IDEAS for Primary Source lessons based on the life of John Dillinger

Economics/Math Lesson creating a cost analysis and study of product prices from the 1930's to present day.

John Dillinger associated with gangs who secured more than $300,000 through theft. How does that compare with today's monetary value? What were the costs of a new car, an average house, a loaf of bread, in 1934?

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/30sfood.html 

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1930s.html

Social Studies Lesson on the Great Depression

When John Dillinger began his thirteen-month crime spree, catapulting him to the top of America’s “most wanted” list, the country was enduring the Great Depression. Failed banks had deprived people of their life’s savings, and the mood of Americans was decidedly against financial institutions.

Unemployment was so high that husbands, forced to leave their homes to search for work elsewhere, lived in shacks. Entire families lived in make-do shelters, cars, tents or whatever else they could pull together. Many people traveled west, on bad roads, seeking a new life.

Americans, who had helped to supply the world with food during World War One, were hungry. Their problem wasn’t just a lack of money.

Dust bowls, throughout the fertile Midwest, had decimated crops. Once-productive farmland was eroding, farm houses were in foreclosure and farm workers (migrant or domestic) joined the legions of city workers without jobs. Many Americans had little hope.

In 1933, when Dillinger was released from the Indiana State Penitentiary (in Michigan City) - after serving nine years (of a ten-to-twenty-year sentence) for the botched robbery of a grocer - the U.S. economy was at its Depression-Era low. Dillinger, embittered by his long sentence, had a plan. He wanted to free his friends - bank robbers, like Harry Pierpont - who were still behind bars.

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/tp/greatdepression.htm

http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/

Geography Lesson on Dillinger and the Dillinger gang's travels

Begin an internet scavenger hunt and list all the places John Dillinger traveled to, committed crimes in, or hid out at.  Create a timeline of all the recorded places and/or use a map of the United States to locate the various places. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dillinger/timeline/index.html

Social Studies Lesson on Prohibition, the 18th Amendment

The 18th amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcohol, have students look up the legal document that enforces this prohibition, it's enforcement and  eventual repeal in 1933.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/p/prohibition.htm

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/volstead-act/

Psychology/Criminology Lesson-Are Criminals Born or Made?

Students will research the physiology and psychology behind criminology. Are criminal traits inherited or a result of a person's environment? After students research a point of view, have them prepare and debate the facts they have discovered.

http://criminologyassignments.blogspot.com/2007/11/nature-vs-nurture.html

Science and History Lesson on inventions that aided criminals or their pursuers.

Students will research  inventions of the 1930's that made criminal activity easier to get away with. Ideas can range from road atlases and paved roadways to building security to weaponry.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/a-centennial-history/fbi_and_the_american_gangster_1924-1938

http://inventors.about.com/od/fstartinventions/a/forensic_4.htm