Industrialization

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Lesson Plans | Primary Sources

Lesson Plans:

Was there an Industrial Revolution? - In the decades before the Civil War—a period sometimes dubbed the First Industrial Revolution—a significant number of inventions and innovations appeared, transforming American life. A telegraph system allowed information to flow from place to place more quickly than the speed of a horse. A transportation system based largely on steam power allowed goods to be shipped great distances at reduced expense.

The Rise of Big Business - Good online activity for research on Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and JP Morgan. Includes four activities.

Child Labor in America - This unit asks students to critically examine, respond to and report on photographs as historical evidence. Students will discover the work of reformer/photographer Lewis Hine, whose photographs give the issue of child labor a dramatic personal relevance and illustrate the impact of photojournalism in the course of American history.


Thomas Edison Lesson Plans - Using documents from American Memory, plus supplementary material, students investigate electrification as both a technological and social process. A focus of the student's investigation is Thomas Edison, because, as Nye contends, "Electricity was the sign of Edison's genius, the wonder of the age, the hallmark of progress"

Primary Source Documents:

Document Based Essay - After the Civil War, America faced new challenges including the rebuilding of the South and the rise of big business. These events changed American society. This task is designed to test your ability to work with historical documents and is based on the accompanying documents.

Cotton Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts - This lesson is based on the National Register of Historic Places registration file, "Lowell National Historical Park," and other source material about this millyard, as well as other industrial sites in Lowell. An inquiry lesson.

Teaching With Documents:
Alexander Graham Bell's Patent for the Telephone and Thomas Edison's Patent for the Electric Lamp - From The National Archives Teaching with Documents section, this lesson uses authentic connectons to teach industrializaton with the analysis of primary source documents.


 

Andrew Carnegie
J.P. Morgan
John D. Rockefeller
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Lowell, Massachusetts


The Cost of Advancement