“Mute shoals of jobless men drifted through the streets of every American city in 1933,” wrote David M. Kennedy of Stanford, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Depression, “Freedom From Fear” (Oxford, 1999).

Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, amid a nationwide bank panic  the impetus of his memorable line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Roosevelt may have been lacking as an economist, but he was an extraordinary crisis manager. The next day, he declared a national bank holiday, and set the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work on a phased program to sort good banks from bad ones, provide financing and restore confidence in the banking system.

In his first fireside chat on March 12, Roosevelt addressed the nation to discuss the banking crisis. He started with a brief education in how banks work, with most money not held in their vaults but lent out. “The bank puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around,” he said.

Bank runs, by themselves, can bring commerce to a halt. He reassured his listeners, “It is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress.” And he appealed: “You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear.”

At the time, listeners had only Roosevelt’s word that his plans to stabilize the banking system would work. But he had an uncanny ability to communicate in simple and convincing terms. When the stock market reopened on March 15 after being closed for more than a week, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 15 percent, the biggest percentage gain ever in one day.

“Roosevelt was a genius at using those fireside chats to calm the national mood and restore confidence,” said John Steele Gordon, an author and business historian. “Never underestimate the power of psychology in the economy. We’re seeing that now.”