LEARN NC

North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project

The Great Depression: Impact over time

By Kristin Post

1.2 Teacher's guide: Generations

Introductory script

You will be listening to an oral history interview. You will hear two men. One is Rob Amberg, he is the interviewer, and he is from the University of North Carolina. The other is Stan Hyatt, he is a fifty-four year old living in Madison County, North Carolina. He and his family have lived in the mountains for a long time. We are going to think about some questions before we listen to some excerpts of a conversation between these men. Afterward, we will discuss what they said. In the process, we will learn more about the impact of the Great Depression on individual lives.

Preliminary questions

  1. How many people’s voices did I mention that we will hear in this oral history?
  2. Where does Stan Hyatt live?

The recording

Play the Generations oral history excerpt. Running time: 44 seconds.

Please upgrade your Flash Player and/or enable JavaScript in your browser to listen to this audio file.

Download recording (Right-click or option-click) | About the recording

Transcript

Rob Amberg
Was your family’s roots from there? And how long had your family been in the community?
Stan Hyatt
Two generations before me.
Rob Amberg
And what kind of work did your dad do?
Stan Hyatt
My dad did a lot of things. His, uh, the last work he did before he retired in Cleveland — he worked in a musical instrument factory, making instruments. Brass instruments.
Rob Amberg
But what did he do when you were in Barnardsville?
Stan Hyatt
He did a lot of things. He just moved around from job to job. He worked before — one of the last things he did in Barnardsville was work with his brother in a country store.

Follow-up questions

  1. How many generations, including Stan Hyatt, lived in Madison County?
  2. According to the excerpt, what happened in Barnardsville?
  3. What have we learned about Stan Hyatt’s father?
  4. If Stan Hyatt is 54, approximately how old is his father? Why do you think his father moved around so much early on in his life?