• Great Depression Essays

The Great Depression Essay

The recession of the American economy led to the greatest depression that has never been experienced in the American economic history. The Great Depression, experienced between 1929 and 1932, was a period of extreme hardship in America as it forced Americans to experience an economic crisis which left many jobless and hopeless. It was the worst and longest difficult situation in the country’s economic history that threw many hardworking people into poverty. People lost their homes, farms as well as their businesses (Gunderson 4). The Great Depression led to economic stagnation and widespread unemployment and also the depression was experienced in virtually all in every major industrialized country (Hall and Ferguson 2). The impact of the Great Depression was devastating as many individuals lost their homes because they had no work and a steady income and as a result, most of them were forced to live in makeshift dwellings with poor condition and sanitation. Many children dropped out of school and married women were forced to carry a greater domestic burden. More so, the depression widened the gap between the rich and the poor (Freedman 14) because many poor individuals suffered the hardships during this period while the rich remained unaffected. This paper discusses the period of Great Depression and it covers the life during this time and how the city dwellers, farmers, children and minority groups were affected. The Great Depression started following the occurrence of the Wall Street crash and rapidly spread in different parts of the world; however, some have argued that it was triggered by mistakes in monetary policy and poor government policy (Evans 15). Different hardships and challenges were experience by individuals in different parts of the world with many people left with no work. More so, individuals especially farmers suffered from poverty and low profits, deflation and they had no opportunity for personal and economic growth. Notably, different people were affected differently, for instance, unemployment affected men and they were desperate for work while children were forced to leave school and search for something to do so as to earn money for their family. Farmers were greatly affected because this period led to decrease in price in the prices of their crops and livestock and they still worked hard to produce more so as to pay their debts, taxes and living expenses. The period before this economic crisis, farmers were already losing money due to industrialization in cities and so most of them were renting their land and machinery. When the depression started, prices on food produced by farmers deflated leaving them incapable of making profit and so they stopped selling their farm products and this in turn affected the city dwellers that were unable to produce their own food. Undoubtedly, after the stock market crash, many firms declined and many workers were forced out of their jobs because there were really no jobs. Moreover, many people had no money to purchase commodities and so the consumer demand for manufactured goods reduced significantly. Sadly, individuals had to learn to do without new clothing. The prices dropped significantly leaving farmers bankrupt and as a result most of them lost their farms. Some farmers were angry and desperate proposing that the government should intervene and ensure that farm families remain in their respective homes. But again, farmers were better off than city dwellers because they could produce much of their own food. Many farm families had large gardens with enough food crops and in some families, women made clothes from flour and feed sacks and generally, these farm families learned how to survive with what they have and little money.

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Furthermore, the town and cities suffered too, for instance, as the factories were shutting down following the depression many industrial workers were left jobless. The life in the city was not easy as many individuals lived in overcrowded and unheated houses with poor sanitation. In addition, many firms closed and many individuals lost their jobs and had to deal with the reality of living in poverty. Town families were unable to produce their own food and so many city dwellers often went hungry during this period. During winter, they had hard times overcoming the cold because they had no money to buy coal to warm their houses. During the depression, the known role of women was homemaking because they had a difficult time finding jobs and so the only thing they were supposedly good at was preparing meals for their families and keeping their families together. Some women who managed to have jobs supported their families in overcoming this difficult time. Accordingly, many children were deprived their right to have access to quality education because many societies had to close down their schools due to lack of money. Some of them managed to be in schools but majority dropped out. More so, they suffered from malnutrition and those in rural areas were worse off because with the family’s low income, they were unable to purchase adequate nutritional food for all family members. Many children and even adults died from diseases and malnutrition (Gunderson 4). The minority groups in America especially the African American population who lived in rural areas working on the farms of white owners. Even though they lived in poverty, the Depression made the situation worse as their lived changed completely and remained extremely poor because the farmers they were working for had lost their land. All in all, many families struggled to leave on low incomes or no jobs with many children starving; lacked shelter and clothing as well as medical attention (Freedman 4).

In conclusion, the Great Depression was a tragic time in American history that left many people poor, unemployed or little pay, and children forced to work at a younger age. The Great Depression affected everyone from children to adults, farmers to city dwellers and so everyone’s lives changed drastically by the events experienced during this period. Many individuals were unemployed and remained desperate searching for better lives. In addition, children had no access to quality education as most of them left school and sadly they accompanied their mothers to look for work and search for a new life. However, some people particularly the employers and the wealthy were not affected during this period because they were protected from the depression with their position in the society.

Works Cited

Evans, Paul. “What Caused the Great Depression in the United States?” Managerial Finance 23.2 (1997): 15-24.

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Freedman, Russell. Children of the Great Depression. New York: Clarion Books, 2005. Print.

Gunderson, Cory G. The Great Depression. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub, 2004. Internet resource.

Hall, Thomas E, and Ferguson J D. The Great Depression: An International Disaster of Perverse Economic Policies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Internet resource.

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Course: US history   >   Unit 7

  • The presidency of Herbert Hoover

The Great Depression

  • FDR and the Great Depression
  • The New Deal
  • The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in US history. It began in 1929 and did not abate until the end of the 1930s.
  • The stock market crash of October 1929 signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. By 1933, unemployment was at 25 percent and more than 5,000 banks had gone out of business.
  • Although President Herbert Hoover attempted to spark growth in the economy through measures like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, these measures did little to solve the crisis.
  • Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in November 1932. Inaugurated as president in March 1933, Roosevelt’s New Deal offered a new approach to the Great Depression.

The stock market crash of 1929

Hoover's response to the crisis, what do you think.

  • David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 37-41, 49-50.
  • T.H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), 44-45; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 87.
  • Louise Armstrong, We Too Are the People (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1938), 10.
  • On bank failures, see Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 65.
  • See Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 87, 208; Robert S. McElvaine, ed., Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the “Forgotten Man” (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 81-94.
  • John A. Garraty, The Great Depression: An Inquiry into the Causes, Course, and Consequences of the Worldwide Depression of the Nineteen-Thirties, as Seen by Contemporaries and in the Light of History (New York: Doubleday, 1987).
  • Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 83-85.
  • On Hoovervilles and Hoover flags, Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 91.

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The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 Essay Questions

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What was the primary cause of the great depression according to Robert Mcelvaine?

Robert Mcelvaine describes the unequal distribution of consumable income as the primary cause for the depression. During the 1920s and 1930s, the economy largely depended on consumer spending. Since income was distributable among the few individuals, demand for consumer goods declined sharply crumbling the economy. Many people were not able to afford commodities implying that the companies and other businesses could not sell their goods. Due to highly reduced sales, businesses were unable to service their loans and the financial sector collapsed.

What is the symbolic meaning of the term 'depression' as used by the author in The Great Depression: America 1929-1941?

The author uses the term 'depression' to represent desperateness of the American people faced during the hard-financial times. Many people lost their properties due to devaluation and others even died of stress. Many people who were doing well before the depression became poor. Many jobs were lost and bringing food on the table for their families became a difficult task. All these challenges were a result of depression which signifies desperateness.

Why is Jimmy Walker, Mayor of New York City, saying these words, “show pictures which will reinstate courage and hope in the hearts of the people”?

Jimmy walker said these words in the year 1929 to instill hope to the people of America who were already becoming hopeless because of the depression that hit America hard during that time. The stock market was crashing and business was collapsing. Joblessness was the order of the day and people were finding it hard to cope. Walker was encouraging leaders to instill hope in hope as the government was working on specific measures to revive the economy so that life could return to normalcy. He urged politicians and business leaders to be part of policymaking to restore the economy.

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The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How did "The Great Depression" start?

Robert Mcelvaine describes the unequal distribution of consumable income as the primary cause for the depression. During the 1920s and 1930s, the economy largely depended on consumer spending. Since income was distributable among the few...

Why might some critics have seen Migrant Mother as an example of Lange’s “photographic detachment”? Give at least two reasons for the critics’ theory.

I'm sorry, I have no access to the title in question. Is there a direct link available to Endangered Dreams ?

The Great Depression began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.

Study Guide for The Great Depression: America 1929-1941

The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 study guide contains a biography of Robert S. Mcelvaine, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

  • About The Great Depression: America 1929-1941
  • The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 Summary
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The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 by Robert S. Mcelvaine.

