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Students will be able to describe the economic and environmental disasters of the 1930s, including the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and how these events affected American businesses and families. They will analyze the role of government interventions during this period.

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By the end of the lesson, students will understand the varied effects of the Great Depression on American families in terms of job losses, wealth, and homes, with a special focus on differences based on class, race, and gender.

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Students will explore the man-made and environmental conditions that led to the Dust Bowl, and examine the federal government's efforts to address the economic and cultural consequences of this disaster.

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Begin with a brief overview of the Great Depression, including key facts and figures. Utilize a timeline to illustrate the sequence of major events.

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The longest and deepest downturn in the history of the United States and the modern industrial economy lasted more than a decade, beginning in 1929 and ending during World War II in 1941.

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The longest and deepest downturn in the history of the United States and the modern industrial economy lasted more than a decade, beginning in 1929 and ending during World War II in 1941.

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What were the major causes of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, and how did these events reshape American society? This question sets the stage for inquiry and discussion.

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Present a lecture on the economic impacts of the Great Depression and the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl, incorporating images and firsthand accounts.

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In small groups, students will analyze primary sources from the era, such as letters or newspaper articles, to understand the human experience of the Great Depression. Suggest using Padlet for collaboration on this activity.

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Assign students to research the different responses to the economic hardship by various groups (e.g., governments, families, businesses) and to present their findings in a short essay or Padlet presentation.

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Provide resources for remediation, like simplified reading materials, and challenge students with extension activities such as debating the effectiveness of New Deal policies.

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When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, he enacted a range of experimental programs to combat the Great Depression.

The New Deal was a set of domestic policies enacted under President Franklin D. Roosevelt that dramatically expanded the federal government's role in the economy in response to the Great Depression.

Historians commonly speak of a First New Deal (1933-1934), with the "alphabet soup" of relief, recovery, and reform agencies it created, and a Second New Deal (1935-1938) that offered further legislative reforms and created the groundwork for today's modern social welfare system.

It was the massive military expenditures of World War II, not the New Deal, that eventually pulled the United States out of the Great Depression.

Origins of the New Deal

The term New Deal derives from Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 speech accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president. At the convention Roosevelt declared, "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people." Though Roosevelt did not have concrete policy proposals in mind at the time, the phrase "New Deal" came to encompass his many programs designed to lift the United States out of the Great Depression.

The New Deal created a broad range of federal government programs that sought to offer economic relief to the suffering, regulate private industry, and grow the economy. The New Deal is often summed up by the "Three Rs":

Roosevelt's New Deal expanded the size and scope of the federal government considerably, and in doing so fundamentally reshaped American political culture around the principle that the government is responsible for the welfare of its citizens. As one historian has put it: "Before the 1930s, national political debate often revolved around the question of whether the federal government should intervene in the economy. After the New Deal, debate rested on how it should intervene."

The First New Deal (1933-1934)

At the time of Roosevelt's inauguration on March 4, 1933 the nation had been spiraling downward into the worst economic crisis in its history. Industrial output was only half of what it had been three years earlier, the stock market had recovered only slightly from its catastrophic losses, and unemployment stood at a staggering 25 percent.

The First New Deal began in a whirlwind of legislative action called " The First Hundred Days." From March through June 1933, at Roosevelt's behest, Congress passed legislation aimed at addressing the banking crisis, unemployment, and weak industrial performance, among other problems, through an "alphabet soup" of new laws and agencies. Among these, some of the most important were:

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which boosted agricultural prices by offering government subsidies to farmers to reduce output.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which employed young, single men at federally funded jobs on government lands.

The Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA), which gave federal grants to states that funded salaries for government workers as well as local soup kitchens and other direct-aid to the poor programs.

The National Recovery Act (NRA), which sought to boost businesses' profits and workers' wages by establishing industry-by-industry codes that set prices and wages, as well as guaranteeing workers the right to organize into unions.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which guaranteed individuals that money they deposited in a bank would be repaid to them by the federal government in the event that their bank went out of business.

In 1934, Roosevelt supported the passage of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which brought important federal government oversight and regulation to the stock market.

