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This brief overview describes how the Social Security program originated during the Great Depression and how the program works.

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Item Type: Article/Essay
Date: 2013

President Roosevelt sent his Social Security bill, named the “Economic Security Act,” to Congress in January 1935. Congress held committee hearings on the bill. Here, a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a group dedicated to advancing the rights of African Americans, testifies before…

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Item Type: Government Document
Date: 1935

In this letter to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, an American protests the Social Security program, created two years earlier. For Social Security, the federal government took money out of working people’s paychecks in order to create a fund that gave payments to the elderly when they retired.

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Item Type: Diary/Letter
Date: 1937

This worksheet helps students undertake a close reading of the 1936 cartoon "A Mad Tea Party," about President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. It also asks them to write a paragraph explaining the cartoon's argument.

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Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2013

This worksheet helps students undertake a close reading of a timeline of New Deal programs and write a paragraph explaining one of them.

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Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2013

This worksheet helps students undertake a close reading of letters from President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin Roosevelt and summarize their different ideas about the role of government during an economic crisis.

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Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2013

This cartoon uses characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland story to criticize federal spending on New Deal programs. The cartoonist depicts President Franklin Roosevelt as the Mad Hatter; Postmaster General and Chairman of the Democratic Party James Farley as the March Hare; and Congress as the sleepy Dormouse.

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Item Type: Cartoon
Date: 1936

Henry Bibb was born in Kentucky to a slave mother and her owner, Kentucky state senator James Bibb. His brothers and sisters were sold away when he was a child, and Bibb was also sold frequently—he lived in at least seven southern states. Bibb tried to escape several times, including after the following incident, in which he faced a…

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Item Type: Biography/Autobiography
Date: 1849

Henry Bibb was born in Kentucky to a slave mother and her owner, Kentucky state senator James Bibb. His brothers and sisters were sold away when he was a child, and Bibb was also sold frequently—he lived in at least seven southern states. After trying to escape several times, he finally reached Canada in 1837. However, he returned to Kentucky a…

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Item Type: Biography/Autobiography
Date: 1849

In this book excerpt, historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger explain the difficulties faced by runaway slaves who attempted to escape to northern states or Canada. Franklin and Schweninger studied many primary source documents to reach their conclusions, including runaway slave advertisements, accounts written by former slaves, diaries…

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Item Type: Book (excerpt)
Date: 1999