  • Fitzgerald's Prediction and the Great Depression

Wikipedia Entries for The Great Depression: America 1929-1941

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great depression essay grade 11

124 Great Depression Topics to Write about & Examples

Welcome to our list of the Great Depression topics! Here, you will find writing ideas about the causes and effects of the Great Depression. You can also pick plenty of related issues to debate.

🔝 Top 10 Great Depression Topics to Write About

🏆 best great depression topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 good great depression essay topics, ⭐ interesting topics to write about great depression, ❓ great depression essay questions, 🔎 great depression research topics.

  • The Stock Market Crash of 1929
  • What Triggered the Great Depression?
  • Lessons Learned from the Great Depression
  • The Dust Bowl Disaster and Its Role in the Depression
  • How Banks Caused the Collapse of the Economy
  • Government’s Response to the Great Depression
  • The Great Depression and International Relations
  • Unemployment and Poverty During the Depression
  • Hardship and Resilience in Literature of the Great Depression
  • The Impact of the Great Depression on Population Movements
  • Cause and Effects of The Great Depression The economic devastation of the 1920s led to the Great Depression and brought a tragedy for the whole society. Crash of stock market The crash of the stock market in 1929 ushered in the Great […]
  • The Reality of the Great Depression in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” The journey of the Joad family and other significant characters in the story who played the roles in building the whole context take the path of meeting miserable economic situations.
  • Public Enemies During the Great Depression In the 1930’s most people in America were feeling the impact of the Great Depression due to the crashed economy. During the great depression, most people were facing the challenges of starving and losing their […]
  • The Impact of the Great Depression on Canada Some of the measures that Bennett put in place included camps to support the old and sick as well as the distribution of aid to the unemployed and disadvantaged in the country.
  • The Great Depression in Canada Before the onset of the Great Depression from the years 1919-1929, Canada had the fastest growing economy amongst the developing nations and the only blip to this record was the slight recession they suffered during […]
  • Gardens Role in Great Depression Although the main causes of the great depression are still vague and contentious to date, the overall outcome was unexpected and resulted in the universal loss of trust in the economic future.
  • John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and the Great Depression The Grapes of Wrath begins by describing an occurrence of soil erosion in Dust Bowl Oklahoma that led to the destruction of crops, a decline in farming and farm produce and the migration of farmers […]
  • The Great Depression and Hoover’s Administration Therefore, it is probably fair to state that Hoover and his organization are not responsible for a large portion of what led to or failed to prevent the Great Depression.
  • Great Depression: Annotated Bibliography This is a secondary source, written in 2020, and its main idea is that shocks of uncertainty had the main effect on the changes during the Great Depression, which contributed to the fall in production.
  • President Hoover’s Role During the Great Depression Although a significant percentage of the causative constituents emanated from the previous government’s economic strategies, President Hoover elevated the conditional outlier.
  • The Great Depression and the New Deal Politics In general, the New Deal politics aimed at alleviating the problems of the poor population and the unemployed Americans, returning the American economy to the norm, and the profound reformation of the financial system that […]
  • Impact of the Great Depression and the New Deal on Minorities However, despite the intention to promote democracy and equality in the United States, the impact of the Great Depression was devastating, and the New Deal did not solve most problems among minorities.
  • Social Work During the Great Depression and COVID-19 Pandemic Social workers during the COVID-19 pandemic were faced with a series of novice challenges similar to their counterparts in the Great Depression.
  • The Great Depression: Prerequisites, Essence, and Consequences As a result of the crisis and the rise of protectionism, according to the League of Nations, world trade fell threefold from 1929 to 1933.
  • How New Deal Represented Minorities and Ended the Great Depression The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration were some of the many programs representing minorities in the New Deal.
  • The Concepts of Freedom and the Great Depression Furthermore, blacks were elected to construct the constitution, and black delegates fought for the rights of freedpeople and all Americans. African-Americans gained the freedom to vote, work, and be elected to government offices during Black […]
  • Economic History of the US: The Great Depression The government’s immediate and unprecedented action brought the state out of the crisis and preserved the system of capitalism. In order to restore the security of Americans in the new deal, Congress and the President […]
  • The Contribution of Former U.S. Presidents in Overcoming the Great Depression The Great Depression presents an event in which the U.S.developed progressive leadership policies to improve living standards. Modern politics in the U.S.has caused social divisions similar to the period of Unravelling.
  • Great Depression and Cold War: Making of Modern America This paper will explore the causes of the Great Depression, the measures implemented within the New Deal, Cold War tensions, and the changes to the American society by the civil rights movement.
  • American History: Great Depression and Other Issues One of the causes of the Great Depression was the international economic woes of the United States of America. One of the actions taken by the Hoover administration to combat the depression was urging the […]
  • The History of Great Depression The Great Depression was the most severe recession of the past centuries. It affected the whole world and lasted for approximately 12 years.
  • The Great Depression, Volatility and Employee Morale A?” The purpose of the present investigation study is to understand the morale of employees in corporate America on how it affects the way the economy functions in the United States.
  • Stories From the Great Depression: President Roosevelt At the same time, the era of the Great Depression was the time when many Americans resorted to their wit and creativity.
  • Gender, Family, and Unemployment in Ontario’s Great Depression The introduction and all the background that Campbell gives are firmly in line with the goals of this course. The first part of the study is the business and the economic history.
  • How Did the Great Depression Affect Americans? The Great Depression can be fairly supposed to have been the harshest time in the history of the United States after The Civil War.
  • The Causes of the Great Depression: Black Tuesday and Panic Historians relate the end of the great depression to the start of the second-word war. The government then came up with packages that sought to lessen the effects of the depression.
  • The Actions of the Roosevelt on Great Depression S president and his efforts to save the country from the effects of the great depression were futile. The deal consisted of recovery programs which were targeted to be initiated into the economy in the […]
  • The Great Depression of 1929 This was the program that opened the eyes of the people to the fact that the depression era did not affect just the low bracket of society and that if they were to overcome it, […]
  • The Great Depression in the United States’ History This great depression was considered as the major reason of the war and in the initial stages the world was ignorant about the disasters of the war.
  • The Great Depression Period Analysis The main causes for the Great Depression were a combination of unequally distributed wealth, the stock market crash, and eventually the bank failures.
  • Great Depression and the American People’s Relationship With Their Government In this essay, I will try to trace the effects of the depression not just on the people who lived it but also among the present Americans.
  • How the Great Depression Changed Americans During the depression, the population experienced intense pain and extensive misery and the event has been blamed for leading to calamities such as World War II and the rising to power of Adolf Hitler.
  • America in 1920s: Great Depression Regarding the issue of credit exploration in the 1920s, and the contribution of the credit’s expansion into the process of onset of the Great Depression, it is necessary to refer to the facts from American […]
  • History of the Great Depression and the New Deal According to the prominent American economist John Keyne, the main cause of the Great Depression was the shortage of money supply, which was dependant on the gold reserve, in the meantime, the industry output significantly […]
  • Great Depression of Canada and Conscription During World War I in Canada Due to the depression in the United States, the people across the border were not able to buy the wheat produced and cultivated in Canada and as a result, the exports declined.
  • The Great Depression in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” The family adjusted to the codes of conduct in the camp, and Tom even managed to find a job picking fruits at a local farm.
  • The Great Depression: Time of Crisis in America This was a time of immeasurable economic instability, and as many of us have read, the depression started with the atrocious crash of the stock market in 1929.
  • Presidential Policy During the Great Depression During the early part of the Great Depression, the economy had ground to a halt as a result of the stock market crashing and the unemployment rates skyrocketed as businesses shut down.
  • Great Depression in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty The first few paragraphs of the story are dedicated specifically to painting the image of the old Afro-American woman in the mind of the reader by providing details on her appearance, closing, her manners of […]
  • “The Great Depression: 1929-1939” Documentary Despite the promises given by the President and the leaders of finance, the situation did not improve. The narrator remarks that people were losing hope, and no one knew how to improve the situation.
  • Great Depression in the United States The Great Depression of the 1930’s is the most significant economic crises in the history of the modern world and the United States, in particular.
