Wednesday October 10, 2012
Today we have off of class because Professor Butters has a meeting or lecture to go to. So, instead of having class we are free to spend the time doing our research and writing. I will be going to the Aurora Public Library after my noon to one o'clock class. I plan to spend at least four hours there looking at their newspapers on microfilm and there other documents. They actually have a great deal of information at the library that the historical society does not have, so I must utilize my time well to get through it all. I have been going to the historical society on Monday and Wednesday mornings and the library on Friday afternoons and any time over the weekends that I have free. I feel very bad because I know several other students already have a great deal of information for their topic, but I am really struggling trying to find useful information that pertains to my topic. So far, I have done a great deal of research from the stock market crash in 1929 until about 1933 and I haven't really found anything to support my thesis that the city of Aurora was greatly effected by the Great Depression, so I might have to change my thesis. Most of the information that I find is people commenting on the stock markets in New York and Chicago and for most of the information, only the big cities are discussed. I plan to get through more information from the later years to figure out if the depression stifled the social growth of the city. I also plan to get to a nursing home to do an interview or two and possibly go to Phillips Park to see what all the Civilian Conservation Corps. did.
But this is interesting - so far they don't see the Depression as hitting them.
ReplyDeleteYea I found it interesting too. When looking at the newspapers there were articles about the Chicago and New York Stock exchange and about the rising prices of food and other commodities, but there were no articles about the town itself. But when I found out that the depression didn't really hit Aurora until 1931/32 it made me VERY happy because now I am going to skip the rest of 29, 30, and half of 31 on the microfilms! It takes FOREVER and I loose ambition very quickly with it. So I am going to skip a few years and then if I have time I will go back over those years just to make sure I didn't miss anything important.
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