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 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

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 Deal.Students will visit the website https://www.mission-us.org/pages/landing-mission-5 to complete an online simulation in order to write their "Up from the Dust" Diary.  The diary includes prompts and questions.

The student or small groups will compare and contrast the major events of World War I and II, as a review activity. The student(s) will sort the responses to show the similarities and differences between the 2 World Wars and their outcomes. This Learning Experience can be implemented individually, in a small group, or “draw a random student in class” type of learning experience.