The National Housing Act (1937) was one of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first tries to make better the living conditions of Americans badly affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Bethlehem's Housing Authority was one of the first in the nation. Robert Nuemeyer became the Authority's first executive director in 1939. BHA's first board consisted of chairman (and mayor) Robert Pfeifle, Weir Jepson, Merritt Kreidler, Lt. Colonel William Coyle and Andrew W. Litzenberger.