This month's topic:

The Great Depression

Consider the possibilities for your students.....

Always Lend a Helping Hand
http://newdeal.feri.org/sevier/index.htm
This collection of stories, interviews, images and resources retells life in Servier County, Utah during the Great Depression, as brought together by Richfield High School English teacher Judy Busk and her honor students.

Civilian Conservation Corps
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ccc/index.htm
The National Park Service presents this introduction and history of the CCC. See also http://www.nyscccmuseum.com/, http://ngeorgia.com/ang/Civilian_Conservation_Corps, http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/035.html and http://www.sos.state.or.us/archives/50th/ccc/cccintro.html.

Closed for the Holiday: The Bank Holiday of 1933
http://www.bos.frb.org/about/pubs/closed.pdf
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston offers this 29 page Acrobat document discussing the 1933 bank holidays issued to stop bank runs; excellent images and nicely written - takes several minutes to download. See also http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/BankRuns.html.

The Crash of 1929
http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/index-1929-crash.html
This special Web presentation reflects on the events surrounding the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression through various New York Times articles of the day.

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt
http://newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/index.htm
Robert Cohen of the University of Georgia presents letters from children to the First Lady and provides context and insight, including four lesson plans you can adapt for classroom use.

A Decade of Hardship
http://www.museum.siu.edu/museum_classroom_grant/Museum_Explorers/school_pages/bourbonnais/index.htm
Southern Illinois University offers this clean, quick-loading Museum in the Classroom project on the Great Depression from its causes to its conclusion; notsomuch depth of information as a quick-read overview.

Depression News
http://www.sos.state.mi.us/history/museum/explore/museums/hismus/1900-75/depressn/index.html
The Michigan Historical Museum developed this virtual newspaper that provides students the opportunity to peruse various issues of the era in this industrial state.

FDR
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/
The official web site of the FDR library that includes free online archives of images, audio and video, as well as two ready-to-download curriculum guides. See also http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/fdr.html and http://www.nps.gov/fdrm/.

FDR Audio Clips
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/audio.html
A dozen Real Audio clips of significant spoken pronouncements by Roosevelt covering the breadth of his presidency; includes quick-loading text files to encourage deeper reading and analysis.

FDR Cartoons
http://www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr/index.html
Paul Bachorz of Niskayuna, New York High School put together this collection of editorial cartoons that reveal the issues, challenges and choices facing citizens during the Roosevelt years.

The Gilded Age
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/gilded_age/index.cfm
The Digital History site discusses America at the beginning of the twentieth century and offers data and primary source materials to promote deeper understanding of the world leading up to the Great Depression.

Great Depression
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm
This site from the English Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers a nice overview with a good treatment of the economic facts in not only the U.S. but around the world.

Great Depression
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module18/index.html
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History presents this module on the Great Depression and the 1930s with quality writing and impressive use of primary sources.

Great Depression and Children's Books
http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/ushistory/depression.html
A practical annotated listing of children's and young adult's titles that provide a setting in the Depression era, presented by the highly reliable and consistent Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site.

Great Depression in Australia
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/greatdepression/
The Australian Government's Culture and Recreation Portal provides this opportunity to read and compare the impact of the Depression in the United States with Australia.

Great Depression: The Sequel
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/02/depression/
Andrew Leonard's two-part consideration of the 2008 economy and how it compares to the economic conditions of 80 years ago; helpful in drawing parallels between history and today's headlines.

Great Depression Timeline
http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/learning/when/1930s.html
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation offers this succinct timeline of the causes of the Great Depression and the government interventions that helped revive the American economy.

Hoovervilles in Seattle
http://www.seattle.gov/CityArchives/Exhibits/Hoover/
The Seattle Municipal Archives presents this look at shanty towns that sprung up in the city of Seattle in the early 1930s, including original documents and images. See also http://pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/life/topic17.html.

Lawless Decade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_firstshttp://www.lawlessdecade.net/index-2.htm
Based on The Lawless Decade by Paul Sann with pictures selected by George Hornby, this site is a well-written account of the years leading up to the stock market crash of 1929, providing a backdrop and contrast for the Great Depression itself.

Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project,1936-1940
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/wpahome.html
This presentation by the Library of Congress showcases work resulting from this government project that funded written work and supported writers during the Great Depression.

New Deal Network
http://newdeal.feri.org/
Presented by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI), this site is replete with primary source materials and classroom resources to share experiences of the Great Depression and the economy's eventual recovery. See also EDSITEment at http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=304 for a related lesson plan.

1930's Life on the Farm during the Great Depression
http://1930.mrdonn.org/SharingMemories.html
Part of Linn and Don Donn's incredible Social Studies pages, this presentation looks at rural life during the 1930s using a story format that nicely reaches out to children.

Photographs of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html
This Library of Congress presentation touts some of the most well-known and poignant photographs of the age, from rural life at the onset of the depression through the U.S. entry into World War II.

Photographs of the Great Depression
http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blyindexdepression.htm
Jennifer Rosenberg, online guide of the 20th century at About.com, provides these quick-links in a concise format to a set of stirring, memorable photographs that each tell a story of American struggles during the Depression.

Photographs of the Great Depression and the New Deal
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/gdphotos.html
Presented by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, this site allows you to browse, search by keyword, and even order prints of these haunting images. Copyright-free.

Posters from the WPA 1936 - 1943
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html
The Library of Congress has catalogued some 900 posters related to the efforts of the Works Progress Administration creating opportunities for Americans to find gainful employment.

Roosevelt and the New Deal
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/depwwii/newdeal/newdeal.html
The Learning Pages of the Library of Congress offers these easy-to-digest chunks of information on the major components of the New Deal. See also http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USARnewdeal.htm, http://iws.ccccd.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/DepressionNewDeal.html and http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/04/11/did-the-new-deal-work.html.

Social Security Online History
http://www.ssa.gov/history/index.html
The Social Security Administration offers this rich collection of historical fact and personal primary sources that document the rise of this American institution from the Great Depression.

Surviving the Dust Bowl
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/
PBS offers this well-done site based on the American Series special. For more resources see also http://www.weru.ksu.edu/new_weru/multimedia/dustbowl/dustbowlpics.html, http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html, http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.html and http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm

Tenement Museum
http://www.tenement.org/
This museum site offers a longitudinal look at the people who lived in a tenemant home on the lower east side of Manhattan from the 1800s through the Depression and into the later 1900's. Fun online activities too.

Tennessee Valley Authority
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=65
Original document housed in the National Archives that created the TVA, viewable here online through your browser. See also http://www.tva.gov/ and http://www.tvakids.com/.

Weedpatch Camp
http://www.weedpatchcamp.com/
Online presentation of this camp first used by Okies in the days of the Dust Bowl and still used today by migrant workers, including history, images and news about the current camp.

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