Why Did America’s Farmers Fail to Prosper in the 1920s? – Enquiry and Card Sort

This engaging card sort activity helps students evaluate the economic, social, and environmental challenges facing American farmers in the 1920s, and can also be used as a starter to help set the scene before assessing how successfully the New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) tackled — or in some cases worsened — those problems.

Designed for Grades 9–12, this lesson works well in U.S. History, American Government, or Economics courses, especially within units on the Great Depression or the New Deal. It can be used as a stand-alone exercise, as a starter or plenary, or alongside my companion lesson “The New Deal: AAA”, also available in The History Academy TES shop.

The resource includes three factor cards labeled economic, social, and environmental, along with fourteen statement cards describing the problems faced by U.S. farmers during the interwar years. Students must categorize the statements according to the type of problem, encouraging discussion, reasoning, and historical understanding. Two optional extension tasks are included to deepen learning: the first asks students to create a color-coded key to show which problems the AAA solved or indirectly created, while the second challenges them to write an extended response evaluating how successful the AAA was in solving the problems of U.S. farmers in the 1930s.

A supporting PowerPoint presentation is also provided to help guide the activity. It includes background information, visual aids, and prompts for class discussion, making it easy to facilitate the exercise in a dynamic and structured way.

Learning Objectives:

Theme: The USA, 1919–1939
Know: What problems faced U.S. farmers between 1919 and 1939?
Understand: Which problems were caused by economic, social, or environmental factors?
Evaluate: How successfully did the AAA solve the problems facing U.S. farmers?

WILF – What Am I Looking For?
Can You Describe: The problems facing U.S. farmers, 1919–1939.
Can You Explain:Which problems were economic, social, or environmental in nature.
Can You Evaluate: How effective the U.S. government’s actions were in supporting farmers through the AAA.

The card sort is supplied as a fully editable Microsoft Word document, allowing you to adapt it to meet the needs of your students. It pairs perfectly with the a separate PowerPoint that you can purchase from our TES Shop, which goes into depth about the problems facing US farmers during the 1920s.

If you enjoy this resource, you can explore my other Great Depression and New Deal materials in The History Academy TES shop. You can also follow The History Academy on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for teaching ideas, updates, and new releases.

At The History Academy, our goal is to produce affordable, high-quality classroom resources—priced about the same as a good cup of coffee—so you can spend more time doing what matters most: inspiring your students.

Kind Regards,

Roy - The History Academy