  • American Great Depression and New Deal Reforms What is definitely certain is that many factors like the shifting of the economy, unstable credit and financial system, poor government decisions, and the fact that the international economy was still recovering from ruinous effects […]
  • Great Depression’ History: Causes and Regulations The Great Depression that happened in the 1930s was the gravest and prolonged economic downturn in the history of the developed Western world.
  • Child Labor, Great Depression and World War II in Photographs The impression is of isolation and yearning for daylight, freedom, and a childhood foregone, in the midst of a machine-dominated world.
  • The Great Depression in the US and Its Causes It was believed at the time that even if a person failed to pay back their loan, the seizure of assets to cover the cost of the loan in the form of stocks would have […]
  • Women’s Rights in the Great Depression Period The pursuit of the workplace equality and the protection of women from unfair treatment by the employers were quite unsuccessful and slow due to the major division in the opinions.
  • Great Depression – American History However, though the thicket of sarcasm and irony, one can see despair and disbelief in the power of art, as well as the doubt if art can actually be produced under the name of Hollywood: […]
  • The Great Depression and the New Deal Phenomenon With time, due to the highly unequal distribution of income, as well as to the depression in farming regions, the buying capacity of Americans decreased significantly; this led to the inability to purchase the goods […]
  • The Great Depression in Amercia Form the war in Japan to the Vietnamese war, and many other political modifications, these changes destined to cross over into the 1970s and 1980s.
  • Roosevelt’s Plan to End the Great Depression When he assumed the presidency in 1932, Franklin acknowledged the challenges of the nation, and also the way to get them out of the great depression.
  • Lessons From the Great Depression and Postwar Global Economy: A Critical Analysis The economic slump that hit industrialized economies of the world, starting in the U.S.and later spreading to Europe, began in earnest in 1929 and lasted until about 1941, making it the longest and most ruthless […]
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Plans to End the Great Depression in His Presidency President Franklin Roosevelt rose to power at the time when the U.S.was facing hardships in the economy with the great depression badly affecting the economic activities of the country.
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Plans to Combat the Great Depression He came to power in 1933 when the United States was in the middle of the Great Depression, and left in 1945 when the world, including the USA, was grappling with the effects of the […]
  • US’s Economic Recovery in the Aftermath of the Great Depression The efforts to US’s economic recovery in the aftermath of the Great Depression of the 1930s sparked a series of economic programs under an umbrella name, the ‘New Deal.’ The mission of the ‘New Deal’ […]
  • Causes of Great Depression: Canada Great Depression Causes of great depression The fundamental causes of great depression in Canada were the decline in the spending. Crash in the stock market in the United State and Canada contributed to the great depression.
  • Is the U.S. Headed Towards the Second Great Depression? This is one of the indicators economists observe to foresee the possibility of the economy diving in to a recession, or is already on the way to recession.
  • Repercussion of Great Depression The US mortgage crisis that was the genesis of the financial crisis is blamed on the laxity of law enforcers or failure of the laws that have governed the financial market in the US.
  • Why the Great Depression Occurred – a Public Budgeting Stand Point As observed by Romer, “the great depression took place in the late 1920s to the late 1930s and was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced in the industrialized Western world”.
  • The Great Depression: A Diary The book covers very little on the normal lifestyle of the people in Youngstown before the crisis; all that it documents are the hardships that describe Ohio as a hopeless place to live.
  • The Great Depression’ Influence on the World His book looks at the factors that have caused and prolonged the issues that have deprived many people of jobs and ability to come out of the atrocious conditions.
  • In the Eye of the Great Depression It led to the formation of groupings in society due to their similarities in their plight to restore dignity and compassion to their lives.
  • Causes of the Great Depression This was due to a prediction of the end of rise in the stock market thus; there was a nationwide stampede to unload the stocks.
  • The Great Depression and the New Deal The Great Depression of 1929-40s refers to the collapse of the world economy. For instance, a democrat entitled as Glass believed in the dominance of the white, budget devoid of deficits, the statutory rights, as […]
  • Monetary and Fiscal Policy during the Great Depression An expansionary monetary policy is any action by the Fed that results in an increase to the total output or aggregate demand in an economy.
  • Economic Depression in USA The Depression of 1873-1879 This depression was as a result of the bankruptcy of the railroad investment firm of Jay Cooke and company and particularly the restrictive monetary policy of the federal government; this is […]
  • The Actual Causes of the Great Depression In the period between the end of First World War and the onset of the great depression, United States enjoyed relatively stable economic conditions under the leadership of a string of republican presidents.
  • Government Policy Interventions and the Great Depression Monetary policy is the process where the government intervenes by administering and controlling the amount of money in the economy using the Central Bank in many countries and the Federal Reserve in the United States.
  • Problem of USA Exposed by the Great Depression The recession was triggered by various fiscal features such as the vast margin between the poor and the wealthy, government debts and surplus production of commodities only to mention a few.
  • The Great Depression Effects on American Economy The main problem behind the stated Great Depression experienced in the United States in 1929 was the mismatch between the consuming capacity of the population of the United States and the production capacity of the […]
  • Great Depression as a Worldwide Economic Decline Many people ceased to buy products leading to low production of the products. This led to lose of market for American industries and led to trade disagreements among nations.
  • The Great Depression Crisis Other causes that led to a reduction in aggregate demand followed throughout the depression period and the effects were transmitted from the United States which was in essence the ‘epicenter’ of the depression to the […]
  • The Great Depression in Latin America Leaders in Latin America acknowledged the need to change economic policies and promoted the discarding of the free-market model in favor of import substitution.
  • The Causal-Effect Connection of the Great Depression According to majority of the authors and scholars, The Great Depression is the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States of America.
  • The Three Main Causes of Great Depression This paper sheds light on the causes that led to the great depression in America According to Bordo and White, the great depression begun in 1929 and many people suffered because all the businesses had […]
  • Did Bank Distress Stifle Innovation During the Great Depression?
  • How Does “The Cinderella Man” Depict Life During the Great Depression?
  • Could the FED Have Prevented the Great Depression?
  • How Did the Great Depression Affect a Generation?
  • Did American Welfare Capitalists Breach Their Implicit Contracts During the Great Depression?
  • How Does the Great Depression Affect the World Economy?
  • Could the Great Depression Be Describes a Time of Desperation?
  • How Did the Great Depression Pave the Road for Hitler?
  • Did France Cause the Great Depression?
  • How Did Demographics Cause the Great Depression?
  • Did Hayek and Robbins Deepen the Great Depression?
  • How Did Black People Face the Great Depression Differently?
  • Did International Economic Forces Cause the Great Depression?
  • How Did Governments Deal With Problems Caused by the Great Depression?
  • Did Korekiyo Takahashi Rescue Japan From the Great Depression?
  • How Did Great Britain, France, and the United States Respond to the Great Depression?
  • Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression?
  • How Did the Great Depression Completely Destroy America?
  • Did Sunspot Forces Cause the Great Depression?
  • How Did WWII End the Great Depression?
  • Did Technology Shocks Drive the Great Depression?
  • How Does the Current Global Economic Recession Compare to the Great Depression?
  • Did the Canadian Government Do Enough During the Great Depression?
  • How Franklin Delano Roosevelt Handled the Great Depression in the U.S.?
  • Did the Commercial Paper Funding Facility Prevent a Great Depression Style Money Market Meltdown?
  • How Great Was the Great Depression?
  • Did the Great Depression Affect Educational Attainment in the US?
  • How Has Homelessness Changed Since the Great Depression?
  • Did the New Deal Prolong or Worsen the Great Depression?
  • How Did Income Inequality Lead to the Great Depression?
  • The Agricultural Crisis During the Great Depression
  • Government Relief Programs of the Depression Era
  • How the Great Depression Impacted Minority Communities
  • The Political Consequences of the Stock Market Crash
  • Hoover vs. Roosevelt’s Approaches to Economic Recovery
  • The Psychological Effects of the Great Depression on People and Families
  • The Role of Government in Economic Recovery during the Great Depression
  • The Legacy of Labor Unions and Workers’ Rights of the Depression Era
  • Gender Roles, Employment, and Social Changes During the Depression Era
  • The Legacy of the Great Depression as Seen in the Modern Economic Policy
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The Great Depression Essay

The students learn about the events that led to the stock market crash, the concerns of the Depression, and the effects of the New Deal programs on the American people and the American economy. While reading and discussing these important issues in American History, the students choose an original Depression photograph [primary source] and create a story using historical facts. The project is one week in duration. A scoring guide and handout are utilized.

1. The student will conduct research using primary and secondary sources. 2. The student will write an essay using the provided format and criteria. 3. The student will present his/her work to class an an oral presentation.

