The Great Depression and the 1990s
Lesson Two: Understanding the Times -- The 1930s

(Estimated lesson time: 5-6 days class days.)

Overview

In this lesson, students will come to grips with what conditions were like in the 1930s. Students will be divided into seven groups of 4-5 students. Six groups will be assigned to research the experience of a group of people affected by the Great Depression. Groups will include but not be limited to: children, laborers, the moneyed, migrants, farmers, artists.

New Deal Expert Group

The seventh group will become experts on the New Deal measures: WPA (Works Progress Administration), CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act), FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), NRA (National Recovery Administration), Social Security, bank recovery, TVA/CBRP (Tennessee Valley Authority/Columbia Reclamation Project).

This group work will comprise two steps. The first will be to research Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, often called Alphabet Soup. The second will be to communicate with the other six groups to see how the legislation affected the people in the depression. After researching and advising, the New Deal students compose dialogues, soliloquies, letters or fictional memoirs from the viewpoint of a administrator of one New Deal program.

People Affected by Depression Expert Groups

Six groups (mentioned above) will focus on specific topics. To introduce students to their groups, they will read some short selections on their group from Studs Terkel's Hard Times. For the next 3-4 days, students will research their group's experience during the Great Depression. For research, they will use the American Memory collection, American Life Histories, 1936-1940 in conjunction with segments from John Steinbeck´s Grapes of Wrath, the PBS series on the Great Depression and independent library research.

The focus of their research should be:

• What was life like for their group of people in the 1930s?
• How did the New Deal affect the lives of these people?

Assessment

To demonstrate an understanding of their theme, each student will find a photograph from the Great Depression that illustrates the group's identity. Photos from the American Memory collection, from books on the depression era, and from the classic portraits taken by Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans provide a rich visual anthology for students to draw from. Using the photograph, they will create a dialogue, soliloquy, letter or fictional memoir based on the people in the photographs. These writings need to reflect the students' understanding of the group's character and the historical period of the Great Depression. Students will share their writings with classmates to get peer assessment and learn from the work of their fellow researchers.

On-Line Resources