"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime"
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This study challenges you to examine the lives of people living during the Great Depression and to evaluate New Deal programs designed to help them. What problems and misfortunes occurred in people’s lives? What help did they need socially, economically or politically to help them solve their problems? What help did New Deal programs afford? Did the programs work? Were people able to improve their lives with the support of these programs?

The Task

You will gain insight into the lives of people who lived during the Great Depression by studying photographs and life histories.  You will learn about the New Deal plan for alleviating some of the conditions occurring during the Great Depression and apply your knowledge to the life of someone who actually lived through the Great Depression.

The Process

1. Pick a partner.

2. Examine several photos on Photographs from the Great Depression, a group of photographs selected from America from the Great Depression to WW II, 1935-1945 in American Memory at the Library of Congress.

3. Select two photographs and answer the questions on the Photo Study Guide to help develop your understanding of the personal circumstances of people living during the Great Depression.

4. With your partner, skim through several of the Life Histories from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1940. Select one life history to study further.

5. Answer the questions on Reading Life Histories, as a way of thinking through the conditions and needs of people who lived through the Great Depression.

6. Research New Deal programs using a wide variety of Resources to understand what social, economic and political assistance the programs offered.

7. Write an essay that is both informed and creative. In your essay tell how the New Deal programs affected the circumstances of the person or family you examined in your selected American Life History. Use the New Deal Essay Guide to help you construct the essay.

Going Further...

You have considered some of the circumstances of people who lived during the Great Depression. You have learned about New Deal programs that were put in place during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency to ease difficult circumstances of the Great Depression. Evaluate whether or not the programs were effective. Did they change the relationship of the American government to American citizens? Are there any remnants of those New Deal programs in existence today? Write an essay or make a presentation to discuss your evaluation.

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