Station 5 (Timeline of the Great Depression)

Teacher Preparation: You will need to copy the events below onto 3x5 index cards. On the back of the cards, write the dates. Make a time line (covering dates from 1925 to 1940) and lay it on the table for station 5. Scatter the index cards across the table and tell the students to not look at the dates until they have finished their initial time line.

Student Directions: You will be completing a time line for the Great Depression Era. As a group, take 5 minutes to read the different cards and place them on the time line when you think the events might have happened. Do not flip over the cards yet. Once you have finished the time line, check your work by turning over the cards. Put them in the proper order on the time line.

Talk about how these questions as a group:

• How do the events on the time line seem to connect?
• What event seemed to start the Great Depression?
• When do you think that the Great Depression ended?

Fill out your graphic organizers individually or as a group.

Time line dates and events:

• December 1927- Ford Motor Company introduces the Model A (a new type of car)
• November 1928-Herbert Hoover is elected as President
• October 29, 1929- the stock market crashes (basically, money became worthless)
• 1930- 1,350 banks have closed during this year
• January 7, 1931- A report is released that says that 4 to 5 million Americans are out of work.
• May 20, 1932- Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
• June 6, 1932- taxes reached a high of 63%
• November 8, 1932- Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover to become the president.
• 1933-1936- Roosevelt makes a plan for the recovery of the economy called the New Deal. This plan was started to help the poor and to prevent another depression.
  
• 1934- Roosevelt asks for $10,500,000,000 to advance his recovery program for the next 18 months
• 1937- Roosevelt is re-elected as President of the United States
• 1938-Snow White is released
• December 7, 1941- Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese, making America involved in World War II.

Learn more about the Great Depression at this site: http://www.besthistorysites.net/ushistory_greatdepression.shtml.