| Additional Class Topics
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Additional Class Topics

For Further Interest: Additional Class Topics
Chapter 33: The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1933 - 1939

  • Compare and contrast the images and activities of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. Show how he pursued realistic political goals, while she took up the cause of the most disadvantaged citizens.

  • Discuss the particular impact of the depression on women, families, and children.

  • Use Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath (and perhaps the film) to discuss the plight of Dust Bowl farmers in the depression. Point out that, for most, the problem was not dust but impossibly low prices.

  • Discuss the long-term, continuing impact of the New Deal today. Consider the controversies in the 1980s and after over the legacy of big government programs started by the New Deal.

  • Conduct a class debate over the following topics: e.g., Self-Help Is the Best Response to Unemployment, America Needs a New Deal, The New Deal Is a Momentous Achievement, and Social Security Will Harm America; primary source readings will come from the following book: Opposing Viewpoints in American History Volume II: From Reconstruction to the Present, San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Another good source of debate topics is Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle, Taking Sides Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in American History, Volume II: Reconstruction to the Present, Connecticut: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

  • Show students the following video: The Century Americas Time (ABC Video in association with The History Channel), Volume II: 1929-1936: Stormy Weather. The stock market crashes, plunging the nation into the economic depths of The Great Depression. For the first time, the country reflects on a sobering question: Is there a limit to The American Dream?

  • Have the students read Robert Penn Warrens All the Kings Men (1947). A story about the rise and fall of Willie Talos, a Southern politician, the story was based on the life of Huey Long, made into a movie in 1949.

  • Show the students Charlie Chaplins Modern Times (1936). Discuss the imagery and symbolism in the movie what was Chaplins purpose of satirizing the Great Depression? Was it effective? Why was the movie so popular?

  • Have the students read Sidney Hooks Communism Without Dogmas (1934) in David A. Hollinger and Charles Cappers (Editors) The American Intellectual Tradition: Volume II 1865 to the Present, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  • Have the students read Clement Greenbergs Avant-Garde and Kitsch (1939) in David A. Hollinger and Charles Cappers (Editors) The American Intellectual Tradition: Volume II 1865 to the Present, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.



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