Virginia Schools in the Great Depression

Virginia Schools in the Great Depression

This project provides teachers and students with free, online historical sources and instructional materials for teaching the history of the Great Depression in Virginia, using public schools as a case-study of how decision makers, the public, and educators responded to the crisis of the Depression.

The five educational modules available on this website address the following themes:

1. The Impact of the Depression on Virginia Public Schools
2. Who Should Bear the Burden? Public Opinion and School Policy in the Depression
3. Virginia Schools in Black and White: Enforcing Racial Lines in 1930s
4. Who Should Teach? Prohibitions on Married Women Teachers during the Depression
5. Teaching Civics in an Era of Crisis: Virginia's Curriculum during the Great Depression

Each module includes an introductory section, a set of primary source documents, and a conclusion with suggested assignments and list of additional resources. These sections are designed for use by students at a variety of reading levels. Each module includes a teachers' guide and model lesson plans for immediate classroom applications in both a traditional and computer-based classroom and a table of SOL correlations by subject and grade.