Economic class and popular support for Franklin Roosevelt in war and peace

History has judged FDR as one of America's greatest leaders in part because he maintained the public's confidence in seeing the nation through the tra vails of the Depression and World War II. During this era, the two most wid ely employed explanatory variables in contemporary presidential popularity scholarship-the economy and war-assumed their most extreme values of the tw entieth century. Hence, not only is understanding Roosevelt's public suppor t historically important, but it represents a valuable case for filling in our understanding of the opinion dynamics of presidential support more gene rally. Yet, surprisingly, Roosevelt's approval ratings have attracted littl e systematic scrutiny. Compiling time-series data from 1937 to 1943, partia lly disaggregated by economic class, we investigate FDR's popular support a mong different classes during both national crises. We find that Roosevelt' s peacetime support divided along class lines, while during the war class d ivisions blurred. Roosevelt's support was indeed conditioned by external ev ents, refracted through the interests of different societal groups. We conc lude that public support for modern presidents should be similarly studied as the sum of opinions among heterogeneous constituencies.