The Second New Deal (1935-1938)

The second phase of the New Deal focused on increasing worker protections and building long-lasting financial security for Americans. Four of the most notable pieces of legislation included:

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), which employed millions of Americans in public works projects, from constructing bridges and roads to painting murals and writing plays.

The Wagner Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively.

The Social Security Act, which required workers and employers to contribute-through a payroll tax-to the Social Security trust fund. That fund, in turn, makes monthly payments to retirees over the age of 65, as well as to the long-term disabled.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandated a 40-hour work week (with time-and-a-half for overtime), set an hourly minimum wage, and restricted child labor.

The legacy of the New Deal

Roosevelt's New Deal sought to reinvigorate the economy by stimulating consumer demand. The New Deal embraced federal deficit spending to promote economic growth, a fiscal approach that came to be associated with the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes argued that government spending that put money in consumers' hands would allow them to buy products made in the private sector. Then, as employers sold more and more products, they would have the money to hire more and more workers, who could afford to buy more and more products, and so on. In this way, Roosevelt and his supporters theorized, the Great Depression's downward economic spiral could be reversed.

The New Deal was only partially successful, however. The Supreme Court ruled against several New Deal initiatives in 1935, leading a frustrated Roosevelt to suggest expanding the Supreme Court to as many as fifteen Justices (a political misstep that would haunt him for the rest of his career). Despite the New Deal's lofty dreams, the United States only fully recovered from the Great Depression due to massive military spending brought on by the Second World War.

Nevertheless, key elements in the New Deal remain with us today, including federal regulation of wages, hours, child labor, and collective bargaining rights, as well as the social security system.

What do you think?

How was the New Deal's approach to the crisis of the Great Depression different from previous responses to economic slumps in American history?

Which do you think played a larger role in ending the Depression: the New Deal or World War II? Why?

What aspects of the New Deal, if any, do you see in American society today?

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Throughout the lesson, observe student discussions, review their primary source analyses, and check for understanding through quick polls or quizzes.

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Conclude with a quiz or test covering the Great Depression, its causes, its effects on American society, and the governmental response to the crises.

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Prompt students to share their reflections on what they learned about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and its relevance today, through a group discussion or an exit ticket.

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Students will research a personal story from the Great Depression and prepare a presentation ON PREZI about how that individual or family was affected.

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The Great Depression of the 1930s is on peoples' minds these days. If you have family members who lived through it, you may hear their stories at the dinner table this Thanksgiving.

It was a period of protests and hunger marches - and unionism spread like wildfire - but many people suffered quietly, ashamed of their poverty. No matter what their situation, the Great Depression changed those in the generation that survived it.

During those years, Chicago was especially hard-hit. Unemployment was as high as 40 percent in some neighborhoods. The city was more segregated than it is now.

Wanda Bridgeforth, who is from the Bronzeville area known as the "Black Metropolis," says she has rich memories of those years. It was a fairly affluent neighborhood - jazz great Louis Armstrong lived there, and so did Ida B. Wells - until hard times came.

"In the Depression, the men could not get jobs, and especially the black men," Bridgeforth says. "Here was my father with a degree in chemistry, and he could not get a job."

Bridgeforth's father was humiliated, she says. He fell apart, so her mother took what work she could find as a live-in domestic worker. Bridgeforth, who was in grade school, was boarded out.

"She told me that this is the way it has to be," Bridgeforth says. "So we either do it and survive, or don't do it and don't survive."

Bridgeforth was sent to live with relatives and sometimes with strangers.

"One house we lived in - there were 19 of us in a six-room house," she says.

Bridgeforth did learn to share and cooperate, she says, but so many years going without left a mark on her.

"The kids do say that I'm a pack rat," she says. "And they say, 'Well, what are you going to use this for?' and I say, 'I don't know, but I'm going to use it.' "
Surviving Winters Near Lake Michigan
In Chicago's oldest Mexican neighborhood, near Lake Michigan in South Chicago, Henry Martinez says the winters were so cold, they huddled around the potbelly stove.

Martinez's parents had 13 children, and they lived hand-to-mouth in a flat with shared bathrooms.

