The Migrant Experience During the Great Depression


The following resources will help you research the migrant experience during the Great Depression.

 Online Databases

EBSCO Host - History Reference Center Access newspaper and magazine articles from the past (Select Timeline U.S. History (1800 - 1860). Select Advanced Search to enter multiple keywords.
Student Resource Center Gold - Offers more than 1,100 full-text periodicals and newspapers, primary sources, creative works, and multimedia, including hours of video and audio clips and podcasts.  Hint: select Advanced Search to enter multiple keywords.

 Internet Sites

1930's Dustbowl: http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html

Dorothea Lange - Migrant Farm Families (photos): http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html

Boxcar Boys and Girls of the Great Depression: http://www.erroluys.com/RidingtheRails.htm

Hobo History: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/archive.asp?postID=221

Hoboying During the Great Depression - http://www.thedelawaresofidaho.org/wordpress/?page_id=89

Lending a Hand: A Woman Remembers Hoboes of the 1930s: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/30/

Picturing California's Migrant Children: http://www.csuchico.edu/lspr/migrant/splash.html

Riding the Rails: http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_07.html

Riding the Rails: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rails/

Surviving the Dustbowl: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/

Teenage Hoboes in the Great Depression: https://www.nationalheritagemuseum.org/Default.aspx?tabid=405
 

Personal Accounts on the Great Depression

CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) - Personal Accounts: http://www.sanjuan.k12.ut.us/sjsample/CCC/CCCHOME/Index2.htm

First Hand Accounts: "No Help Wanted", "The Dust Bowl", "If A White Woman Accused a Black Man", "What if Our Check Does Not Come", "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt": http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01794/first_hand_accounts.htm#woman

LOC - America From the Great Depression to WWII (photographs): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html

LOC - Federal Writers Project - Interview Excerpts (audio clips): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/exinterv.html

MHAL - "I Remember..." Reminiscences of the Great Depression: http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17451_18670_18793-53511--,00.html

PBS - Surviving the Dust Bowl - An Eyewitness Account: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/sfeature/eyewitness.html

Studs Terkel - Recordings from Hard Times (audio clips): http://www.studsterkel.org/htimes.php


If you don't find what you're looking for in any of the sites above, try your 
own keyword search using the following tips...

 Internet Search Tips

  1. Type the URL (web site address) of a search directory/engine in the address box: ex: www.yahoo.com, or www.google.com, etc.
     
  2. (Be sure to type the address exactly the way you see it, including any uppercase letters and punctuation).
     
  3. Type in keyword(s). (If your keyword has two parts such as: "great depression", be sure to put quotes around it so that the search engine only finds the Internet sites about the great depression as opposed to all of the sites containing the word great plus all of the sites containing the word depression.
     
  4. If you would like to search for something specific about a the great depression, try a combined keyword search by adding a comma, followed by a space and you other search term.  For instance; if I wanted to find personal accounts of the great depression, I would enter the following:
     

     "great depression", "personal accounts", diaries, letters
     

  5. Hit Enter on your keyboard, or click on Search, then scan the description of the "hits" (entries) and click on the links that sound best.
          Be sure to critically evaluate Internet sources.  UC Berkley Library's Evaluating Webpages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask is an excellent source to help you critique the quality of websites in the following areas:
  6. Remember: if you choose to use any information (text or graphics) found on the Internet, online databases, or print material, you must cite every resource you used.  Use the Works Cited Guide to access MLA format.
  7.  

Created by Liza Zandonella, Library Media Specialist.

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