Crossroads: High School Curriculum
Unit VII: "What, Then, Is This American?" ca. 1865-1900

Lesson 1

Contents

Major Concepts

Objectives

Suggested lesson/activities


Major Concepts:

  1. The United States became an industrial giant due to the rapid development of manufacturing technology, the growth of industrial capital investment, and the expansive growth of the industrial work force.

  2. The industrialization of the United States also led to the formation and growth of a labor union movement, as workers organized to defend their interests; the resulting conflict between management and labor threatened the nation's social peace and harmony.

  3. In this period, the United States was inundated by successive waves of immigrants from Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe and Asia; these newcomers rapidly expanded the spectrum of American cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity but also faced ethnic and racial prejudice.

Objective: The student will be able to:

Use primary sources to draw inferences about the changes in America between 1865 and 1900.

Suggested lesson/activities:

This lesson is introductory only, designed for the purpose of setting the stage for more extensive study of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration during this period.

  1. Distribute three maps of the City of Troy, NY, for the years 1791, 1845, and 1886, to each student.

  2. Sort the students into pairs, and have each pair study the maps and identify the things that appear to have remained the same and those that differed from 1791 to 1886 in Troy.

  3. Ask the paired students to draw inferences -- from the changes they have identified on the maps -- about the following:

    1. population density
    2. population ethnicity
    3. population occupations

  4. Ask the class, using the same maps projected from transparencies, to summarize the changes that the students have deduced. At a minimum they should recognize:

    1. major changes in transportation
    2. increased number of plots in the north and south
    3. increased number of identified municipal buildings and churches
    4. large number of church denominations
    5. arsenal, foundries, iron works, and stove company (Troy Bilt stoves were the most modern heating innovation of the century)
    6. names of streets

  5. As a closure, point out that all these changes reflect the rapid change from an agrarian to an industrial society which is more urban and ethnically diverse.

Back to Unit VII: "What, Then, Is This American?" ca. 1865-1900