Missouri Standards

Goal 1.2 Conduct research to answer questions and evaluate information and ideas. Goal 1.4 Use technological tools and other resources to locate, select, and organize information. Goal 2.1 Plan and make written, oral and visual presentations for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Kansas Standards

Benchmark 2: The student uses a working knowledge and understanding of individuals, groups, ideas, developments, and turning points in the era of the Great Depression through World War II in United States history (1930-1945).

The student:

1. (A) analyzes the causes and impact of the Great Depression (e.g., overproduction, consumer debt, banking regulation, unequal distribution of wealth).

2. (A) analyzes the costs and benefits of New Deal programs. (e.g., budget deficits vs. creating employment, expanding government: CCC, WPA, Social Security, TVA, community infrastructure improved, dependence on subsides).

3. (A) analyzes the debate over expansion of federal government programs during the Depression (e.g., Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Alf Landon, Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin).

Benchmark 3: The student writes technical text using the writing process.

1. Develops a technical text focused on one main purpose. (Ideas and Content: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

2. Clearly defines the main idea with selection of concise, logical details that meet the reader’s informational needs. (Ideas and Content: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

3. Analyzes and understands implications and consequences of plagiarism (e.g. ethical, legal, professional). (Ideas and Content: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

4. Cites references for all sources of information and includes summarized and paraphrased ideas from other authors. (Ideas and Content: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

5. Constructs a bibliography with a standard style of format (e.g. MLA, APA, etc.). (Ideas and Content: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

6. Applies appropriate strategies to generate technical text (e.g. brainstorming, listing, webbing, working in pairs or cooperative groups, identifying information from print sources). (Organization:prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

7. Organizes information within each section, paragraph, list, or graphic in a logical and effective sequence to meet the reader’s informational needs. (Organization: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

8. Composes a comprehensive piece with a constructive introduction, a relevant or sequential body, and a suitable conclusion. Organization: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P)

9. Uses appropriate transitions to connect ideas within the piece (e.g. enumerated lists, bullets, headings, subheadings, complex outlining elements). (Organization: prewriting, drafting, revising: N,E,T,P

  • http://www.infoplease.com/
  • http://www.yahoo.com
  • http://www.yahooligans.com
  • Images in the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection (Library of Congress) America at the Crossroads - Great Photographs From the Thirties, Edited by Jerome Prescott, Smithmark, New York, 1995. American Odyssey, Gary Nash, Glencoe, New York, 1994. Highlights in American History, Grace Kachaturoff, Schaffer Publications, Torrance, California, 1995. Life During the Great Depression, Dennis Nishi, Lucent Books, San Diego, 1998.

The students will study the chapters on the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s New Deal using the school text American Odyssey. The class will read the text, complete guided readings, and study these issues while reading articles from Roosevelt’s Presidency and readings from Highlights in American History. The Depression Essay Project will be introduced during this unit. The use of primary sources and the need to access various Internet sources will enhance the learning process. Each student will choose a photograph from sources to include the KC Public Librarv Special Collection. The students can chose a photograph from the collections of Margaret Bourke-White or Dorothea Lange. Government archives have numerous photographs from the Depression. Additional historical information will be found by accessing Yahoo , Searchopolis , and Information Please Almanac. The students will gain additional knowledge about FDR by using the Project WhistleStop Web Site. After completing the research, the student will follow the format of the essay. The time frame will be distributed in order for the student to organize his/her time and information. A class period in the computer lab will be made available to the class. Each student will have the opportunity to share his/her insights in the form of an oral presentation.

DEPRESSION ESSAY

MAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPH COME ALIVE!

In this project students will describe the life of a person or persons who suffered hardship and desperation during the Great Depression. The students will choose an authentic photograph from the Great Depression, which can be found using various resources. Students will describe the picture and give an identity to the person(s) in the picture and explain how the depression affected their life/lives. If a photograph is chosen without people, the students will create a person or family who lives [had lived] at the site. [The teacher will show several examples.] In addition, the student will explain how FDR’s New Deal helped restore, or did not restore, the lives of the individuals. A picture of the photograph must accompany the essay and its source documented. It is required that the students use proper mechanics and a five-paragraph essay format to tell this story. The format is as follows: Paragraph 1 This is a general paragraph that is interesting and captures the reader’s attention. Paragraph 2 This is the time to introduce the person [sl in the photo. Who is this? Where do/did they live? What was their life[s] like before the Depression? Paragraph 3 What was the Great Depression? Why did it occur? Explain how this person [s] was affected, and how the individual[s] came to be in the state as shown in the photograph. Paragraph 4 Explain what the New Deal was and how specific programs helped the person[s] in your photo. If there were negative aspects discuss and be specific. Paragraph 5 This is the conclusion of the essay. Describe what happened to the person[s] in the photograph. Describe lessons learned and/or how life[s] changed for this person[s].  

THIS IS THE TIME TO SHOW YOUR CREATIVE REPORTING TALENTS!

A scoring guide will be used to assess each student. The student will receive a copy of the scoring guide at the beginning of the project and a detailed explanation of the requirements of the project.

DEPRESSION ESSAY SCORING GUIDE

  • The Great Depression

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The Great Depression Lesson Plans

The Great Depression: A Curriculum for High School Students

The curriculum begins with a message from former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and an introductory essay, “The Great Depression: An Overview” (PDF) , written by David C. Wheelock, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and an expert on the Great Depression. The essay is incorporated into many of the lessons, as students are asked to read and refer to various sections of the essay.

Teachers: Following the essay, the curriculum includes six stand-alone lessons, allowing you to pick and choose the lessons most appropriate for your students. Although each lesson is written to stand alone, the lessons are sequenced for instruction so that you can use the entire unit.

Great Depression Lesson Format

A penniless Oklahoma mother, 18, finds herself stranded in Imperial Valley, California

Library of Congress

Each lesson includes:

  • a list of economic concepts taught in the lesson,
  • the economics and history content standards and the social studies strands addressed in each lesson,
  • learner objectives,
  • estimated time required,
  • a list of materials required,
  • a detailed set of procedures,
  • an assessment,
  • blackline masters for visuals,
  • handouts for the teacher to copy and distribute, and
  • an interactive whiteboard application.

Alternate Lessons 1 and 3

Alternate lesson 1 with primary sources – measuring the great depression.

Alternate Lesson 1 with Primary Sources aligned to C3 Standards (.pdf)

This lesson describes how we measure the economy’s health with tools such as gross domestic product (GDP), the unemployment rate, and the consumer price index (CPI). Developing an understanding of these concepts is critical to understanding the magnitude of the economic problems during the Great Depression. This lesson also illustrates the differences between these modern economic measurements and the measurements available at the time through primary source materials from FRASER® , the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis digital library of economic history. Students work in groups to examine excerpts from primary source documents and create relevant definitions of economics concepts in their own words. In an optional extension, students may read and answer questions on an essay that provides an overview of how economists understand the Great Depression.

Alternate Lesson 3 with Primary Sources – Family Budgets and the Great Depression

Alternate Lesson 3 with Primary Sources (.pdf)

In this lesson, students work in groups to “experience” the effects of the Great Depression in one of three scenarios: a construction worker, railroad worker, or teacher who makes budget choices during the Great Depression. Students examine a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics primary source document from FRASER® , the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis digital library of economic history, to evaluate price change data and make the connection between deflation and unemployment.

Lesson Content

Full curriculum.

Download the Full Curriculum (.pdf)

Lesson 1 – Measuring the Great Depression

Lesson (.pdf) | Whiteboard (.notebook) | Whiteboard (.pptx)

This lesson introduces tools—such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the unemployment rate and the Consumer Price Index (CPI)—that are used to measure the economy’s health, through an analysis of simple bar charts and graphs. Developing an understanding of these concepts is critical to understanding the magnitude of the economic problems that took place during the Great Depression.

Lesson 2 – What Do People Say Caused the Great Depression?

There are many suggested causes for the Great Depression. It is important for students to understand that occurrences such as the stock market crash—and other events that affected particular sectors of the economy—were important, but not significant enough to cause the Great Depression. By reading fictitious letters that reflect actual problems and people’s concerns during the Great Depression, students begin to identify with the people of that era and to uncover the problems that people experienced during the Great Depression.

Lesson 3 – What Really Caused the Great Depression?

