what was bank holiday in the great depression
The Emergency Banking Act (the official title of which was the Emergency Banking Relief Act), Public Law 1, 48 Stat. 1 (March 9, 1933), was an act passed by the United States Congress in March 1933 in an attempt to stabilize the banking system. Beginning on February 14, 1933, Michigan, an industrial state which had been hit particularly hard by the Great Depression in the United States, declared an eight-day bank holiday. Fears of other bank closures spread from state to state as people rushed to withdraw their deposits while they still could do so. Within weeks, all other states held their own bank holidays in an attempt to stem the bank runs (on March 4th, Delaware became the 48th and last state to close its banks.) Following his inauguration on March 4, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt set out to rebuild confidence in the nation's banking system. On March 6 he declared a four-day national banking holiday that kept all banks shut until Congress could act. A draft law, prepared by the Treasury staff during Herbert Hoover's administration, was passed on March 9, 1933. The new law allowed the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to issue additional currency on good assets so that banks that reopened would be able to meet every legitimate call.