All research papers build on three basic elements: a good question, a well-focused topic, and a body of primary source material.

Sample Questions

How did the Depression transform individual lives (farmers, workers, women, children, middle-class Americans, etc.)?

What did people think caused the Depression and how did that influence policy?

To what extent did the New Deal change American politics and in what ways?

Did the New Deal strengthen or weaken political machines?

What forces (ie: cultural values, political beliefs, business influences, etc) limited New Deal reform? What forces made it possible?

How did the experience of war impact individual lives (ie: women, blacks, GI, etc)?

How did America become the "Arsenal of Democracy?" (ie: mobilize for war)

To what extent did war policies represent a break or a continuation of the New Deal?

In what ways did the war lead to technological advances?

How did American involvement in the war contribute to its outcome?

Sample Topics

Unemployment Movement in Massachusetts

Communist Party in Boston/ Harvard

New Deal and the Flood of 1934

Fortune Attitudes toward the New Deal

NRA in Massachusetts

Bread Strikes in Boston

Life Magazine and New Deal Iconography

Mayor Curley and New Deal relief

Impact of New Deal works projects on MIT/Cambridge/Charles River

FDR and the Manchester Union Leader

General Motors Sit-Down Strike

Organizing the Lynn GE Plant

Local Charities During the Depression

Voting Patterns among Italian Americans and the New Deal

African Americans in Roxbury and the New Deal

Failure of the Maine Shoe Strike in 1937

Fair Employment Practice Commission

The South in Depression

Technology and the 1939 World's Fair

Lindberg and Isolationism

Boston Housewives and the Local OPA Boards

Black Markets in Boston

The Image of Rosie the Riveter

Detroit Race Riot of 1943

Zoot Suit Riots

Four Freedoms and Wartime Propaganda

Lowell Textile Workers in World War II

MIT and the Manhattan Project

Radar Lab and MIT

Harvard and the OSS

Strategic Bombing in World War II

The Whiz Kids and the Army Airforce

Sample Sources

Newspapers-local, national, ethnic, religious

Magazines-general interest, labor, business

Advertisements-print ads, government posters

Census Reports and other government statistics (Historical Statistics of the United States)

Political Speeches-campaign, congressional, reform (Vital Speeches)

Government Reports

Congressional Hearings

Novels and other art forms

Personal paper collections

Local archives-church, historical societies, libraries, (http://lib.harvard.edu/) (http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/) (http://www.bpl.org/)