Through participation in two simulations, students determine that bank panics and a shrinking money supply were the primary causes of the Great Depression. Through an additional activity, they see how the many other factors they have discussed, such as problems in the agricultural sector and the stock market crash, exacerbated the situation.

Lesson 4 – Dealing with the Great Depression

Students learn about programs initiated through the New Deal. By comparing and categorizing New Deal programs, they recognize that the value of most of these programs was their effects on the confidence that U.S. citizens had in the economy. Students also identify the impact that these programs had on the role of the U.S. government in the economy.

Lesson 5 – Turn Your Radio On

Students use excerpts from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” to identify his plans for restoring the economy. They determine that using available technology to communicate was important to FDR’s effort to restore consumer confidence.

Lesson 6 – Could It Happen Again?

Students learn about the roles and functions of the Federal Reserve System. Through a simulation, they learn how the Fed manages the money supply through open market operations. They identify what central bankers have learned about implementing monetary policy as a result of the Great Depression. Furthermore, they recognize the steps the central bank has taken to respond effectively to financial crises since that time.

The appendix of the curriculum includes:

  • a multiple choice pre- and post-test ,
  • an evaluation form ,
  • a reference list , and
  • a list of resources such as newsreels, photos, books and web sites.

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Great Depression and New Deal - History - 11th Grade

Great depression and new deal - history - 11th grade presentation, free google slides theme and powerpoint template.

The tumultuous era of the Great Depression and New Deal comes alive in this elegantly designed 11th-grade history resource. With a style echoing the vintage charm of the period, this educational tool captures the defining moments of US history with professional seriousness. Unique diagrams and timeless photographs help illustrate the economic hardships and political responses of the era. This comprehensive resource provides learners an opportunity to connect historical happenings to the present day, thereby fostering a deeper understanding of the world around them. Dive into the captivating narrative of the Great Depression and New Deal with this engaging resource.

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History Grade 11 - Topic 3 Essay Questions

great depression essay grade 11

Essay Question

To what extent did Australian government policies and legislation succeed in perpetuating racism and the dehumanization of the Aborigines in the 19th and 20th centuries? Present an argument in support of your answer using relevant historical evidence. [1]

Introduction :

A number of scholars agree that race was part of the Enlightenment project that resulted from the desire to classify people into distinct categories. [2] Racial classification certainly existed before this period, but the ‘modern’ application of race has much to do with Europe’s interaction with the ‘rest of the world’. [3] Thus, central to the project of European colonialism was the crystallization of Eugenics policies and an array of social Darwinist theories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These theories which later transformed government policy and law rendered non-European peoples as subhuman and biologically inferior and thus should be dispossessed of their land and other vital resources and ultimately exterminated in society. Therefore, and relevant to this essay, we will focus on the implementation of Eugenics policies and Social Darwinism in Australia in order to evaluate the extent to which these policies impacted on the Aboriginal people of Australia.

British colonisation and occupation of Australia

After the British colonised Australia in the 18th century, the first one hundred and forty years of Australian colonial history was marked by conflict and dispossession. [4] The arrival of Lieutenant James Cook and then Arthur Philip in 1788 marked the beginning of ‘white settlement’. [5] From 1788, Australia was treated by the British as a colony of settlement, not of conquest. Aboriginal land was expropriated by the British colonists on the premise that the land was empty (the terra nullius theory) and that the British colonists discovered it. This myth was applied across the colonial world to perpetuate and justify indigenous dispossession and genocide. [6]

Colonists viewed the indigenous Australians as inferior and scarcely human. Their way of life was seen as ‘primitive and uncivilised’, and colonialists believed that their culture would eventually die out. [7] This view justified colonial conquest of the Aboriginal people. Social anthropologists from universities who ‘studied’ the way of life of the Aborigines reinforced this view. [8] Firstly, this view added some ‘scientific’ credibility to observations about this ‘primitive’ society with the lowest level of kinship and the most ‘primitive’ form of religion. Secondly, it also added to the views of Australian eugenicists without deeply analysing the complexities of Aboriginal life. [9]

Application of eugenics policies on the Aborigines

Eugenics associations were established in many states, e.g., New South Wales and Victoria. In 1960 the Racial Hygiene Association, based in Sydney, became the Family Planning Association. [10] A prominent eugenicist in Melbourne was Prof Richard Berry who believed the Aborigines to be the most primitive form of humans. Berry studied and measured people’s heads to prove his theory that white, educated people were the smartest, while the poor, criminals and Aboriginal Australian were the least so. Berry proposed a euthanasia chamber for so-called mental defectives. [11] Ideas of racial decay and racial suicide were aimed at strengthening the number of whites in society, especially in the north where Asian populations were expanding. [12] In 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act was passed (known as the White Australia Policy). White racial unity was promoted as a form of racial purity.

Immigration was encouraged from the UK in 1922 to swell European numbers and thousands of children were sent to keep Australia white. 1912: white mothers offered £5 childbirth bounty in order to grow the size of wealthy middle -class families, which tended to have fewer children than poorer, pauper families in society. [13] This was partly in response to the debate around ‘racial suicide’. It was thought that the middle class would die out because they were not having enough children. [14] Decrease in the number of middle-class whites led to notions of ‘racial decay’. It was assumed that ‘racial poisons’ (e.g., TB, venereal disease, prostitution, alcoholism and criminality) would decimate whites with good stock (middle class). Plans were made to deal with ‘racially contaminated’ and misfits to keep middle class ‘pure’. [15]

Australia Immigration Policies

The White Australian policy of 1901 aimed at cohesion among the white population in the country. [16] It enshrined discrimination and white superiority. Between 1920 and 1967 thousands of British children between the ages of 3 and 14 were sent to Australia and Canada to boost the size of the white population. These children came from poor backgrounds and were mostly in social care. Many of these children were cut off from their families and were often told they were orphans. [17] In addition, a number of these children stayed in orphanages in Australia or became unpaid cheap labour on farms and in some instances were physically and sexually abused. The children who were forcibly migrated under the system became known as the Lost Generation. Catholic Church established homes to accommodate and assist migrant children. In 1987 the Child Migrant Trust under the leadership of Margaret Humphreys began to publicise the abuse of child migrants. [18]

The lost generation?

Children of mixed race were either viewed as inferior by some or as slightly more superior than other Aborigines. [19] However, at the beginning of the 20th century, these ‘half-caste’ children were viewed as a threat to the future of the white race in Australia. In 1913, W. Baldwin Spencer set up 13 proposals to manage the half-caste populations in and around the towns, mining housing and other sites of contact between ‘races’. These included: segregated living areas in certain towns, limits set on the employment of indigenous population by white Australians, the removal of Aboriginal people to a compound, the construction of a half-caste home in one area, a ban on interracial contact and authority given to protectors in some areas to remove ‘half-caste’ children from their families and place them in homes.

By 1930s the number of part-Aboriginal population increased. Dr Cecil Cook and A.O. Neville believed that the white race was headed for extinction. They were responsible for assimilation programmes for ‘breeding blackness out.’ About 100 000 ‘mixed-race’ children were taken from their parents between 1910 and 1970 to breed out Aboriginal blood. Cook encouraged lighter-skinned women to marry white men and in this way ‘breed out their colour’. In 1951, the new Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, claimed that assimilation would be the new policy to deal with the indigenous people and motivated this on the grounds of looking after the child’s welfare. Policemen or government officials often took children from their sobbing mothers, they were raised as orphans. Many of these children experienced abuse and neglect. Labels were used, e.g., quadroon, octaroon, to indicate how much ‘white’ blood they had. This policy only ended in 1971. These children are known today as the Stolen Generation. [20]

Reparations?

The practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families was not spoken about until 1997. An official enquiry revealed consistent abuse, exploitation in the labour market, social dislocation that led to alcoholism, violence, and early death. [21] In 2009 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised in parliament for the laws and policies that inflicted grief, suffering and loss on them. He particularly mentioned the ‘Stolen Generation’ who had been removed from their families. In 2010 Rudd apologised to the ‘Lost Generation’ of children who were held in orphanages and other institutions between 1930 and 1970. [22]

Racial ideologies were not simply advanced by a conglomeration of nationalism, imperialism, Darwinism and Eugenics. In the early Twentieth Century, there became evidence strands of simply cultural racism that can be seen as running alongside the biological determinism that was largely prevalent. From this perspective, individuals were suspicious or negative towards to other races not solely on the basis on racial differences, but because those differences represented a divergence in cultural values. This can be seen in the number of miscegenation laws that prevailed in Australia and elsewhere in the colonial world in this context, which have been interpreted as founded on notions of biological mixing. This therefore was an attempt to assert the supremacy of the white race over all other races. Therefore, the development of the sciences of evolutionary Darwinism and Eugenics provided further scientific validity to these views, justifying unequal power relationships either by pinpointing the inability of certain races to develop, or by suggesting the more advanced races had a personal benevolence to the others.

great depression essay grade 11

Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

Hitlers consolidation of power from 1933 to 1934 :

The Great Depression had severe economic effects which increased support for political parties that were extremists such as the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which is popularly known as the Nazi party in English) on the right and the Communist Party on the left. [23] In 1993, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by the then President Von Hindenburg. [24] This was a significant appointment as Hitler used his position as head of government to consolidate Nazi control. In power, the Nazis dominated the police force by utilizing them to break up meetings that opposition parties had and outlawed all forms of public meetings by justifying that these posed a ‘threat’ to public safety. on the 27th of February 1993, an arson attack occurred which burned the building which housed the German parliament, and this attack became known as the Reichstag Fire. After the Reichstag fire, Hitler got Von Hindenburg to pass a decree which suspended all articles in the constitution that guaranteed peoples key freedoms and liberty. [25] This meant that political opposition were arrested and subsequently sent to concentration camps. The Nazis did not win a clear majority in the elections despite rigorous intimidation and propaganda. As a result, Hitler banned the Communists from the Reichstag party which was supported by the Centre Party- a lay Catholic Party in Germany. [26] Hitler then arranged to get the Reichstag to agree to pass the Enabling Act which allowed him to make laws by decree. This made it possible for Hitler to centralise the government by taking away powers of the state governments. In addition, Hitler destroyed the free trade union movements and banned the Social Democrats and the Communist Party. [27] However, in 1934, an increasing number of left-wing elements within the Nazi Party were opposing Hitlers authority. [28] The Sturmabteilung- Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing, which was led by Ernst Rohm was interested in the socialistic elements of Nazism. [29] In short, they wanted Germany to be a full socialistic state. However, the German Wehrmacht- unified armed forces of Nazi Germany opposed the Sturmabteilung’s stance. On the 30th of June 1934, Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS)- a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler got rid of the Sturmabteilung in which 400 of their murders were murdered including Rohm their leader. [30] The SS was now the new elite force which aligned itself with the Hitlers Nazi Party. Following the death of Von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler merged the positions of president and chancellor and became known as the Führer- leader. Within this new leadership structure, total loyalty was demanded from all Germans. This also led to Germany becoming police state- a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens' activities. The SS were led by Heinrich Himmler who was a ruthless and brutal leader who ran the labour and concentration camps, including the Gestapo- secrete state police. [31] Most Germans understood that to resist the rule of the Nazis would be futile.

The creation of a racial state in Germany: defining the German nation in relation to the ‘other’:

In Germany, the ‘perfect German race’ came to be known as the Aryan race which was perceived as the master race by the Nazi Party. [32] The ‘other’ was other races which were perceived to be unproductive, asocial and undesirables such as the gypsies and the Jews which were viewed as coming from impure blood. These groups of people were thought to be inferior and therefore marginalised, treated as sub-human by segregating them and thus dehumanising them. [33] The Aryan race were considered superior because of their ancestry, survival instinct, ‘pure blood’, intellect and perception that they had the capacity to work hard. In Hitlers Nazi state, antisemitism was blamed on race. Hitler hated Jewish people and thus, this hatred shaped his political philosophy. As a result, Jews became a scapegoat for Germanies problems and were thus hunted down in order to eradicate them. To identify ‘others’, stereotyping was used to judge and isolate them. [34] This led to prejudice and gross discrimination which sometimes even meant death. The Nazi Parties promotion of the idea to cleanse Germany of all its ‘enemies’ and because Hitler hated Jews, this led to the mass killing of Millions of Jews.

great depression essay grade 11

Applying racial and eugenic laws and policies- Purifying the nation:

Positive eugenics- Refers to efforts which are directed and expanding desirable traits. Positive eugenic Nazi programmes thus encouraged the breeding of pure Aryans since they were viewed as the master race. [35] In these programmes, women were central in creating this perceived pure nation. What this meant practically was that breeding between ‘Aryan’ women and genetically suitable ‘Aryan’ men such as those who were part of the SS were heavily encouraged. In 1936, the Lebensborn programme was established in which SS couples who were deemed to be biologically, racially and hereditarily valuable families were selected to adopt suitable Aryan children. [36]

Negative eugenics- refers to effort which are directed to eliminate through sterilisation, segregation or other means those who are perceived or deemed to be physically, mentally or morally ‘undesirable’.  Negative eugenics programmes and laws were passed to eliminate ‘contaminating’ elements of German society. These took many different forms such as sterilisation programmes. [37] In July 1933, the Sterilisation law was passed which gave Nazis the power to sterilise any person who suffered from diseases or hereditary conditions such as schizophrenia or feeblemindedness. Approximately 350 000 people were sterilised as a result of this programme including teenagers of mixed race. In 1933, the Department of Gene and Race Care was establish and Genetic health courts helped enforce these laws. Concentration camps were established and by 1936, these camps were filled with prostitutes, alcoholics, beggars, homosexuals and juvenile delinquents. [38] By 1938, around 11 000 were sent to these camps. Euthanasia (intentionally ending life to relieve pain and suffering) programmes were established. At the beginning of WWII, Hitler signed a decree which allowed for the systematic killing (euthanasia) in institutions of handicapped patients who were considered incurable. [39] The name of the programme was called Operation T4. These killings were secretly carried out in order to prevent a negative reaction from the Catholic Church. These killings were ordered by doctors in special committees who decided who was going to be killed. Initially, these killings were done by lethal injection, however, carbon monoxide was later used. [40] Nazi records show that 70 273 deaths were carried out by gassing at six different euthanasia centres. These euthanasia programmes were just the testing for Jewish extermination later on.

Groups targeted by the Nazis:

Under Hitler, policies in Germany were based on anti-Semitism as he regarded Jews as a separate race who were un-Godly and evil. At first, discrimination made life very uncomfortable for Jews in Germany. However, as the Nazi Party grew in power by having less and less opposition in Germany, Hitlers Party introduced stricter laws against Jews. [41] Most German people chose to be bystanders when these atrocities were being committed. As a result of these laws, Jewish people were Segregated from political, economic, social and educational life in Germany.     Between the years 1933 to 1934, Jewish professions and buisinesses were being targeted which resulted in them being excluded from civil services. In 1935, the Nuremburg Laws (antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Germany by the Nazi Party) were passed. [42] The Nuremburg Laws meant that Jewish people were not considered German citizens and they forbade marriages between German citizens and Jewish Germans. However, these anti-Semitic laws were relaxed in 1936 because Germany hosted the Olympic games, and thus had many visitors. [43] The following year in 1937 ‘Aryanisation’ began again. When the Nazi Party annexed (The concept in international law in which one state forcibly acquires another states territory) Austria in 1938, anti-Semitism spread there as well. On November 1938, a German diplomat was murdered in Paris, and as retaliation, Jewish shops, buisineses, homes and places of worship were targeted throughout Germany. 20 000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, majority of whom were killed. [44] This event came to be known as Kristallnacht (Violent, state-mandated actions against Jews). This led to Jewish pupils being expelled from schools, Jewish businessmen forced to close their shops, Jewish valuables to be confiscated and in 1939 a curfew was introduced for Jews.

Sinti and Roma:

Gypsies in Germany, like the Jews were targeted for extermination. At first, many were deported as the ‘undesirables.’ However, later there were sterilisation laws against the gypsies.  A new law termed “Fight against the Gypsy Menace” required that all gypsies register with the police. [45] They were then forced into concentration camps and ghettos. In Europe, thousands of gypsy women and children were killed in various campaigns. A separate ‘Gypsy family camp’ was set up at Auschwitz-Birkenau which saw many inmates die of exhaustion from hard labour, disease, malnutrition and gassing of children which were done by a Dr called Mengele. [46] Alex Bandy, a Hungarian journalist termed this campaign the ‘forgotten holocaust’.

