1. Discuss the causes of the depression of the 1930s.
2. Compare and contrast President Hoover's and President Roosevelt's attempts to deal with the depression and its victims. Why did each president follow his particular course?
3. Discuss how the Roosevelt administration affected the lives of women and blacks. How much progress was made in raising each group to full political and economic equality with white males?
4. One historian has written, "When Franklin D. Roosevelt faced the newly elected Congress in 1935, the result promised to be a fresh outburst of reform and recovery legislation which would surpass even that of the Hundred Days." Explain what movements and events in America in 1934 and 1935 were pushing Congress and Roosevelt toward this new "outburst of reform."
5. Compare and contrast the legislation and programs of the first and second New Deals. In what ways was the second merely a continuation of the first? In what ways did the second represent a leftward shift, a significant change in direction? How successful was each in reviving the economy?
6. In 1933 fewer than 3 million workers belonged to unions; by 1941 more than 8 million did. How and why did this "unionization of vast sectors of America's industrial work force" come about? Which workers were still almost totally unorganized in 1941?
7. Discuss the impact of the depression on the lives of women, blacks, Hispanics, and Indians.
8. Discuss American culture in the 1930s. How did popular culture and the fine arts respond to the political and economic events and conditions of the depression decade?