Gilded Age: Documenting Industry in America

http://oswego.org/staff/tcaswell/wq/gildedage/student.htm

Description: You are a member of a film production studio which has recently been hired to produce a documentary about the Gilded Age. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by historians in an effort to illustrate the outwardly showy, but inwardly corrupt nature of American society during the industrialization of the late 1800's. The documentary will need to highlight the many aspects of society that made up the Gilded Age, including: technological innovation, big business, urbanization, immigration, and reactions to the period. Standards 8.12.1, 8.12.3, 8.12.4, 8.12.5, 8.12.6 and 8.12.7 and 11.2.1, 11.2.2, 11.2.5, and 11.2.6

Author: Thomas Caswell and Joshua Delorenzo, Oswego High School

Lesson ID: 448

Great Railroad Race - Virtual Museum and Game

http://CPRR.org/Game

Description: Here is your chance to help America become united and economically strong. The Civil War has begun but it still takes months of dangerous travel to get across the U.S. from coast to coast. Business leaders, military planners, and travelers want a much faster and cheaper way to move goods and people. They want ships from Asia to be able to land in California and then send goods to buyers overland, rather than sending the ships all the way around the tip of South America to eastern harbors. In order to be strong, the nation must decide where to build a railroad to unite East and West. In 1862 Abraham Lincoln signs the Pacific Railway Act. Standards 4.4.1, and 8.12.3

Author: Meg Deppe, Mojave Mesa Elementary, Apple Valley

Lesson ID: 474

How Can Businesses Make Money From Tarrifs?

http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/lessons/feus1.htm

Description: Investigate the impact fo tarrifs on businesses and consumers during the 1880s by examining political cartoons, and comparing protectionism in different time periods. Determine what impact business has made on special interest legislation supporting tarrifs or other trade restrictions. Standard 8.12.3, 11.2.5 and 11.2.6

Author: Focus on Economics: U.S. History, National Council on Economic Education

Lesson ID: 516

Hydraulic Mining: An Online Lesson Gathering Information About Hydraulic Mining

http://www.LearnCalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=411

Description: Hydraulic mining became the most efficient and most used mining method until 1884 when a court case brought by farmers and valley cities curtailed the practice. This lesson will give students the opportunity to explore reasons for supporting and opposing hydraulic mining. Students will participate in a simulated court hearing where a decision will be made whether to allow the continued use of hydraulic mining. Standard 4.4.2 and 8.12.1

Author: Learn California.org, California State Library

Lesson ID: 547

I Hear the Locomotives: The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=253

Description: The Transcontinental Railroad brought incredible change to America. By 1881, it was routine to travel by train from eastern cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore to San Francisco. The round trip that took Lewis and Clark two-and-a-half years in 1803 was now a nine-day journey. The consequences of this new technology were profound. Nothing in the West would ever be the same again. Analyze archival material such as photos, documents, and posters, to truly appreciate the phenomenon of the Transcontinental Railroad. Then answer some important questions: Why was the Transcontinental Railroad built? How did it affect Native Americans? Other minorities? How was the environment affected? What were the advantages of railroad travel? Who used the railroads, and why? Who built the railroad? Standard 4.4.1, 8.12.1 and 8.12.3

Author: Edsitement, National Endowment for the Humanities

Lesson ID: 549

Mill Village and Factory

http://www.ibiblio.org/sohp/laf/factoryteaching.html

Description: Here are two methods for understanding the American Industrial Revolution in a more complete manner. First read the description of a mill village and the poem "Textile Life" on the American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 exhibit at the American Memory website from the Library of Congress. (Link to the American Life Histories http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html. Then search for the exact phrase "Textile Life" and ask the search engine to match those words only.) What parts of the poem seem to apply to the experiences that the mill workers on this website described? How did mill villages differ from community to community? What would have been the best and worst aspects of living in a mill village? How might a poem about textile life written by a textile mill owner be different? Secondly, look at the documents and information about life in the 19th century at the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts found on Liberty Rhetoric and the Nineteenth-Century American Woman website at the City University of New York http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/lowell.html. How did the lives of mill workers in the 20th century South compare to the lives of working women in Lowell? Standards 8.12.6 and 11.2.1

Author: Dr. James Leloudis and Dr. Kathryn Walbert, Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age

Lesson ID: 718

Old Couthouse in St. Louis: The Transcontinental Railroad Debates

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/9stlouis/9stlouis.htm

Description: Follow the debates for the transcontinental railroad that took place in the St. Louis Courthouse in 1849. The last track for the transcontinental railroad was not laid until 1869. What obstacles stood in the way of completing the railroad sooner? Standard 8.12.1 and 8.12.3

Author: Diane James Weber, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

Lesson ID: 771

Pullman Strike of 1894

http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/labor/bassett.pdf

Description: The Pullman Strike is remembered as one of the turning points in American labor history. You decide: "Did the federal government behave properly in using force to end the Pullman Strike?" Get inside the actions and motivations of the various parties in the strike by role-playing commissioners who examined different groups involved. You will read and act out expert testimony to the commission as a worker, manager, or resident of Chicago. You will need Acrobat Reader for this pdf lesson but do not need an Internet hook-up in class. Standards 8.12.6, 11.2.1 , and 12.4.1 economics

Author: Jonathan Bassett, Organization of American Historians

Lesson ID: 866

Reformers and Child Labor in the Early 20th Century

http://nationalhistoryday.org/images/uploads/2002CurBook.pdf

Description: One aspect of labor history with which students immediately empathize is child labor. Where, when, how and why children worked--combined with the individual and organizational efforts to reform child labor conditions--form a window of inquiry through which students can view real world events and choices, and determine the impact of those choices in history. Analyze fictional stories for historical content and to identify the arguments for and against child labor. Describe the efforts of reformers to end or limit child labor in the United States. Standards 8.12.6 and 12.2.1

Author: Lynda DeLoach, George Meany Memorial Archives

Lesson ID: 883

Threads of Change in the 19th Century America: A Museum Exhibition Webquest

http://seed210.tripod.com/task.htm

Description: Your preservation company is competing with five or six other firms for a $10,000,000 contract to provide an exhibit of 19th century themes to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. This is a brand new selection concept for the Museum. Each company has been asked to provide four ideal examples such as a quote from a piece of literature, a work of art, a piece of music or an artifact which illustrate the 19th century Threads in American History: Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Abolitionism and Feminism and Industrialism. Each member of your group is an expert in one of these Threads, and you feel confident that you can find just the right items to include in the exhibit and enjoy the fame and fortune of working with one of the preeminent institutions in the country. Your company will deliver an oral presentation of your findings to a committee from the Museum. You must be able to justify to this group that your selections are the best representations for this groundbreaking exhibit. Standards 8.6.6., 8.6.7, 8.9.1, 8.12.4 and 8.12.6

Author: Vicki Seed, Eastern Middle School

Lesson ID: 1097