Great Depression Crossword Puzzle

Print a criss-cross vocabulary crossword on the Great Depression: the 1929 crash, the Dust Bowl and the New Deal.

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Great Depression Crossword

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Answer key: Great Depression Crossword

1BR2NEWDEAL3DAR4DUSTBOWLOLU5MIGRANTG6HN7RH8UNEM9PLOYMENTNLLG10CRAS11HIEIOERNBF12STOCK

Across 2 NEWDEAL · 4 DUSTBOWL · 5 MIGRANT · 8 UNEMPLOYMENT · 10 CRASH · 12 STOCK

Down 1 BREADLINE · 3 DROUGHT · 6 HUNGER · 7 RELIEF · 9 PLAINS · 11 HOBO

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The Crash and the Banks 30

  • Bankrupt Unable to pay what one owes
  • Broker Go-between who places buy and sell orders for clients
  • Crash Sudden collapse of the market in October 1929
  • Credit Buy now, pay later
  • Debt What a borrower still has to pay back
  • Decade Ten years, about how long the hard times lasted
  • Deflation The opposite of inflation: a dollar buys more each year
  • Deposit What a saver hands across the counter for safekeeping
  • Dow Index that closed at 41.22 on July 8, 1932, its low of the century
  • Failure Bank ___: fate of more than a third of banks before the FDIC
  • Foreclosure Seizure and forced sale of a house or land by the lender
  • Global Worldwide, as the downturn of 1929 to 1939 was
  • Gold Metal at the heart of Roosevelt's dollar policies of 1933 and 1934
  • Holiday Bank ___: the week in March 1933 when every bank stayed shut
  • Insurance The FDIC's protection for savers, begun at $2,500
  • Investor One who owns shares in a company
  • Margin On ___: bought with a little cash down and the rest on loan
  • Panic Sudden fear that sends a crowd running to sell or to pull out cash
  • Savings Nest egg kept in a bank
  • Slump Sharp fall in business
  • Speculation Buying only in the hope that prices will keep climbing
  • Stock Piece of a business that you can buy and sell
  • Surplus More goods than buyers want
  • Tariff Import tax; a 1930 act raised it on over 20,000 goods
  • Teller Bank worker at the window
  • Thursday Day of the week when a record 12.9 million shares changed hands in 1929
  • Ticker ___ tape: price report that ran hours late in the selling of October 1929
  • Tuesday Day of the week when some 16.4 million shares were traded in 1929
  • Vault Steel-doored room where a bank locks up its cash
  • Withdraw What a crowd lines up to do in a bank run

Hard Times at Home 32

  • Barter To swap eggs for shoes, say, with no cash involved
  • Bonus ___ Army: 1932 protesters who wanted their service pay early
  • Boxcar Closed freight car in which a wanderer might ride
  • Breadline Queue of people waiting for free food
  • Cardboard "Hoover leather": it lined a shoe when the sole wore through
  • Charity Gift of food or money that asks nothing back
  • Crates Their boards became the walls of many a shack
  • Eviction Being put out of a home for unpaid rent
  • Feedsack Flour or grain bag whose printed cloth became a dress
  • Garden Backyard plot that put food on the table
  • Handout Free food or coins given to someone in need
  • Hardship Suffering that comes with want
  • Hitchhike To travel by thumbing rides
  • Hobo Wanderer who hopped freight trains to find work
  • Homeless Without a place to live
  • Hooverville Cluster of scrap-built huts named as a jab at the man in the White House
  • Hunger What an empty stomach feels
  • Layoff Loss of a job when a factory cuts back
  • Migrant Person who moves from place to place for work
  • Newspaper "Hoover blanket": an old one, used as a cover at night
  • Patch Mend on a worn knee
  • Pocket "Hoover flag": an empty one turned inside out
  • Poverty Having too few dollars for food, shelter and clothing
  • Quarter Fraction of the labor force with no job in 1933, roughly
  • Rails "Riding the ___": how youths without work crossed the country
  • Scrip Stand-in money issued when real cash ran short
  • Shanty Rough shack of scrap wood and metal
  • Soup ___ kitchen: place where free meals are served
  • Thrift Careful use of every cent
  • Unemployment Being out of work; it neared 25% in 1933
  • Veteran Former soldier; 17,000 gathered in Washington in 1932
  • Wagon "Hoover ___": a car with horses hitched to it

