The Great Depression

by David M. Kennedy

Herbert Hoover got many things wrong about the great economic calamity that destroyed his presidency and his historical reputation, but he got one fundamental thing right. Much legend to the contrary, the Great Depression was not entirely, perhaps not even principally, made in America. “The primary cause of the Great Depression,” reads the first sentence of Hoover’s Memoirs, “was the war of 1914–1918.”More »

Essays

Boulder (later, Hoover) Dam on the Colorado River, 1941. (Library of Congress)

The Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II in the American West

Author: Elliott West Curriculum Subjects: Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grade Levels:
An Oklahoma migrant family in California, 1935, by Dorothea Lange. (LOC)

Women and the Great Depression

Author: Susan Ware Curriculum Subjects: Economics Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+
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Featured Primary Sources

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933. (GLC00675)

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inauguration, 1933

Creator: Franklin D. Roosevelt Curriculum Subjects: Economics, Government and Civics, Literature Grade Levels:
Inaugural Address of President Herbert Hoover, March 4, 1929 (Gilder Lehrman Col

Herbert Hoover’s Inaugural Address, 1929

Creator: Herbert Hoover Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:
Hooverville in Portland, Oregon, photograph by Arthur Rothstein, July 1936. (Lib

Photograph of a “Hooverville,” 1936

Creator: Curriculum Subjects: Economics Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+
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Teaching Resources

Banking Basics

Curriculum Subjects: Economics Grade Levels: 1, 2, 3, 4

Consequences of the Depression

Curriculum Subjects: Economics, Government and Civics Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

Dust Bowl Stories

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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Multimedia

Severity of Economic Hardship During the Depression

Speaker(s): David M. Kennedy Duration: 0 seconds

The American West and the Great Depression

Speaker(s): Richard White Duration: 0 seconds

The Causes of the Great Depression

Speaker(s): David M. Kennedy Duration: 0 seconds
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Interactive Features

Street scene, Lower East Side, c. 1935-37. (Photograph by Arnold Eagle, Collecti

Hard Times: The Great Depression in New York's Lower East Side

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Recommended Resources

Salerno, Roger A. Louis Wirth: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.

May, Lary. The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

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