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The Great Depression

Driving Question: How did an economic depression engulf the world in the interwar period?

The political and social fallout from the Great Depression shook societies across the globe. Learn how a stock-market crash in the United States spiraled into a worldwide economic disaster and set the stage for bigger conflicts ahead.

Learning Objectives

  1. Practice reading charts and interpreting historical data.
  2. Use close-reading and source-analysis skills to view the Great Depression from multiple angles to understand the depth of this international crisis.
  3. Use the historical thinking practice of contextualization to evaluate the circumstances that led to the global depression.

Vocab Terms:

  • authoritarian
  • collectivization
  • dictator
  • fascism
  • Great Depression
  • Nazi
  • sterilization
STEP 1

Opener: The Great Depression

In this activity, you’ll use data to track economic conditions after World War I. By analyzing trends across multiple countries, you’ll start to uncover what went wrong—and why.

STEP 2

Hard Times

Through firsthand accounts and images, you’ll see how the Great Depression impacted people around the world. Then, you’ll use contextualization skills to analyze the broader economic and political factors that led to this global crisis.

STEP 3

Closer: The Great Depression

Revisit your earlier observations about the global economy and apply what you’ve learned as you investigate real-world consequences of the Great Depression across different countries.

Extension Materials
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Take your learning further by examining how people around the world lived through the economic upheaval of the interwar years.