Modern American Literature: American Literature and the Great Depression
Supplemental and Background Materials

Section 1: Backgrounds

There are several comprehensive sites with information directly related to this class. I've culled some specific pages from them and linked to them below, but you might be interested in exploring what they have to offer:
The Depression in the United States: An Overview
America in the 1930s
Modern American Poetry and the Great Depression
Radical Responses to the Great Depression
New York Times Archive on the Great Depression
The Great Depression - The Stock Market Crash and Beyond (thanks to Natalie for this link)

M Aug 29 Overviews & Reconsiderations (recommended reading/viewing)
Financial Aftershocks With Preceident in History (August 2011)
A Tale of Two Depressions (March 2010)
Are We What We Search? (July 2009)
Scottsdale economist sees parallels to Great Depression (Sept. 2008)
The end is not near (Oct. 2008)

Video: A Photo Essay on the Great Depression
Depression Cooking with Clara (pasta with peas) (video capability needed)

Political Poetry Background (read about items with which you are not familiar BEFORE READING THE POETRY):
Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
The Dust Bowl
The New Masses
Sacco and Vanzetti
Scottsboro Boys
Tom Mooney