The Great Depression of the United States of America began in October of 1929. The plummeting financial resources of American people began with the stock market crash on October 25, 1929, when Herbert Hoover was the President. Hoover tried desperatly to bring the U.S. out of the impendeing depression, but more and more Americans lost their jobs and almost all of America became poverty-stricken. Before the crash, America welcomed the stock market and invested its money freely in it, but, after the depression set in, investment was discouraged. The optimism of the Roaring 20s was over and the next era of U.S. history, depression, began.
Millions of Americans became unemployed, and Hoover was not providing enough relief to aid the unemployed in either finding decent living arrangements or finding any type of work. Although Hoover held the belief that the government should not interfere with business, he met with business leaders to prevent the United States from falling further into depression. He presented the opportunity for business to borrow from the Federal Reserve. He supported the Tariff Act of 1930 to protect business and therefore promote it, and he cut income taxes for the wealthy to promote investment. Despite these efforts, however, America was still in a state of confused shocked depression. Hoover's name became associated with all aspects of the depression.
President Hoover fought against the depression; he set up the Emergency Committee for Employment, got Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act, and tried other tactics to ease depression. Hoover was unsuccessful, though, and America put its faith and hope into Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected President in November of 1932.
Roosevelt was aggressive in fighting the depression, much more so than Hoover, and developed his New Deal for getting America out of the depression. America believed in Roosevelt and placed its future on his shoulders and looked to him for relief. FDR responded immediately and ordered a national bank holiday and proposed banking legislation to Congress that would help ease the banking crisis. Then he passed the agricultural-adjustment bill to aid farming problems, created the Farm Credit Administration, and then passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act to also help this cause. FDR then set up the Public Works Administration and the National Industrial Recovery Act. He proposed many forms of legislation and other programs to aid the depression, and, very slowly, the U.S. began to gain financial stability and overcome the depression.
In Invisible Man, some references to the Great Depression can be seen in the characters and situations met by the narrator. When Invisible Man is injured in the explosion at the paint plant, he is taken to a hospital where doctors try to cure him. These doctors may be seen as figures representing President Hoover when he tried to cure the depression in America. The doctors try to do what they feel is best by giving him electroshock therapy, but this ends up confusing, not helping, Invisible Man. While in the care of the doctors, Invisible Man looks to them for help because that is what they are suppossed to do. The doctors use the wrong treatment for him, though, and they create a feeling of turmoil and helplessness for the Invisible Man when he is in the glass box. He is confused and shocked, literally, about his situation, and the doctors seemed to have made his condition worse. This is what Hoover did for America when he tried to ease the depression in the U.S. He tried to cure it, but he used the wrong tactics and ended up not helping the country at all, if not causing more problems. Americans felt helpless, confused, and in the middle of a chaos that consumed them entirely. This is exactly how Invisible Man feels while he is in the glass box at the facotry hospital.
Mary Rambo comes along then, and she takes Invisible Man in and cares for him. She serves as a figure of hope and security for Invisible Man. She comes to his aid when he most desperately needs help and insists that he let her help him. She may represent President Roosevelt when he aggressively fought and pulled America from the depression. Roosevelt was a figure of hope and strength for America during the Depression, just as Mary was for Invisible Man.
The politics of the depression in America in the 1930s are portrayed in Invisible Man. The policies of both President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt are represented in the characters that Invisible Man encounters during his journey.