By Jon Hilsenrath

Janet Yellen was doubtful in 2009 that an emerging U.S. economic recovery would be at all robust and argued for the Federal Reserve to ramp up its efforts to boost growth, according to transcripts of that year's policy meetings released by the central bank Wednesday.

The Fed's internal discussions, revealed fully for the first time, evolved as 2009 progressed--from the panic that marked the early part of the year and toward uncertainties about the strength of the brewing recovery. Along the way, officials debated whether to do more to spur growth and both how and when to plot an exit from the easy-money policies put in place as the financial system imploded in 2008. Ms. Yellen often led the case among those arguing for more.

"The economic and financial news has been grim," Ms. Yellen said at a March 2009 policy meeting when the Fed increased its efforts to boost the economy. "Things are now so bad that I actually open [Fed's staff] economic projections with greater trepidation than my 401(k)."

Ms. Yellen, who in 2009 was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and became Fed chairwoman in 2014, offered at the March 2009 policy meeting a dire analysis of the economic outlook, saying the odds of a sharp rebound were remote and instead boosting the economy would be like pedaling a bicycle up a steep hill. The Fed decided at the meeting to buy $300 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and $200 billion in debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a big increase in efforts to spur growth.

U.S. stock markets had bottomed by that March meeting, but many Fed officials were cautious about the economic outlook. "Perhaps the most striking development since the last meeting is the weakening of the global economy," then-Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said at the meeting. Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren described the discussion at that March meeting as "the most depressing" he had heard during the financial crisis.

By that April, it had become clear markets were rallying, but worries lingered. "False dawns have occurred in previous recessions," Mr. Bernanke warned at an April 28-29 gathering.

Ms. Yellen went further, arguing that the economic outlook was still "fraught with peril" and calling for the Fed to ramp up its bond-buying program. "Now that we've tested the waters, it's time to wade in by substantially increasing our purchases of Treasury securities," Ms. Yellen said. "I prefer to take appropriate, bold action to stimulate the economy sooner rather than later."

Ms. Yellen didn't win the argument that day, but the Fed launched a new bond program in November 2010 and others in later years that brought its total holdings of securities, loans and other assets to $4.5 trillion, far larger than anyone anticipated in 2009.

The Fed's bond programs were--and remain--one of the most controversial facets of officials' efforts to spur growth in the wake of the financial crisis. Top Fed officials say they helped the economy. Some economists doubt they had a big impact. Others said they distorted markets and risked spurring inflation or financial excesses, though neither inflation nor a clear financial bubble has emerged.

Ms. Yellen's views during 2009 were colored by a dim view of the economic outlook. She said that September that the recovery "will be tepid by historical standards, leaving unemployment unacceptably high for a long time to come." That December, she said members of the San Francisco Fed's board were "incredulous" about central bank forecasts for the economy. "Every single one of them thought we were overly optimistic about employment," she said. She worried about ending bond-buying programs prematurely.

Ironically, among her concerns was that Fed policies were less powerful than they had been in the past. Because the banking system was so fragile, she argued in March, the low interest rates that the Fed engineered were less likely to boost growth. Still, rather than back off the use of these policies, she pressed for more.

The Wall Street Journal has documented that Ms. Yellen correctly foresaw a weak recovery at the early stages, a forecast that led her to call for aggressive easy-money policies through much of the aftermath of the crisis.

To be sure, Ms. Yellen had her share of misjudgments, underestimating at times how long it would take for the economy--and monetary policy--to get back to normal.

At one point in the March meeting, she said the Fed might be raising short-term interest rates by 2012. Rates today remain near zero, where the Fed put them in December 2008. Ms. Yellen is leading efforts to begin raising them later this year.

Taken together, the Yellen that emerges in the 2009 meetings is an unmistakable policy "dove," meaning somebody who argues forcefully for easy-money policies. It contradicts, to a degree, her approach since last year as Fed chairwoman, when she has sought to build consensus and hasn't staked out sharp policy positions at odds with other policy makers.

Some officials were far off in their rate predictions. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said on April 28 his forecast for inflation "requires that we begin raising the funds rate by the end of this year, certainly by early next year, and then continue to raise it throughout the forecast period. I have it reaching 3 1/2 percent by the fourth quarter of 2011." The fed funds rate, the central bank's benchmark short-term rate, has remained near zero since December 2008. Many officials expect to start lifting it later this year.

Mr. Plosser, who retired on Sunday, couldn't be reached for comment through the Philadelphia Fed.

The transcripts also shed light on how Mr. Bernanke handled key decisions.

After beginning 2009 in a panic, Mr. Bernanke was nominated for another four-year term as Fed leader and named Time Magazine's "person of the year" with an economic recovery appearing to be in hand.

In September 2009, just after being renominated, he broached the idea of adding to the bond-buying programs. "If we're unsatisfied with the situation and we think the federal funds rate ought to be minus 4 percent, why aren't we doing even more?" Mr. Bernanke asked rhetorically at a September policy meeting.

"I don't think we should rule it out," Mr. Bernanke responded to his own question. But "given all the uncertainties we have and the issues about our balance sheet and exit and our uncertainties about the effects of these programs, it's not obvious that we do have a lot of ammunition left even on this unconventional dimension."

The latest transcripts cover the 11 meetings--eight scheduled and three unscheduled--in 2009 of the Fed's policy making Federal Open Market Committee. The group releases a statement shortly after each meeting announcing its policy decision, and three weeks later releases minutes summarizing the meetings without identifying individuals by name or quoting them. The Fed releases the FOMC transcripts five years after the meetings, revealing for the first time exactly what individual Fed officials said as they debated policy.

Participating in the meetings are members of the Fed's seven-seat Washington-based board of governors, presidents of the 12 regional reserve banks and senior central-bank staff.

This year's release comes at potential inflection point for the central bank as lawmakers consider a host of proposals that would subject the Fed to additional congressional scrutiny or restructure it. The new documents could shed new light on who was wrong and who was right inside the central bank as it tried to find a way out of crisis. That in turn could shape proposals on how Congress might want to change it.

Write to Jon Hilsenrath at jon.hilsenrath@wsj.com

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