For many of us (myself included), the unit on the Great Depression in our high s

For many of us (myself included), the unit on the Great Depression in our high school American history classes was all about Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt and how their presidencies tackled economic crisis. We memorized endless acronyms of New Deal programs and, even though none of them fixed the economic crisis, the most important thing seemed to be knowing the government’s response, an approach historians call “top down” history. This paper strives to turn this on its head and look for stories “at the bottom,” those of ordinary Americans who felt forgotten and left behind, feeling that the American dream had passed them by. By listening to their recorded voices and examining the photographs that captured everyday moments, we will get glimpses into the realities of this unprecedented and seminal era, one that shaped a generation. Using oral histories and images as our source base, we can construct a narrative of how seemingly unremarkable Americans did remarkable things while they suffered loss, experienced hardship, and—most of all—endured. First, we need some context, so begin by reading the textbook chapters on the Great Depression and New Deal (the end of Ch. 20 and all of Ch. 21). Once you finish, visit two internet resources on the Great Depression for the oral histories and photographs: For the oral histories: Go to the website for Studs Terkels’ Hard Times read the narrative that explains the oral history project. Scroll down and select FIVE of the seventy-two audio recordings available for your paper. You may choose any five that interest you (selecting five that have a common theme may help you organize your paper and develop an argument). Your paper must incorporate and use all five. You may need to listen to many more before you find the right ones for your particular argument. For the photographs: Go to Yale University’s website that pulls Depression-era photographs from the Library of Congress and organizes them by Look at black and white images from the Great Depression. The collection is fully searchable by Look first for your hometown. If it is not available, then choose a different city/town/county in your home state. If you are not from the United States, then search for Kansas City or another location you are familiar Next, choose another state that interests you and look at pictures from there as Look at ten pictures from your home state and ten pictures from the second state you (you should incorporate approximately 4-5 photographs into your actual analysis and argument). Assignment: Write a 750-1,000 word (roughly 3-4 double spaced pages) reflecting on the images you have seen and the voices you have heard. Answer the following questions: What was the Great Depression like for everyday people? Are their experiences revealed by oral histories and photographs unique or are there any underlying themes that tie them together? Finally, choose ONE picture from the Yale website that you find to be particularly compelling and download it to your computer. Embed the photo into your paper (at the end, after your works cited page. Please do not simply link to it, but rather include the actual image in your paper). Write a short paragraph explaining why you think this picture is important/why you picked it (this paragraph may be written informally, using first person). Include a citation for your photograph using the citation convention below. Failure to include a photograph and narrative paragraph (or your work does not follow the directions) can lower your paper grade up to 10 points. Sample Citations (Chicago Style): Oral Histories: “Interview with Jimmy Sheridan,” Studs Terkel: Recordings from Hard Times. http://studsterkel.matrix.msu.edu/htimes.php (accessed 15 September 2018)[1] Photographs: “Member of Hillview cooperative who formerly lived in submarginal farm area. Osage Farms, Missouri,” Photogrammar http://photogrammar.yale.edu/records/index.php?record=fsa2000010310/PP (accessed 15 September 2018) [1] The access date on this citation and the other one for photographs refers to when you accessed it. Do not just copy and paste this citation style without adjusting the date. Reminders: The textbook and websites offer some context written by scholars, which make them secondary sources. Remember that this is a primary source paper. You are allowed to use secondary sources in your paper if you absolutely must, but do so sparingly. The point of this paper is to use assigned primary sources to craft an argument and support it, so make sure they are the heart of your paper. Papers with an overreliance on the textbook, lectures, or outside sources (rather than the assigned primary sources) cannot earn a grade higher than a C. If you decide to do outside research (which is not required or recommended), make sure it supplements the assigned sources. Do not allow them to replace or overshadow what was assigned. All papers must be word-processed, double spaced, and use standard font (12 pt Times New Roman or Calibri). You do not need a title page. Papers must be at least 750 words (shorter will be penalized). Headers, footers, citations, or works cited do NOT go toward the word count. Aim to conclude by around 1,000 words, but longer is allowed as long as the paper remains on topic and actively uses the documents in a productive way to advance and prove the thesis. Papers that ramble on without purpose (especially if they exceed the 1,000-word benchmark) will lose points. Keep in mind that citations, a works cited/bibliography, title page, images, and headers/footers do not count toward your word count. You MUST cite your sources using a standard citation convention where you cite within your paper (preferably using Chicago style footnotes, but APA or MLA in-text citations are permissible if that is what you know and can use consistently) AND include a works cited page at the end. See sample citations above. If you find that you have written a page (or even half of a page) without a citation, you likely are missing something. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that every paragraph has at least one citation, with the possible exception of the introduction and conclusion. One of my standard comments on student writing is “how do you know this?,” meaning I do not see a source to support it. If you discuss a photograph or oral history, you MUST cite it using a standard citation convention and includes a works cited page. See sample citations above. Footnotes are preferred. See the HOW TO module on Canvas for resources on writing, citations, and the grading rubric. Make sure you have a clear thesis and consistently use documents to prove that thesis. A thesis should be clearly articulated in the introductory paragraph (generally the last sentence) and present an argument you will prove (not simply a statement of fact that cannot be debated). In order to earn a grade higher than a C, you must answer the entire question, have a clear thesis, explicitly use and cite documents, and write with relatively few spelling and grammatical errors. Be sure you are using and analyzing primary sources to prove your thesis, not just summarizing or talking about primary sources without tying to your larger argument. Make sure you clearly mark your intended thesis in your paper by putting it, perhaps, in bold, underlining or highlighting it, and so on. We are asking for your opinion on some of these, but that does not give you license to use first person (with the exception of the paragraph you write about the photograph you chose). Express your opinion without use first or second person (so do not try to discuss “the author” in order to get around first person). Quoting the documents is good, but do not allow the documents to speak for you and/or make your argument for you. We need to be able to hear your voice and your argument, with the sources as your support to prove it. There is a fine line between good quoting and over quoting. If it is something you can easily paraphrase, do so instead of quoting (but still cite it). If it is a really good, concise quote that perfectly supports your argument and you could not possibly say it better, then quote it (and—again—cite it).