The 1920s and the Great Depression

In 1931,State Fair admission could be paid in wheat

Everything seemed new and exciting in the 1920s. Change often meant progress, including improvements in daily life. Many Hoosiers now had radios, flush toilets, cars, telephones, sewing machines and fancy stores jammed with enticing goods. But the changes also threatened traditional ways.

The “Roaring 20s” followed a decade of contradictions, beginning with a golden age of the arts and closing with “a war to end all wars.” The second decade of the 20th century truly encompassed both the best of times and the worst of times.

Hoosiers of the generation that grew up during the 1930s never forgot the worst economic depression in American history. There had been hard times before, all the way back to pioneer days. But the Great Depression of the 1930s was something different – for Indiana and for the country.

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• James Whitcomb Riley
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Download related curriculum

Let’s Have Some Fun: Leisure Time in the 1920s
Modern Conveniences: Plumbing in the 1920s
The KKK in Indiana in the 1920s
What It Means to Go “Dry”
The 18th and 21st Amendments
Prohibition’s Undertones
The Road to Prohibition
Temperance and Prohibition Timeline

Read about this subject in Hoosiers and the American Story

Chapter 8: The Roaring Twenties
Chapter 9: The Great Depression and World War II

Additional Books

• Maria’s Journey (YA Historical Fiction)
• Hoosier Public Enemy: A Life of John Dillinger (Youth Biography)
• The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland 

Related Indiana Academic Standards for Social Studies (2014)

Grade 4: 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.17, 1.18, 2.7, 4.7
USH: 3.6, 3.9, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 5.7, 5.8

Additional Resources 

• The Bamboo Inn (IHS Blog Post)
• Not all Latinos are Mexican: The Story of a 1920’s Peruvian Steel Worker (IHS Blog)
• Destination Indiana- 1920: Busted! Prohibition Enforced
• Destination Indiana- Ku Klux Klan
• Bicentennial Minute- John Dillinger
• Bicentennial Indianapolis: Life in the Roaring ’20s (Indianapolis Star Images)