The economic collapse and devastation of the 1930s known as the "Great Depression" set social, cultural, and political changes in motion that transformed the character of American life, with consequences that reverberate in our own time. This course focuses on the ways contemporaries encountered and participated in those changes, as well as on the ways that historians interpret the Great Depression. Through the use of a variety of sources-memoirs, government documents, films, music, oral histories, letters, fiction, photography-we will explore the breadth of responses to the Depression, shaped as they were by region, class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Format: discussion. Evaluation will be based on class participation, three short essays, and a final paper based on primary research. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference to first-year students. Group A