Great Depression Treasure Hunt
Developed by:
Mrs. C. Murray
Eighth Grade Social Studies
Ballston Spa Middle School
Ballston Spa Central School District
Ballston Spa, NY 12020
Directions | Questions | Credits | Email
Follow along through the various activities. Answer the questions, (on a separate sheet of paper), using the corresponding websites provided. You may have to scroll down on the site to find the answer, don't give up, it's there!
Questions
1.
List the seven main causes of the Great Depression on a
"T" chart. Check off the ones which could/would not happen
today. Why?
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/8191/mcsh/GreatDepression.html
2. What does this
cartoon reflect about Hoover's opinion of people suffering in the failing
economy?
***Please use the following site to answer questions 3-5.
http://www.unitedstreaming.com/play.cfm?thefile=1930%2D1939%2Fchp2783%5F300k%2Easf&protocol=h&e=y&title_id=40&media_file_id=3320&login_id=253532&luser_id=150135
3. What did the Bonus Army want when they marched on Washington? What
did they end up with?
4. How did Hoover handle the Bonus Army?
5. How did this affect his reelection campaign?
6.
Use the following website to complete a T-chart comparing Presidents Hoover and
Roosevelt.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/32election.html
7.
Read the first paragraph of Roosevelt's inaugural speech (3.4.33). What
did he mean when he said
". . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
http://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrinaug.html
***Use the following map to answer questions 8 & 9.
8.
What is the topic of this map?
9.
Name two states which suffered the most?
10.
Analyze the photo below, and read the caption. How does this support the
information provided in the above map?
Farmer and sons, dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936.
Photographer: Arthur Rothstein.
The drought that helped cripple agriculture in the Great Depression was the
worst in the climatological history of the country. By 1934 it had desiccated
the Great Plains, from North Dakota to Texas, from the Mississippi River Valley
to the Rockies. Vast dust storms swept the region.
11.
Analyze the TWO photographs below, then read the stories behind the
pictures. Then, complete the following statement:
"After viewing Dorthea Lange's photos, and reading the story of the families, I feel . . . and I better understand . . . . "
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. -Dorthea Lange
Part of an impoverished family of nine on a New
Mexico highway. Depression refugees from Iowa. Left Iowa in 1932 because of
father's ill health. Father an auto mechanic laborer, painter by trade,
tubercular. Family has been on relief in Arizona but refused entry on relief
roles in Iowa to which state they wish to return. Nine children including a sick
four-month-old baby. No money at all. About to sell their belongings and trailer
for money to buy food. "We don't want to go where we'll be a nuisance to
anybody." Children of migrant workers typically had no way to attend
school. By the end of 1930 some 3 million children had abandoned school.
Thousands of schools had closed or were operating on reduced hours. At least
200,000 children took to the roads on their own. Summer 1936.
Photographer: Dorothea Lange.
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/8191/mcsh/GreatDepression.html
"clock." School Icon Club. 5 March 2003. <http://www.schoolicons.com/engl>
http://www.ssa.gov/history/32election.html
http://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrinaug.html
memory.loc.gov-ammem-wpaintro- intro01.html