"You wanted to take a bath, you heat up the water in these big cans," Martinez says. "It was always a challenge to keep warm - we hugged each other on the floor. We had little beds that open and close. When I think about it, it was horrible. It was horrible. And then the sanitation of the community - garbage was just put in the alley - and did that create a condition? Yes it did: TB [tuberculosis]. I know my sister came down with TB. Sometimes I like to block that out and just say, 'Thanks God you're here.' "

He thanks God but says the Catholic Church didn't do much to help his family back then. At 76, Martinez works as a community organizer trying to help his old neighborhood, which is still poor.
Downtown Chicago Before The Unions
In a downtown Chicago office, right next to the El tracks, Les Orear remembers an easier childhood. Orear, 97, is now president emeritus of the Illinois Labor History Society.

But in the 1920s, Orear's father was a newspaperman, and Orear was in college when the stock market crashed.

"Pretty soon I got a call that I'd have to come back to Chicago and help support my family," Orear says. "Hm!"

He got a job at the stockyards making 37.5 cents a day. Chicago was a hotbed of union organizing in the 1930s, and Orear dedicated himself to bringing in the union. He says it made him feel useful.

"It was a wonderful time for me because here I was this young fella, and radical ideas are coming nowadays, I feel like I'm in the cusp," Orear says. "I'm one of those that is giving leadership to the working force that's going into the union. ... And it's going on all over the country. I'm not a lone warrior. I'm part of a vast machine."

But Orear has no memories of Thanksgiving or Christmas "whatsoever," he says.

"All of those holidays were so incidental," Orear says. "We in the yards did not have Christmas. We had Christmas off, but it was a day with no pay."

It was the same for Thanksgiving, and Orear says there were no vacations or benefits.

"It's hard now for young people - for anybody - to remember, that's the way the world worked in those days, before unions. That is the difference, kiddos."
Born To Immigrants In Bridgeport
Bridgeport, south of the Loop, is home to the White Sox. Church steeples sprout from this working class neighborhood of the Irish, Italians, Polish, Lithuanians, Chinese and Croatians of St. Jerome's Parish.

Many of them were born during the '20s to immigrant parents.

Giggi Besic Cortese, 81, has lived in the neighborhood all her life. She lives on a block full of two-story brick and frame houses with narrow sidewalks between them. She said boarders stayed upstairs, including a man named John Vuk who took her to the show every Sunday.

"Do you known how I survived those days?" Cortese asks. "[It] was going to the show every Sunday to see Shirley Temple, but [I] tell you, she was my inspiration to go on living. Honest to goodness, I couldn't wait till Sunday, and we would sit and wait for John Vuk to say, 'Come, ve go to the show, ve go to the show today.' You can certainly say that people had heart for one another - and if they were able to help, more often than not they did."

Dusko Condic, 77, who is also from the Bridgeport neighborhood, says his father died "a relatively young man," in his early 40s.

"He left eight of us," Condic says. "Unfortunately, we lost the house. I can remember to this day - and I become emotional when I think of it - literally being placed on the sidewalk [with] every last possession that my poor mother had because she wasn't able to supposedly pay the mortgage. And an incredible number of people came to my mothers' aid, literally wheeling wheelbarrows of coal to help warm the house."

Condic and his friends have a lot of good memories, too. They were children glued to the radio every Sunday.

"There's nothing they like better than gathering around the table and telling stories from the old days," Condic says. "Today, on Thanksgiving, their children and grandchildren might ask about the Great Depression they say, but they're pretty sure the kids don't really understand."

"My brother Mark has 10 kids, and somewhere along the line they tend to disregard the value of money," Condic says. " 'Oh, Dad, it's only money. So what, I can make more.' And on more than one occasion, he tells them, 'Hey kids, God heaven forbid if the Depression comes around again. I won't be opening up the window and jumping out, but I can see you guys doing it.' I think that's probably true."

There's grit in this generation of Chicagoans - and something of a swagger, too. The man who cries about his mother's struggles can boast in the face of today's catastrophe.

Says Condic: "Tomorrow I could lose everything, but somehow I'm not afraid. I really am not."

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Survivors Of The Great Depression Tell Their Stories

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The Great Depression of the 1930s is on peoples' minds these days. If you have family members who lived through it, you may hear their stories at the dinner table this Thanksgiving. It was a period of protests and hunger marches - and unionism spread like wildfire - but many people suffered quietly, ashamed of their poverty.