The Dust Bowl 28

  • Abandon To walk away from a farm for good
  • Blizzard "Black ___": a rolling cloud of soil that hid the sun
  • Conservation Soil ___ Service: it mapped the worst wind-worn counties
  • Crops What withered in the fields
  • Drought Long dry spell; it came in three waves
  • Dryland ___ farming: methods for growing food where rain is scarce
  • Dust Bowl Name for the wind-stripped farm country of the 1930s
  • Erosion Loss of loose land to the wind, a little at a time
  • Exodus Mass departure, like the one from the storm country
  • Farmer One who earns a living from the land
  • Grass Native cover whose deep roots once held the soil
  • Harvest Reaping time on a farm
  • Okie Label pinned on a poor newcomer to California in the 1930s
  • Oklahoma State whose name was clipped into a label for families heading west
  • Panhandle Texas has one, and it lay at the heart of the storm country
  • Plains The Great ___: grassland hit by the 1930s storms
  • Plow Tool that broke the grassland; "rain follows the ___," promoters said
  • Rabbits They streamed south with the birds ahead of the April 1935 cloud
  • Reporter An Associated Press one witnessed the April 1935 storm
  • Route ___ 66: highway west for families leaving the storms
  • Shelterbelt Line of trees planted to slow the wind, a project begun in 1934
  • Sixty Speed, in miles an hour, of the April 1935 cloud front
  • Static Kind of charge that crackled ahead of the great cloud of April 1935
  • Sunday "Black" day of April 14, 1935
  • Topsoil Fertile surface that the wind stripped from the fields
  • Tractor Machine that sped the breaking of the grassland
  • Visibility It fell to three feet or less in the worst clouds
  • Wheat Grain sown across the newly broken grassland

The New Deal 30

  • Alphabet "___ agencies": nickname for programs known by their initials
  • Artists Federal Project Number One hired them, with musicians, writers and actors
  • Banking Emergency ___ Act: signed on March 9, 1933
  • Congress Lawmaking body that passed 77 laws in the spring of 1933
  • Corps The last C of CCC, a work program for unmarried men of 18 to 25
  • Court "___-packing": nickname of the 1937 plan to add justices
  • Dam The TVA runs 29 of these to make power
  • Eagle Blue bird that was the symbol of the NRA
  • Electricity What a 1936 act lent money to bring to the countryside
  • Fireside ___ chat: evening radio talk by the president
  • Flood ___ control: one job the TVA was given in 1933
  • Hundred The First ___ Days: 15 major bills passed in 1933
  • Inaugural Kind of address in which Roosevelt spoke of "fear itself"
  • January A change adopted in 1933 moved the swearing-in of presidents to the 20th of this
  • Landslide Lopsided win, like the election of 1932
  • Minimum ___ wage: lowest legal pay, made a right by a 1938 law
  • Mural Wall painting; federal art projects put many in public buildings
  • New Deal What Roosevelt pledged "for the American people"
  • Overtime Time-and-a-half pay, a right since the 1938 act
  • Pension Regular income paid in old age
  • Rearmament Build-up for World War II that ended the long years without work, from 1940
  • Recovery Second of the "3 R's": bringing the economy back to its usual level
  • Reform Third of the "3 R's": fixing finance so the collapse could not repeat
  • Relief First of the "3 R's": help for the poor
  • Roads With public buildings, these were built by Works Progress crews
  • Security Social ___ Act: law signed on August 14, 1935
  • Strike Work stoppage; in Flint, workers occupied the plants for 44 days
  • Trails CCC crews built these for hikers, and lookout towers for fire watchers
  • Union Organized labor body; a 1935 act guaranteed the right to form one
  • WPA Program from 1935 that hired millions for public works

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for United States history classes from grade 5 to grade 11, in four sets: the crash and the banks, hard times at home, the Dust Bowl and the New Deal. Dates and figures were checked against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library's Great Depression Facts (fdrlibrary.org), Federal Reserve History essays (federalreservehistory.org), the National Weather Service and the National Archives, in October 2026. Answers are terms, places and laws; no person is an answer. Licence: own work

How it works

This Great Depression crossword puzzle fits Letter or A4, answer key included. The first puzzle has 12 basic words, among them Crash, Dust Bowl, Breadline, New Deal, Relief, Drought and Unemployment. Answers are terms, places and laws, never a person.

Read the full guide

Four sets after the basics

The Crash and the Banks has Margin, Ticker, Tariff and Foreclosure. Hard Times at Home has Hooverville, Scrip, Barter and Feedsack. The Dust Bowl has Topsoil, Blizzard, Shelterbelt and Panhandle. The New Deal has Recovery, Reform, Pension and Overtime.

Dates and figures a class can check

Clues carry the numbers of the unit: 12.9 million shares traded on Black Thursday and 16.4 million on Black Tuesday, the Dow at 41.22 on July 8, 1932, the dust storm of April 14, 1935, and the Social Security Act of August 14, 1935.

  • Hard Times at Home pairs well with a photograph of the 1930s: Newspaper, Pocket and Cardboard are clued by their Hoover nicknames.

Questions and answers

What grade is the Great Depression crossword puzzle for?

Great Depression Basics suits grades 5 to 8, with answers such as Stock, Hobo, Plains and Migrant. The four themed sets use the vocabulary of a United States history unit in middle or high school. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

Does the Great Depression crossword puzzle have an answer key?

Yes. The last sheet of each print is the key: the completed grid and every answer beside its clue number. There is no charge and no sign-up.

When did the Great Depression start and end?

It is dated 1929 to 1939. In the United States the stock market crash of October 1929 is its symbol, and long-term unemployment lasted until rearmament for World War II began in 1940.

What were the three R's of the New Deal?

Relief, recovery and reform: help for people without work or money, getting the economy back to its usual level, and changes to the financial system so the collapse could not repeat. All three are answers in the New Deal set.

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