How did President Hoover's and President Franklin Roosevelt's attempts to deal with the depression compare?

Hoover's response to the crisis was constrained by his conservative political philosophy. He believed in a limited role for government and worried that excessive federal intervention posed a threat to capitalism and individualism. He felt that assistance should be handled on a local, voluntary basis. FDR (elected in 1932) had the luxury to know that didn't work. His response was "hands on" by the feds.

That's a topic for an entire novel, not an anonymous Q&A forum post.  But one thing I caution you against is to NOT fall for the lie that Hoover sat around and did nothing.  This is a myth that FDR and economic Keynesians spread in order to tar and feather the depression as being the result of scary unrestrained market forces...which was absolutely not the case.

Hoover in fact was the most economically interventionist President in US history ... until FDR succeeded him.  Hoover became a committed advocate of markets and laissez-faire AFTER he left office.  He obsessed over trying to analyze his AND FDR's mistakes in the depression.  He realized that every action he took, while well intentioned, created a set of falling dominoes that made the collapse worse in the long run.

What's more, FDR was no Keynesian.  Keynes himself was HIGHLY critical of FDR.  The Keynesian claim is that the economy recovered when the massive spending for WW2 began.  Which is not accurate, but at least is consistent with their views.  FDR's programs were economic nonsense that believed holding prices higher would allow the economy to recover that had Keynes calling FDR some very rude names at the time.

The stock market crash happened in October of 1929.  Because 1930 was an election year, he didn't have that much time to deal with the effects it had on the economy.

His initial idea was to do nothing and let the economy rebalance itself. He then met with major businessmen and talked them into maintaining jobs and wages to avoid layoffs.

But with the stock market crash being orchestrated by the large banks and the Federal Reserve Bank, the economy was pretty much controlled. Just because it happened on his watch doesn't mean he should have been blamed for it - it was something that was planned from the early 1920s before he became President.

Roosevelt, on the other hand, tried works programs that ultimately failed. He then resorted to getting the United States involved in a world war that would generate employment.

Hoover only had just over a year to deal with a situation that was thrown at him. Roosevelt had 12 years to deal with it and the only thing he managed to do was to get America involved in a war that was none of its business.