Primary Source Learning: Great Depression & World War II Primary Source Set

Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1929-1945. At the depths of the great depression, which followed the stock market crash in October 1929, over one-quarter of the American workforce was out of work. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted a variety of “New Deal” programs and told U.S. citizens that there was nothing to fear but fear itself. Although the United States tried to stay out of World War II, eventually, the wartime economy would help lift the U.S. out of the economic doldrums and set it on a path towards becoming a world superpower. The story about this time of hardship and renovation may be in digital or print form. It could be nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even a song. Click on each thumbnail image below to access the full size primary source. You may also use this primary set for a found poetry activity (click the previous link). Be sure to take a look at the Great Depression & World War II timeline as well as associated lesson plans (see below).

Migrant agricultural worker’s family	Fiddling Bill Hensley, dancing in foreground	Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm
Entrance to Manzanar Relocation Center	Wife of a migratory laborer with three children	U.S. Army field commanders conference with supreme commander
CIO pickets jeering at few workers who were entering a mill	Negro and white man sitting on curb talking	The careful hands of women are trained in precise aircraft engine installation
Evacuation of Japanese-Americans from West Coast under war emergency order	Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier	Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on Saturday afternoon
Anna Potter Davis Interview: July 13, 1937	Franklin D. Roosevelt to J. Robert Oppenheimer thanking the physicist	Amelia Earhart’s palm print and analysis of her character
January 3, 1940. [Message] to the Congress	Working on him	Fanfare for the common man (song audio & background)