FDR New Deal Deck

According to publisher Bill Schroeder, this pack was produced in 1934 by J.M.A. Inc. of Dallas, Texas without the agreement of the White House. Roosevelt was so angered that all the packs were subsequently suppressed and destroyed. Some 65 years later, in 1999, one pack was found hidden among the possessions of a former employee of the printing company. The frightened employee gave it to scholar and collector Bill Schroeder and he published this in a limited edition in 2010. See the box►

The King is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the Queen is Eleanor Roosevelt and the Jack is Vice President James Nance Garner. The Aces show the abbreviation of an agency created during the First New Deal, 1933-34: Diamonds – RFC (Reconstruction Finance Corporation); Clubs – NRA (National Recovery Administration); Hearts – CWA (Civil Works Administration); Spades – AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

Above: limited edition facsimile of the “FDR New Deal” deck of 1934, re-published by Bill Schroeder, USA, 2010.

The back of the cards shows the initials of the numerous agencies created during Roosevelt’s mandate in the so-called New Deal, in the centre of which is the NRA (National Recovery Administration).