Other groups targeted by the Nazis:

Political opponents such as Social Democrats, Communists and Trade union leaders were targeted by the Nazis. [47] In addition, Religious opponents such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Dissident priests (Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany) were also targeted by the Nazis. Those accused of ‘asocial’ crimes such as criminals or homosexuals were also targeted by the Nazi Party. [48]

Choices that people made:

Perpetrators:

Some of the perpetrators of the Nazi regime were secretaries, train drivers, bureaucrats while others actively took part in the killings. [49] Others perpetrators were in the Einsatzgruppen (Extermination squads) while others ran the concentration camps. However, many Nazi Party official denied complicity and said that they were merely following orders. Some perpetrators even claimed that they were negatively affected by their violent actions. [50]

 Bystanders:

The vast majority of people not just in Germany but were the world were bystanders. By choosing this stance of being a bystander and be different and passive witnesses, bystanders affirmed the perpetrators. Within the group of bystanders, others chose to become the perpetrators, while others chose to be resisters or rescuers. [51]

Rescuers under the Nazi regime chose to courageously speak out against the regime or actively rescue victims. Many of these rescuers attributed their actions to their convictions and morality to resist evil. Many of them acted courageously based on their faith. Many hid Jews or smuggled them out of occupied areas. [52]

Responses of the persecuted: exile, accommodation, defiance:

Responses from being persecuted by the Nazi Party took many forms such as partisan activities such as smuggling of secret messages, exchanging of food and weapons which sabotaged the Nazis attempt to persecute those they deemed undesirable. In addition, those persecuted responded by military engagement with the Nazi Party despite being heavily suppressed by Nazi troops. Victims continued with their way of life such as cultural traditions, religious practices, creating music and art such as poetry inside the concentration camps and ghettos. In addition, some of the victims managed to escape or go into exile. This caused underground resistance movements aimed at countering Nazi propaganda with anti-Nazi propaganda. The determination for survival was also a form of resistance by victims.

From persecution to mass murder: The Final solution:

The Holocaust (Was the genocide of European Jews during WWII) was carried out as the ‘Final Solution’ under the guise of war. The Einsatzgruppen followed German soldiers into invading other territories. They arrested everyone who resisted and killed those they thought could resist. The Nazis carried out forced removals of those they deemed sub-human or undesirables and carried out mass murders. [53] In Poland, thousand of Polish citizens were sent to labour and concentration camps. Jews were forcibly put in overcrowded ghettos were many would die of inhumane conditions and starvation.

Labour and extermination camps:

In 1941, the Einsatzgruppen followed invading troops into Russia where thousands of Jews were rounded up in preparation to send them to concentration camps. 700 Jews were gassed in vans in Chelmo. This reinforced Hitler’s desire for a ‘Final Solution’ to the Jewish question. The death camps under the SS were established for this reason. [54] In addition, extermination centre sites were purposely located near railway lines so that there was efficient transportation. In 1942, there were mass deportations of Jews from the ghettos. A lot of them died along the way due to the unhygienic conditions, lack of food and heat in transportation. Gas chambers were created for the purposes of mass gassing of Jews using Zyklon-B pellets. Jewish bodies were cremated, and their ashes and bones were intended for fertilisers. Approximately 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. [55]

Forms of justice: The Nuremburg Trials:

Allied forces decided that the main perpetrators of the Holocaust should be put on trial. [56] An international military tribunal was set up at Nuremburg where 22 Nazi leaders were put on trial for crimes against humanity in addition to their other war crimes. [57] Nazi records provided a much of the evidence and details of the crimes the leaders and committed. The accused did not deny having committed these crimes but were claiming that these crimes were not against humanity. Others argued that they were simply following orders. 13 different trials were set up in Nuremburg between the years 1945 and 1950 and 12 defendants were sentenced to dead. In total 199 Nazis were put on trial. This type of justice is called punitive justice where the perpetrators get punished for their crimes. [58]

Shortcomings of the process:

These trials did not come without their shortcomings, some of which included small perpertrators not being called and held accountable for their actions as they could deny their complicity for what had happened. In addition, victorious allies carried out the trials and as a result, Germany and German people never faced what they had done. For many years there was a culture of silence and this could be regarded as a denial of responsibility. [59]

Positive outcomes of these trials:

These trials did come with some positives such as giving people new ways of thinking about how to tackle gross human rights violations. Restorative justice and mechanism such as truth and reconciliation commissions could be formed in the future. Examples of such truth and reconciliation commissions around the world are the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. [60]

This content was originally produced for the SAHO classroom by Ayabulela Ntwakumba and Thandile Xesi

[1] National Senior Certificate. “Grade 11 November History Paper 1 Exam,” National Senior Certificate, November 2018.

[2] Cohen, William B. "Literature and Race: Nineteenth Century French Fiction, Blacks and Africa 1800-1880." Race 16, no. 2 (1974): 181-205.

[3] Macdonald, Ian. "The Capitalist Way to Curb Discrimination." Race Today (1973): 241.

[4] http://www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/History_3_Colo…

[7] https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/indigenous culture/kinship.

[8] Moses, A. Dirk. "An antipodean genocide? The origins of the genocidal moment in the colonization of Australia." Journal of Genocide Research 2, no. 1 (2000): 89-106.

[9] Genger, Peter. "The British Colonization of Australia: An Exposé of the Models, Impacts and Pertinent Questions." Peace and Conflict Studies 25, no. 1 (2018): 4.

[10] Barta, Tony. "Relations of genocide: land and lives in the colonization of Australia." Genocide and the modern age: etiology and case studies of mass death 2 (1987): 237-253.

[11] Foley, Gary. "Eugenics, Melbourne University and me." Tracker: be informed, be involved, be inspired (2012).

[12] Ibid.,

[13] Banner, Stuart. "Why Terra Nullius-Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia." Law & Hist. Rev. 23 (2005): 95.

[14] Ibid.,

[15] Lester, Alan, and Nikita Vanderbyl. "The Restructuring of the British Empire and the Colonization of Australia, 1832–8." In History Workshop Journal, vol. 90, pp. 165-188. Oxford Academic, 2021.

[16] Hunter, Ernest, and Desley Harvey. "Indigenous suicide in australia, new zealand, canada and the united states." Emergency Medicine 14, no. 1 (2002): 14-23.

[17] Wakefield, Edward Gibbon. A view of the art of colonization, with present reference to the British Empire. JW Parker, 1849.

[18] Hollinsworth, David. Race and racism in Australia. Thomson Learning Australia, 2006.

[19] Ibid.,

[20] Hume, Lynne. "The dreaming in contemporary aboriginal Australia." Indigenous religions: a companion. London: Cassell (2000): 125-138.

[21] Read, Peter. Belonging: Australians, place and Aboriginal ownership. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

[22] Ibid.,

[23] King, Gary, Ori Rosen, Martin Tanner, and Alexander F. Wagner. "Ordinary economic voting behavior in the extraordinary election of Adolf Hitler." The Journal of Economic History 68, no. 4 (2008): 951-996.

[24] Caldwell, Peter. "National Socialism and Constitutional Law: Carl Schmitt, Otto Koellreutter, and the Debate over the Nature of the Nazi State, 1993-1937." Cardozo L. Rev. 16 (1994): 399

[25] Bessel, Richard. "The Nazi capture of power." journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 169-188.

[26] Evans, Richard. "Hitler's Dictatorship." History Review 51 (2005): 20.

[27] Ibid.,

[28] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "SA." Encyclopedia Britannica, November 11, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/SA-Nazi-organization .

[29] Ibid.,

[30] Ibid.,

[31] Power, Jonathan. "Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s Deputy–From Boyhood to Chief Murderer of the Jews." In Ending War Crimes, Chasing the War Criminals, pp. 13-18. Brill Nijhoff, 2017.

[32] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/aryan-1

[33] Ibid.,

[34] Ibid.,

[35] Grodin, Michael A., Erin L. Miller, and Johnathan I. Kelly. "The Nazi physicians as leaders in eugenics and “euthanasia”: Lessons for today." American journal of public health 108, no. 1 (2018): 53-57.

[36] Ibid.,

[37] Kevles, Daniel J. "Eugenics and human rights." Bmj 319, no. 7207 (1999): 435-438.

[38] Ibid.,

[39] Benedict, Susan, and Jochen Kuhla. "Nurses’ participation in the euthanasia programs of Nazi Germany." Western Journal of Nursing Research 21, no. 2 (1999): 246-263.

