Situation One: Investigating the causes of the Depression
Go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/rails-timeline/ and answer the following questions:
1) When did the Great Depression begin? What event sparked it?
2) Locate November 1930 on the timeline: What did many Americans do to earn money during the depression?
3) Locate February 1931 and March 1932 on the timeline: What sort of actions were Americans taking part in? Why?
4) Find on the timeline when FDR was elected President of the United States. Who was FDR’s opponent and why didn’t Americans elect him instead?
Situation Two: Evidence of the Depression
Go to http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/photos# and view each picture in the slideshow along with their captions. Then answer the following questions:
5) Name 4 things people are waiting in line for
6) Before the state and federal governments provided assistance, who was providing relief to Americans?
7) A subsistence level is the bare minimum of basic needs that a family requires to survive. What percentage of American families was living below this level?
Situation Three: Voices of the Depression
Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpfY8kh5lUw&feature=related and watch selections from the video to answer the following questions:
Watch 11:20 to 12:30 of the video:
8) What happened to the narrator’s father’s job? How does he describe people’s clothing?
Watch 5:36-6:11
9) Describe the houses that some families lived in.
10) What were the homeless called?
11) What were these families and homeless people looking for?
Watch 10:21 – 11:00
12) What did children do if they wanted to play a game like baseball? Why?
13) Instead of buying food, what did the children in this particular story do? Why?
