The stock market crash on October 29, 1929 -- known as Black Tuesday -- was the "worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world." It spread from the United States to national economies across the globe. It ended a decade known for its high-spirited free-spending, called the Roaring 20s, and began almost 10 years of financial desperation that would touch nearly every citizen of the United States. The Great Depression caused bank closures and business failures and by its end, saw "more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the workforce)" unemployed. Herbert Hoover, president at the time, did not acknowledge the depth of the crisis and assumed that the American characteristics of individualism and self reliance would quickly bring the nation out of the disaster without a need for federal intervention. But, layoffs and financial desperation at the personal level were growing: "an empty pocket turned inside out was called a 'Hoover flag' [and] the decrepit shanty towns springing up around the country were called 'Hoovervilles'." Three years into the financial crisis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, running on a platform of federal recovery programs called the "New Deal," easily took the presidential election of 1932.

USII.6    The student will apply social science skills to understand the social, economic, and technological changes of the early twentieth century byd)         analyzing the causes of the Great Depression, its impact on Americans, and the major features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New DealAfter students complete a gallary walk of primary source photos from the Great Depression era they should examine the picture and take on the role of a newspaper journalist.  Write a news article that would have been in the newspaper during the Great Depression that corresponds to the photo. Remember to record the name the selected photography, create a title for your article and include the six main components of an article: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

USII.6    The student will apply social science skills to understand the social, economic, and technological changes of the early twentieth century byc)   examining art, literature, and music from the 1920s and 1930s, with emphasis on Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Georgia O’Keeffe, and the Harlem Renaissance; andd)         analyzing the causes of the Great Depression, its impact on Americans, and the major features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New DealRead the “Letters from the Boxcar Boys & Girls,” the true stories of teenagers who rode the rails during the Great Depression.  After reviewing the stories, write your own journal entry of a day as a teenager riding the rails during the Depression.  Use the website: http://erroluys.com/letter1.html

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of the most popular of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The CCC’s mission was to conserve the natural resources of the United States while providing relief to the poor and encouraging the recovery of the economy. The program provided employment to enrolllees and financial support to their families during the Great Depression, while developing much needed conservation and infrastructure projects for a country that had been devastated by over logging and farming practices that contributed to soil erosion. Known as "Roosevelt's Tree Army," the program improved national and state parks, prevented erosion, controlled flooding, and assisted with natural disaster recovery. The unemployment rate during the Great Depression was estimated at twenty-five percent, which left a generation of young men without employment or opportunities. During its operation from 1933 to 1938, the CCC employed close to three million previously unemployed young men, although it disproportionately assisted whites. This exhibition tells the stories of the CCC’s administration and controversial policies, the men who joined, and the contributions its projects made to the history of conservation in the United States. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA's Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Mountain West Digital Library. Exhibition organizer: Anna Neatrour.