[40] ibid.,

[41] Johnson, Mary, and Carol Rittner. "Circles of Hell: Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Nazis." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 548, no. 1 (1996): 123-137.

[42] Kroslak, Daniel. "Nuremberg Laws." The Lawyer Quarterly.-ISSN 8396 (1805): 184-194.

[43] Rippon, Anton. Hitler's Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games. Pen and Sword, 2006.

[44] Fitzgerald, Stephanie. Kristallnacht. Capstone, 2017.

[45] Lutz, Brenda Davis. "Gypsies as Victims of the Holocaust." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 9, no. 3 (1995): 346-359.

[46] Ibid.,

[47] Evans, Richard. "Hitler's Dictatorship." History Review 51 (2005): 20.

[48] Ibid.,

[49] O’Byrne, Darren. "Perpetrators? Political civil servants in the Third Reich." In Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence, pp. 83-98. Routledge, 2018.

[50] Ibid.,

[51] Monroe, Kristen Renwick. "Cracking the code of genocide: The moral psychology of rescuers, bystanders, and Nazis during the Holocaust." Political Psychology 29, no. 5 (2008): 699-736.

[52] Ibid.,

[53] Breitman, Richard. "Plans for the final solution in early 1941." German Studies Review 17, no. 3 (1994): 483-493.

[54] Pohl, Dieter. "The Holocaust and the concentration camps." In Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, pp. 161-178. Routledge, 2009.

[55] Ibid.,

[56] Steinacher, Gerald J. "The Betrayal: The Nuremberg Trials and German Divergence Kim Christian Priemel." (2018): 123-124.

[57] https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nuremberg-trials

[58] Ibid.,

[59] Ibid.,

[60] Adam, Heribert, and Kanya Adam. "Merits and shortcomings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission." In Remembrance and Forgiveness, pp. 34-46. Routledge, 2020.

  • Adam, Heribert, and Kanya Adam. "Merits and shortcomings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission." In Remembrance and Forgiveness, pp. 34-46. Routledge, 2020.
  • Bessel, Richard. "The Nazi capture of power." journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 169-188.
  • Benedict, Susan, and Jochen Kuhla. "Nurses’ participation in the euthanasia programs of Nazi Germany." Western Journal of Nursing Research 21, no. 2 (1999): 246-263.
  • Breitman, Richard. "Plans for the final solution in early 1941." German Studies Review 17, no. 3 (1994): 483-493.
  • Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "SA." Encyclopedia Britannica, November 11, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/SA-Nazi-organization.
  • Bunker, Raymond. "Systematic colonization and town planning in Australia and New Zealand." Planning Perspectives 3, no. 1 (1988): 59-80.
  • Caldwell, Peter. "National Socialism and Constitutional Law: Carl Schmitt, Otto Koellreutter, and the Debate over the Nature of the Nazi State, 1993-1937." Cardozo L. Rev. 16 (1994): 399
  • Dunn, Kevin M., James Forrest, Ian Burnley, and Amy McDonald. "Constructing racism in Australia." Australian journal of social issues 39, no. 4 (2004): 409-430.
  • Docker, John. "A plethora of intentions: genocide, settler colonialism and historical consciousness in Australia and Britain." The International Journal of Human Rights 19, no. 1 (2015): 74-89.
  • Fitzgerald, Stephanie. Kristallnacht. Capstone, 2017.
  • Grodin, Michael A., Erin L. Miller, and Johnathan I. Kelly. "The Nazi physicians as leaders in eugenics and “euthanasia”: Lessons for today." American journal of public health 108, no. 1 (2018): 53-57.
  • Hollinsworth, David. Race and racism in Australia. Thomson Learning Australia, 2006.
  • Howard-Wagner, Deirdre. "Colonialism and the science of race difference." In TASA and SAANZ 2007 Joint Conference Refereed Conference Proceedings–Public Sociologies: Lessons and Trans-Tasman Comparisons, The Australian Sociological Association. 2007.
  • Jalata, Asafa. "The impacts of English colonial terrorism and genocide on Indigenous/Black Australians." Sage Open 3, no. 3 (2013): 2158244013499143.
  • Johnson, Mary, and Carol Rittner. "Circles of Hell: Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Nazis." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 548, no. 1 (1996): 123-137.
  • Kevles, Daniel J. "Eugenics and human rights." Bmj 319, no. 7207 (1999): 435-438.
  • King, Gary, Ori Rosen, Martin Tanner, and Alexander F. Wagner. "Ordinary economic voting behavior in the extraordinary election of Adolf Hitler." The Journal of Economic History 68, no. 4 (2008): 951-996.
  • Kroslak, Daniel. "Nuremberg Laws." The Lawyer Quarterly.-ISSN 8396 (1805): 184-194.
  • Lutz, Brenda Davis. "Gypsies as Victims of the Holocaust." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 9, no. 3 (1995): 346-359.
  • Monroe, Kristen Renwick. "Cracking the code of genocide: The moral psychology of rescuers, bystanders, and Nazis during the Holocaust." Political Psychology 29, no. 5 (2008): 699-736.
  • Moses, A. Dirk. "An antipodean genocide? The origins of the genocidal moment in the colonization of Australia." Journal of Genocide Research 2, no. 1 (2000): 89-106.
  • Moses, D., & Stone, D. (Eds.). (2013). Colonialism and genocide. Routledge.
  • O’Byrne, Darren. "Perpetrators? Political civil servants in the Third Reich." In Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence, pp. 83-98. Routledge, 2018.
  • Pohl, Dieter. "The Holocaust and the concentration camps." In Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, pp. 161-178. Routledge, 2009.
  • Power, Jonathan. "Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s Deputy–From Boyhood to Chief Murderer of the Jews." In Ending War Crimes, Chasing the War Criminals, pp. 13-18. Brill Nijhoff, 2017.
  • Rippon, Anton. Hitler's Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games. Pen and Sword, 2006.
  • Robinson, Shirleene, and Jessica Paten. "The question of genocide and Indigenous child removal: the colonial Australian context." Journal of Genocide Research 10, no. 4 (2008): 501-518.
  • Rogers, Thomas James, and Stephen Bain. "Genocide and frontier violence in Australia." Journal of Genocide Research 18, no. 1 (2016): 83-100.
  • Short, Doctor Damien. Redefining genocide: Settler colonialism, social death and ecocide. Zed Books Ltd., 2016.
  • Steinacher, Gerald J. "The Betrayal: The Nuremberg Trials and German Divergence Kim Christian Priemel." (2018): 123-124.
  • Torrens, Robert. Colonization of south Australia. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836.
  • Wakefield, Edward Gibbon. A view of the art of colonization, with present reference to the British Empire. JW Parker, 1849.

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Eleventh Grade (Grade 11) Great Depression Questions

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Home — Essay Samples — History — The New Deal — The Great Depression And The New Deal

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The Great Depression and The New Deal

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Published: Feb 8, 2022

Words: 1240 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Works Cited

  • The American Yawp: A Free and Online, Collaboratively Built American History Textbook. Edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019). [License: CC BY-SA 4.0]. (accessed 10 November 2019).
  • Herbert Hoover. “On the New Deal and Liberty”, Official Report of the Proceedings of the 21st Republican National Convention, 1936, pp. 115-19, 122-24. (accessed 10 November 2019).
  • Fireside Chat 6: On Government and Capitalism (September 30, 1934) . Authored by: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Provided by: The American Presidency Project. Located at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14759. License: Public Domain: No Known Copyright. (accessed 10 November 2019).

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    Published: Feb 9, 2022. The Great Depression started from 1929 till 1941 where many of the US economy crash and many of the top wealthy people lose their money as 1/3 of the US economy is based on the richest 5 percent of Americans. Millions of the usual employed got unemployed as thousands of the business went bankrupt, as more and more people ...

  22. Eleventh Grade (Grade 11) Great Depression Questions

    Eleventh Grade (Grade 11) Great Depression Questions. You can create printable tests and worksheets from these Grade 11 Great Depression questions! Select one or more questions using the checkboxes above each question. Then click the add selected questions to a test button before moving to another page. Previous Page 1 of 4 Next.

  23. The Great Depression and The New Deal

    The Great Depression and The New Deal. After four years of conflict, the first World War was finally over. Americans emerged with economic prosperity and cultural change known as the "Roaring 20s". America's economy boosted drastically. US troops were back from World War I and with women entering the work force meant more people had more ...