Name ____________________________________
Date __________________
Block _______
GREAT DEPRESSION WEBQUEST
Go to www.mhspanthers.com. Click on school staff then scroll down and click on Ms. Sullivan. Click on
File Manager and go to Ch. 15 and open this document. You will be able to click directly on the links for
the websites then write your answers on this handout.
Investigating the causes of the Depression
Go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/rails-timeline/ and answer the
following questions:
1) When did the Great Depression begin? What event sparked it?
2) Locate November 1930 on the timeline: What did many Americans do to earn money during the depression?
3) Locate February and March 1931 on the timeline: What sort of actions were Americans demonstrations were
Americans taking part in during the Great Depression? Why?
4) Find on the timeline when FDR was elected President of the United States. Who was FDR’s opponent and
why didn’t Americans elect him instead?
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Evidence of the Depression
Go to http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/photos# and view each picture in the slideshow
along with their captions. Then answer the following questions:
5) Name 4 things people are waiting in line for:
6) Before the state and federal governments provided assistance, who was providing relief to Americans?
7) A subsistence level is the bare minimum of basic needs that a family requires to survive. What percentage of
American families was living below this level?
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Voices of the Depression
Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpfY8kh5lUw&feature=related and watch selections from the
video to answer the following questions:
Watch 11:20 to 12:30 of the video:
8) What happened to the narrator’s father’s job? How does he describe people’s clothing?
Watch 5:36-6:11
9) Describe the houses that some families lived in.
10) What were the homeless called?
11) What were these families and homeless people looking for?
Watch 10:21 – 11:00
12) What did children do if they wanted to play a game like baseball? Why?
13) Instead of buying food, what did the children in this particular story do? Why?
_______________________________________________________________________
Go to: Teacher Resources - Feature - American Memory Timeline: Great Depression - For Teachers
(Library of Congress)
Read the “Overview” and answer below:
14. How many Americans were unemployed during the worst part of the Depression?
15. Explain one effect of the Depression in other parts of the world.
16. What finally brought an end to the Depression in the U.S.?
_______________________________________________________________________
Go to: Dust Bowl
17. Explain what the Dust Bowl was and its two main causes.
18. Explain what the Dust Bowl caused people in that region to do.
_______________________________________________________________________
Go to: stock market crash
19. Explain what happened with the stock market and banks to cause the Great Depression:
_______________________________________________________________________
Go to: 1930's
20. What was the price of a man's shirt in the 1930's?:
21. What is it now?
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Go to: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal - For Teachers (Library of Congress)
22. Explain what President Franklin Roosevelt did to restructure America during the Depression. Include an
explanation of the New Deal in your answer.
_______________________________________________________________________
Go to: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1642.html
23. What were Hoovervilles and why were they called that?
_______________________________________________________________________
Do a Google image search for “Great Depression”
24. What is the feeling you get of life in 1930's America?
This photo was taken by Dorothea Lange
25. Why do you think this photo is the MOST famous photo of the Depression?
_______________________________________________________________________
Go to: Manufacturing Memory: American Popular Music in the 1930's
26. Name the title of a famous song.
Go to: Digital History
27. Read at least two or more of the letters from children to the White House. What can be learned from these
types of resources?