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To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

 Web Search 1: Navigating American Memory
 
 
-- Broad Search Activity

1. Go to the American Memory website: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html.
 

2. Use the keywords The Great Depression.

 

3. Read the List of photo collections contain.

 

4. Do the resources returned in the search cover the Great Depression of the 1930s?

 

5. How might you search differently in order to find information from the Great Depression Era (1929-1939)?

-- Narrow Search Activity


1. Search America from the Great Depression to World War Two: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945 at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html.

 

2. Identify photographs documenting the African-American experience of 1935-1940.
Note: The collection has two sections: color and black and white. Each section has its own search page, although the collections can be searched together. It is usually better to search each section separately since the subject terms for the two groups of photographs were assigned at different times and used different conventions.

The color section has a subject index that will list images under the subject heading, African Americans. The black and white section does not have this subject term. To find items, you must brainstorm other words for African-American and use the "Search by Keyword" function.
3. What is your reaction to the kind of life black Americans lived during this time?
 Web Search 2: Historical Setting
 

1. You will view photographs from America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945 in American Memory.
 
2. Select one photo for careful analysis.

3. Go  to the home page for the black and white photographs. 
 
4. Select the State and County Index.
 
5.From the State and County Index, browse through photographs from three locations:

Alabama--Dallas County—Selma
Alabama--Eutaw
Alabama—Greensboro

6. After browsing through these images, Select one photo for careful analysis. Use the Visual Literacy Guide. Answer the questions on the guide.


7. The Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress also has a collection of images entitled "Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial Discrimination: Documentation by Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information." (A link to this collection is in the descriptive text on the America from the Great Depression to World War II, 1935-1945 home page for the black and white photographs.)
 
8. Read the information explaining the nature of the photo collection then review the photographs. Select one and use the Visual Literacy Guide for your analysis.