Immigration/Migration: Today and During the Great Depression Resources: Online | Print | Film

American Memory Collections

African American Odyssey.

Section VIII, The Depression, The New Deal, and World War II, contains textual information and visuals about the effect of the Depression and World War II on African Americans.

Photographs from the FSA/OWI, 1935-1945.

Famous documentary photographs showing the effects of the Great Depression.

American Life Histories, 1936-1940.

Links to oral history interviews. Information about the Federal Writers Project during the Depression and photographs of the era. The introduction to the collection includes an essay by Ann Banks, Voices from the Thirties: Life Histories from the Federal Writers' Project, answering the question "Who were the Federal Writers and what did they do?"

Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865.

Photographs taken by the Mathew Brady Studio. Includes an exercise in analyzing photographic evidence, Does The Camera Ever Lie?: The Case of the Moved Body.

Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present.

Pictures of U.S. Presidents and First Ladies. Use the Timeline to find the presidents of the thirties and Related Holdings to find information about them.

Words and Deeds in American History.

Selected documents from the Library of Congress' Manuscript Division. Use the Chronological List to find papers from the 1930's.

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Learning Page

Activities: Analyzing Visual Clues.

A useful, simple method for analyzing visual material.

Lesson Plans

A good starting place for background information and activities as well as lessons plans on a variety of topics. Particularly useful are:

Lesson Plans: Historian's Sources.

Lesson Plans: Using Primary Sources in the Classroom.

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Library of Congress

American Folklife Center.

Excellent information on conducting oral history. The Center provides an online manual by Peter Bartis, Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques.

THOMAS.

Use this search engine to find legislation on immigration.

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Other Sources

Internet Sources on the American 1930s.

A very rich source of links concerning the Great Depression, from Universiteit Utrecht.

History in the Raw: The National Archives.

Internet Movie Database.

Links to Oral History Organizations.

Excellent list of oral history resources.

New Deal Network.

Documents, photographs, and information about the United States during the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt.

The One-Minute Guide to Conducting an Oral History.

A good checklist for beginning oral historians.

Simon, Julian L. Immigration: The Demographic & Economic Facts. December, 11, 1995.

Tips for Interviewers.

Helpful pointers to keep in mind when working in the field.