Teaching the Great Depression during the Great Recession

The timing could not have been better--or harder--to teach the Great Depression than this week. Better, because it was easy for my students to engage with the material and relate to the fear of economic downturn and the confusion of the how to fix it. Harder, because it's hard to talk about that crisis without talking about this one, and I am no expert on the economy. Better and harder still given that the stock market reached a 12 year low and unemployment numbers a 26-year high this week, and Obama delivered an address to Congress explaining how he planned to fix things. I spent a lot of time reading historians' perspectives and learning about the present problems to feel ready to take on this teaching challenge.

There's always disparaging talk among historians about presentism--looking at the past through the lens of today. To a certain extent, it's impossible to avoid: people are most interested in historical topics that strike a chord with events in their own lives. I've always thought historians were too quick to condemn comparisons between past and present; if we don't study history to better understand ourselves and our world, what are we doing?

I approached comparisons between the Great Depression and today's crisis delicately in my teaching. I created a table with stats and other economic factors comparing and contrasting the two crises, which I only shared after asking the students to first explain what caused the Great Depression and then what they understand about today's crisis. Finally we discussed whether it's a fair comparison to make and what's at stake.

The nuance of their answers really impressed me. As several pointed out, today's employment numbers are counted differently from the numbers in the 30s, so it's hard to know just how they compare. Another student asked how you can compare or quantify human suffering. Several worried that if we compared today's crisis with the Depression, people would be so afraid they'd stop spending and worsen things. Others wondered whether looking to the New Deal for solutions was a good idea or a bad one.

I think--or hope--that I got the point across that we can't make historical comparisons blithely and without consequences. I closed the class by reminding them of what they learned about people who were left out of the New Deal. Who might be left out in relief efforts today? They looked stunned when I told them feminists were worried that Obama's stimulus plans didn't help women. If learning history is opening their eyes about the present, I consider mine a job well done.