Talk with your students about individuals in their families or neighborhoods who might have lived through the Depression years in Connecticut, 1930-1939. To have the first-hand experiences in the Depression, these individuals will probably be past fifty years of age—-perhaps parents, but more likely grandparents. There was no single kind of experience among Connecticut people for those years, although all were caught in the flow of events. Some individuals were devastated by economic bad times—others were little affected. From statistics, about one-third of Connecticut’s people were out of work or on a part time status.
Listed below are some questions to talk about with your students. They may be used in total as a way to conduct an interview with persons about Depression days. One question may be enough to get the interviewee wound up. Then stopping them will be a problem. If these do not seem to suit your purposes, include some of your own questions, or have students make them.
-
1. Where was your family (or you) living during the Depression? Did you have to move? Why?
-
2. Did any relatives have to move in with you or your family?
-
3. Did any members of your family lose their jobs during the Depression? What was it like to try and find another job? Did anyone in your family have to share a full time job with another person?
-
4. Was there a poor house near where you lived? Why did people go there? Did your town have soup kitchens? Was there a city farm?
-
5. What did you or your family do for recreation during the Depression?
-
6. If some of your family were recent immigrants to the United States in 1930, what kind of problems did they meet in looking for jobs? Did their problems get better during the Depression? Was there outright job discrimination?
-
7. How many women members of your family had jobs? What roles did women play in your family during the Depression?
Answers that students discover may be shared in class, made into family journals, or form the basis for individual research projects.