The Grandparent/Elder Project

Unit II: Lesson One

Analyzing an Interview from the American Memory collections

One of the ways to learn about history is to conduct an interview with a grandparent or elder. In preparation for interviewing a grandparent/elder, you will study one of the interviews gathered by the Federal Writers' Project during the Depression years of 1936-1940. The interview, Women and the Changing Times, is now part of American Life Histories, 1936-1940 in the American Memory collections.

Read the transcript of this interview with Mrs. Blount. As you read this primary source document make some notes.

Here are some of the questions you might ask about this interview:

1. Where and when did this interview take place?
2. Who was the interviewer?
3. What questions do you think the interviewer asked Mrs. Blount in order to elicit the information in this document? Make a list of these questions.
4. What facts do you learn about Mrs. Blount?
5. What additional questions would you like to ask Mrs. Blount if you were conducting the interview?
6. What aspect or topic of this interview appeals to you most?
7. If you were to summarize what you learned from this interview, what would you say?

Be sure to save your notes from this assignment for use during Unit III, when we use primary and secondary sources to learn about family life during the Great Depression.