1913 to 1944
Money and emergency powers
The Federal Reserve Act, the 1933 gold order, Executive Order 9066, and the start of the Tuskegee study.
Key facts
- The Federal Reserve Act was signed December 23, 1913.
- Executive Order 6102 ordered Americans to surrender their gold at $20.67 an ounce. In 1934 the government repriced it at $35.
- Executive Order 9066 removed 120,000 people and held them without charge. The Supreme Court upheld it 6 to 3.
Timeline
3 events in Housing & Private Equity, oldest first
- 19381938Housing & Private Equity
FHA manual: inharmonious racial groups lower value
Restrictive covenants recommended for insured loans.
- 1942February 19, 1942Housing & Private Equity
Executive Order 9066 signed
120,000 people removed and held without charge; property sold in days.
- 1944December 18, 1944Housing & Private Equity
Korematsu v. United States upholds the removal, 6 to 3
Jackson's dissent: a loaded weapon.
Stories (2)
- 1934 to 2025Federal Redlining Maps, FHA Racially Restrictive Covenants, and Interstate Highways Built Through Black NeighborhoodsIn the 1930s a federal agency drew maps of more than 150 cities and colored the neighborhoods where Black families lived red, for hazardous. The Federal Housing Administration's underwriting manual told lenders that the infiltration of inharmonious racial groups lowered a property's value and recommended deed covenants restricting who could live there. The government insured the mortgages accordingly until Congress outlawed the practice in 1968. In the twenty years after 1956 the federal highway program then routed the interstates through the same neighborhoods, displacing more than 475,000 households by the Transportation Department's own estimate. Today 74 percent of the neighborhoods colored red are low or moderate income. The white homeownership rate is 74.5 percent and the Black rate is 45.4. In 2025 Congress took back $2.4 billion it had set aside to reconnect the neighborhoods the highways cut.Housing & Private Equity
- 1942 to 1990Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans and Loss of Their PropertyOn February 19, 1942 the president signed an order that let the Army remove anyone it chose from any area it chose. The Army used it to remove about 120,000 people of Japanese descent from the West Coast, two thirds of them American citizens, and hold them in camps for up to three years. They sold or abandoned their homes, farms, and businesses in days. The Supreme Court upheld it 6 to 3 in 1944. A federal commission found in 1983 that the causes were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership, with no military necessity. In 1988 Congress apologized and paid $20,000 to each of 82,250 survivors.Housing & Private Equity