Beginning with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the Great Depression was a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. The Roaring Twenties party was over and life for most Americans became a struggle, especially for farmers coping with dust-bowl conditions. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 and his economic recovery plan, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief, recovery and reform, and brought about a major realignment of American politics.