the fourth decade (the 1930’s) : Solution Essays

Based on the podcasts or the materials in week 4 module, choose one event of the period of 1930-1939  in one specific place. Your focus should not be on the far ranging consequences of that event in the 30’s, but the immediate effect on society, every day life, culture, environment, scientific knowledge, or other concerns to people experiencing/living in that moment and that place.

You can choose any topic you are interested in, but here are a few options :

• Latin America: export booms and industrialization: how did that look in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires or Mexico City
• Asia: China in the 30’s – what was the “long march” and how did it impact China’s history?
• The rise of fascism outside of Germany: for ex: Spain, India
• Food: War causes trade disruptions cause shortages in coffee, sugar, oil – how do coffee drinkers deal with the shortage? (think about it – what would you do without your morning latte?)
• Fashion: War also prioritizes the use of silk  to make parachutes – which caused a shortage in women’s stockings. How did resourceful fashionistas of the day address this shortage?
• Technology: Auguste Piccard’s flight in a balloon to reach the stratosphere – how would you have found out about this if you had been a space travel fan in the 1930’s?

Think about one circumstance in the 1930’s and think about how it affected individuals, and how we, today, know about this. In 200 or more words, explain the event and its consequences, and make sure you include your primary and/or secondary sources and that they are reliable.  History is as much about what happened, as it is about what was recorded about it, and that is why historians really like citations. Make sure you include a final word count at the end of the paper. 

Remember to CITE YOUR SOURCES in-text – we need to know how you know what you know.

PS: don’t use tertiary sources for this assignment, and also  DO NOT USE websites like history.com or infoplease.com that are neither scholarly nor reliable. You want to use sources that have an identifiable author and that make explicit reference to the sources they used (ie the sources have to have footnotes/citations). Make sure your source specialize in history – you can find a reference to a historical event in People magazine, but is that the right place to go to for the information? Would you ask your car mechanic to take the braces off your teeth? They could do it – but it won’t be comfortable, and you may end without braces or teeth…