Also, this essay was originally written as a DBQ essay. I tried to sift through and change things accordingly, but be sure to keep an eye out for references to documents that I may have missed.
The delineations of the words "liberal" and "conservative" shifted at the start of the Great Depression. Although laissez-faire policy was thought to be liberal in the Roaring 20's, the year 1929 quickly changed America's idea of liberalism entirely. The hardnosed Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the saavy Herbert Hoover both believed they alone could improve America's economic depression. …