Barber, Clarence L. "On The Origins Of The Great Depression." Southern
Economic Journal 44.3 (1978): 432. Historical Abstracts. Web. 11 Feb. 2012.
I find this article to be very useful to my topic of the Great Depression. Written by a
scholarly person, it illustrates the views of my economists that describe their
theories on why the great depression occurred and how it could have possibly been
prevented. Although all the economists have their options, they all seem to come to
similar conclusions about the great depression. In addition, the article provides
statistics and graphs about data recorded during this time, which will be very useful
in my inquiry.
Work., 1933 millions of Americans were out of. "The Depression in the U.S.--An
Overview." Welcome to English « Department of English, College of LAS, University of
Illinois. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/overview.htm>.
Getting familiar with the causes of the great depression is very helpful for my
inquiry and this article provides me with lots of good information. For one, it breaks
down the great depression by topics like unemployment, agriculture and other
aspects that were affected during this time. In addition, it illustrates how the great
depression ended and how the economy was affected after.
1937, and President Roosevelt. "Bruce Bartlett: Are We About to Repeat the
Mistakes of 1937? - NYTimes.com." The Economy and the Economics of Everyday Life
- Economic Blog - NYTimes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.
<http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/are-we-about-to-repeat-themistakes-of-1937/?ref=greatdepression1930s>.
The great depression ahs come and gone but this article illustrates how the
decisions of today could possibly lead us to another great depression. I believe this
article is useful because it is from the New York Times, which is a well known, pretty
accurate source, and it provides a lot of facts and statistics. This article talks about
the decisions the government is making and ways in which they need to change
aspects of the economy in order to prevent another great depression from
occurring. I find this interesting because the great depression was such a hard time
for many and I believe the United states should do all it can to prevent another one
from occurring today.
" Class in the 1930's ." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. N.p., n.d.
Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/newyorker/class.html>.
There was a definite gap between the social classes during the time of the great
depression. From the article, I learned the ways in which the rich and the poor
differed and how the great depression affected them individually. I find this article
useful because it provides information about the rich and the poor with is helpful
because for my argument, I am trying to find out the ways in which the rich and
poor differed during this hard time. In addition, this article explains what the
government tried to do to help the people who are suffering which is useful to my
argument.
SAMUELSON, ROBERT J. "Revisiting The Great Depression." Wilson Quarterly
36.1 (2012): 36-43. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.
I find this article to be very useful for my research. Unlike the other articles I have
found, this articles focuses on the great depression and breaks it down by social
classes and how the wealthy were affected differently than the poor. In addition, this
article points of the main problems of the great depression which is important
because my main focus is to see what caused the depression and to investigate how
people were affected. By learning about the social classes effects in this article, this
will especially help me in answering my research question.
Thesis: The great depression was a very difficult time during the middle
nineteen hundreds that had a great impact on the rich and poor families of this time.
The great depression was a huge part of America’s history that affected
millions throughout the United States. I chose the topic of the great depression
because I believe it is a topic that is important to learn about and something that
interests me. I believe this corresponds to our theme of borders and boundaries
because by learning about the great depression, you can learn about how different
groups of people, like the rich and the poor, were affected and if there were major
differences between the two groups. In addition, I am interested in finding out how
different aspects like unemployment, government, agriculture and other things
were affected by great depression. From previous knowledge, I know that the great
depression cause millions of companies to go bankrupt and I would like to find out
how they were affected and how they recovered. Oddly enough, I am currently
learning about the great depression in my economics class, which I think will help
me with my inquiry. We are learning about the economy in that time and I believe
some of the information I have learned will be very useful in my paper. In addition
to studying the social classes and the causes of the great depression, because the
novel Middlesex deals with children growing up in the times of the great depression,
I would like to see how children were effected by this time period and how it
affected their futures.
Through my research thus far, I have learned a lot about the great depression
and the effect it had on millions of people. For one, the great depression began in the
late 1920s and lasted for approximately 10 years. In addition, the great depression
caused many banks and companies to close their doors, which lead to very high
unemployment rates. Additionally, stocks were greatly affected during this time and
were estimated to be down by around forty percent in October of 1929.
Relating to the novel Middlesex, the family went from living with their
extended family in order to save money because times were hard but as we proceed
through the novel, you can see how the family has moved to a new place which
illustrates how they are moving up on the social class even though they are living in
the time of the great depression. Though the great depression affected millions of
families negatively, there was still a way to proceed through life and eventually
move up into the middle just as the family does in the novel.
An argument that I was considering making for the second portion of my
paper was to research and find out if the wealthy people were better off than the
poor in the time of the great depression. This is a use of borders and boundaries
because there are two different groups that are being considered, the rich and the
poor, which I believe creates boundaries between the two. The subject of borders
and boundaries is the theme of our class, which I believe is very important to
understand because it affects everyone daily and this topic, in particular, dealing
with the great depression, exemplifies the impact that boundaries had on people
long ago. I believe that in our generation today, the gap between the rich and poor
is very large and I would like to find out if that was true during the time of the great
depression as well.
Overall, after researching my topic, I believe I have learned a lot about the great
depression and how I want to incorporate the information I learned into my
argument paper. By having an interest in learning about the great depression, I feel
it is much easier to engage in what I am learning and it becomes easier to keep my
attention. Although I found my sources, I have not closely read each one, which is
something I plan to do to gain more knowledge of the subject and narrow my topic
down to focus on the rich and poor during the great depression and how they coped
throughout this time. The great depression was large part of our American history
that impacted millions and continues to impact people today in one way or another.