adrenalin”

Chapter Thirty-four “Action Now”

Chapter Thirty-five That Temperament

Chapter Thirty-six Holiday Spirit

Chapter Thirty-seven “Surpassing Charm”

Chapter Thirty-eight That Voice

Chapter Thirty-nine “The Chief Croupier”

Chapter Forty Roosevelt’s “Tree Army”

Chapter Forty-one The Blue Eagle

Coda Social Security

Epilogue “Dr. New Deal”

Appendix

Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

First Fireside Chat, March 12, 1933

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index