WebQuest
The Great Depression – 1930’s America
Write your answers on a separate sheet.
1. Go to:
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/depwar
.html
Read the “Overview” and answer below
A. What event started the Great Depression?
B. How many Americans were unemployed during the worst part of the Depression?
C. Explain one effect of the Depression in other parts of the world.
D. What finally brought an end to the Depression in the U.S. and how did it do so?
2. Go to: http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=dust+bowl and open the third link down called “Teacher’s Guide: Dustbowl
Migration”
Read the section from the Woody Guthrie song “Dust Storm Disaster” and the sections “Agricultural and Natural
Disasters,” “Unfit for Man or Beast,” “Moving West” and “Life in California”
E. Explain what the Dust Bowl was and its two main causes.
F. Explain what the Dust Bowl caused people in that region to do.
3. Go to: http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/estockmktcrash.htm
G. Explain what happened with the stock market and banks to
cause the Great Depression:
4. Go to: http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-54463_19268_20778-52530--,00.html
H. What was the price of a man’s shirt in the 1930’s?:
What is it now?
Look at the list of wages “then and now.”
The characters in Of Mice and Men earn $50 per month (about $12/week) for working eleven-hour days of hard farm
labor.
Rank manufacturer, farm laborer, doctor, cook, and accountant in order of highest to lowest income:
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
5. Go to:
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/newde
al/newdeal.html
N. Explain what President F.D.Roosevelt did to restructure America during the Depression. Include an
explanation of the New Deal in your answer.
6. Go to: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1642.html
O. What were Hoovervilles and why were they called that?
7. Go to: http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade30.html
Q. How did people spend their free time during the Depression?
R. How much did a loaf of bread cost in the 1930s?
8. Do a Google image search for “Great Depression”
S. What is the feeling you get of life in 1930’s America?:
9. This photo was taken by Dorothea Lange 
Recent articles in the Enterprise-Record have revealed that the woman in this photo
once lived in Oroville.
T. Why do you think this photo is the MOST famous photo of the Depression?:
10. Go to: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/Jukebox/front.html
U. Click through the links on the left and name the title of a famous song.
11. Go to: http://www.biography.com/people/john-steinbeck-9493358?page=2
V. In what year did Steinbeck win the Nobel Prize for Literature?
W. In what year did Steinbeck write Of Mice and Men?
12. Search for Salinas California on Google Maps http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl
X. Describe where Salinas is.
13. Go to: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/children_depression/help_president.cfm
Y. Read two of the letters from children to the White House. Then imagine yourself in a similar situation. Write a
realistic short letter to President or Mrs. Roosevelt asking for a specific kind of help.