The Nation Writes to the Roosevelts: A Glimpse of Life in the Great Depression

Due: Wednesday, February 12, 9 a.m. Upload to D2L Assessments>Assignment Dropbox.

Citations: At the end of each paragraph, link to the letter you are summarizing.

Instructions: 
Worth 10 LA points.  Shorter assignment, so use your extra time to get started on Farewell to Manzanar! (entire book due next week)

Step One: Review what you learned about the Great Depression and the New Deal in These Truths, Chapter 17.

Step Two: See below for several links that take you to letters written to the Roosevelts or the Federal Government During the Great Depression.  Choose at least THREE letters, aiming to select a variety of letters in terms of age, geographic location etc.  Print or save the letters so you can refer to them during class discussion.

Step Three:  Write a summary and analysis of each letter.  You will write three paragraphs in total, aiming for approximately 1 page double spaced. Aim for 250 words total. If you choose letters that are very short, you may need to write about four letters to reach the word count.  You can answer some or all of these questions: Summarize what you know about the author's age, household situation, geographic situation, etc.  What prompted this person to write this letter?  Who is it addressed to?  What do you know about the author's economic situation?  What sort of response did they expect from the government? What does this letter tell you about life during the Great Depression? Do the authors mention any of the New Deal programs you learned about?

As you are writing your summaries, choose one letter that you will describe to the class during our discussion.

Links to Choose From:

1.  Letters from children.  There are several choices at this link: https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/children_depression/help_president.cfm

2.  Assorted letters to the Roosevelts/the government (some may duplicate #1) https://www.neshaminy.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=6379&dataid=70957&FileName=Station%20readings%20for%20each%20state.pdf

3.  Letters from African-Americans (choose at least one of these) https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/137/

4.  https://www.humanitiestexas.org/sites/default/files/FDRLtrstoFDR_0.pdf

5.  Handouts given in class.

Optional:  Delightful  story of a daughter who tracked down the letter her father sent as a boy to FDR:

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2013/02/20/i-am-a-little-country-boy-eight-years-old/