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Senior: 11 & 12: Unit 3: USA 1917-1945 (IA2)

The IA2 Requirements

ONESearch Database Explorer

The ENTIRE collection of resources provided by the BBC Birtles Library can be searched on ONE single, powerful search platform, which retrieves print books, eBooks, database articles and websites. Click HERE for assistance.

Useful Databases

MyBib Referencing Generator

Manage your bibliography using "MyBib" - Referencing - LibGuides at  Melbourne High School

MyBib is an online referencing generator to help you with in text references and your List of References.

NOTE: 

  • Sign up for an account so that it will store the references for your assignment. Add it to your bookmark bar to find it quickly.
  • Install the Chrome extension to make your referencing even faster.
  • Make sure everything in your Reference List has a corresponding In-Text citation in the body of your essay.

Zotero - Online Referencing Tool

Zotero can be set to the same Harvard AGPS (Australia) style that CiteAce uses, called 'Melbourne Polytechnic - Harvard'. Please read the instructions carefully.

Any issues - see your Library Staff

QCAA Sample IA2 Annotated Response on Mao Tse-Tung

Analysing Political Cartoons and Propaganda Posters

Useful Print Articles from Library Texts

Useful E-books

Source Analysis and Evaluation Skills

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Possible topics on the Great Depression

  • Causes of the Great Depression
  • Daily life during the Great Depression
  • The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression
  • Social groups (Women; Families; African Americans; the poor; the rich)
  • The New Deal
  • Impact of WWII on the New Deal
  • Impact of political and economic leaders
    • J. Edgar Hoover
    • F.D. Roosevelt
    • Eleanor Roosevelt
  • John Maynard Keynes
  • Radical responses to the Great Depression (Marxists/Communists vs Fascists)
  • Cultural and artistic developments

Significant Aspects of the Great Depression

Significant Leaders During the Great Depression

Hoover served as President from 1929 to 1933. He had the misfortune to witness the start of the Great Depression in the first year of his presidency. However, as output fell and unemployment rose, he appeared unsure of what, if anything he could do to rectify the situation. He raised taxes and reluctantly approved the Smoot-Hawley tariffs – both policies reduced spending and trade, exacerbating the initial downturn. Illustrating Hoover’s unpopularity and blame for the Great Depression the shanty towns of unemployed which sprang up during the Great Depression were termed ‘Hoovervilles.’

Roosevelt was elected the US President in 1932 with a promise to do something about the economic impact of the Great Depression. He expanded the role of the Federal Government and increased spending on public works to try and provide unemployment. His ‘fireside chats’ on the radio offered a glimmer of hope and stability to a nation shocked by the extent of the economic downturn.

Wife and political aide of American president F.D.Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an active First Lady, giving speeches, writing a column and meeting with the unemployed. She helped to reassure workers that the Roosevelt administration was committed to trying to solve their plight. In 1933, she defused a situation with the Bonus Army – a situation Hoover had responded to by sending in the army. Roosevelt was also sympathetic to civil rights for African-Americans and other minorities.

Keynes was one of the most influential economists of the Twentieth Century. The Great Depression left classical economists stumped as faith in free markets appeared to be misplaced. Keynes saw the Great Depression as a trigger to create a new way of economic thinking. Keynes advocated government intervention to kickstart economies in a slump. He was mostly ignored in the 1930s, but his General Theory (1936) laid the foundations of Keynesian economics and a new branch of macroeconomics.