Who was the President of the United States when the nation fell into the Great Depression?

Herbert Hoover was the President of the United States when the Stock Market crashed, beginning on October 24 1929, and signalling the start of the Great Depression. (Hoover had only been in office since the March of that fateful year).

President Hoover did not anticipate a complete depression, however, and expected that the economy would recover quickly, as he commented when unemployment began to rise:

"All the evidences indicate that the worst effects of the crash upon unemployment will have passed during the next 60 days." 

(See the first reference link provided).

In fact, Hoover's optimism was not well-founded: within a few years, unemployment had risen from 3.2 percent to 25 percent and the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was in serious decline. (See the second reference link). Hoover's ineffective action led to his defeat in the next presidential election in 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office.