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5th grade · Social Studies · Unit 4 of 9

Boom, Bust & the New Deal

The Twenties, the Depression and the TVA

What your child practices

Alabamians in the arts and sports of the 1920s, the boll weevil and low cotton prices, the 1929 crash and the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and New Deal programs and leaders, including the TVA and the CCC in Alabama.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 5.6; 5.7; 5.8 · the 1920s, the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, and New Deal programs and reformers in Alabama and the nation

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. In the Great Depression, about one in four workers had no job.
  2. The boll weevil destroyed cotton, so farmers grew peanuts and other crops. Low cotton prices left farmers in debt.
  3. The New Deal created programs like the TVA. Frances Perkins was the first woman in a President's cabinet.

Example: Why did the town of Enterprise build a monument to the boll weevil? The insect ruined the cotton crops. Farmers switched to peanuts and did better. Answer: It pushed farmers to grow peanuts and other crops.

Boom, Bust & the New Deal in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 4 of 9 in 5th grade Social Studies, after World War I and before World War II.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Shantytowns of homeless people during the Depression were called…

    • Hoovervilles
    • boomtowns
    • Magic Cities
    • Rosenwald towns

  2. Question 2

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt's programs to fight the Depression were called the…

    • Fair Trade
    • New Deal
    • Great Society
    • Square Deal

  3. Question 3

    The Dust Bowl struck the Great Plains in the 1930s because of…

    • too much rain
    • hurricanes
    • earthquakes
    • drought and plowing that loosened the soil

  4. Question 4

    The boll weevil is an insect that…

    • makes honey
    • spreads yellow fever
    • eats peanuts
    • destroys cotton plants

  5. Question 5

    Zora Neale Hurston, born in Notasulga, Alabama, was a writer of the…

    • American Revolution
    • Space Race
    • Harlem Renaissance
    • Gold Rush

  6. Question 6

    The Alabama Sharecroppers' Union, formed in 1931, worked for…

    • fairer treatment and pay for poor farmers
    • higher rents
    • more cotton exports
    • an end to farming

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