The Cost of Industrialization

Teaser

Use the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to examine the benefits and costs of industrialization.

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Description

Students use a variety of primary source documents and a structured discussion process to understand the events and conditions surrounding the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.

Article Body

One of the greatest strengths of this lesson is its wealth and variety of primary sources. In addition to firsthand narrative accounts, the site also includes many photographs and political cartoons for students to analyze. Another strength is the way the lesson engages students in discussing sources with each other: students share their perceptions with one another after each step of document analysis, and then comment on one another's perceptions—setting the stage for lively historical discussion and debate.

Students begin the lesson by taking a brief opinion poll regarding industrialization, organized labor, and economic justice. At the end of the lesson students take the same poll, and discuss with their peers how their perceptions have changed as result of what they learned during the lesson.

Many of the text documents are long and may be challenging for some students, though some, like "Days and Dreams" by Sadie Frown would be relatively accessible to a high school student, or an advanced middle school student. It is written in narrative style, in simple language, and is of a moderate length. Other documents may need adaptation to meet student reading levels. However, the lesson also contains a sizeable collection of political cartoons, photographs, and other images. These could very easily form the central focus of the lesson, providing lots of material for students to discuss with one another.

Most of the documents (particularly the photos and cartoons) clearly condemn the factory owners. There is one account of the fire from the factory owners' point of view, in step five, which is listed as an "extra document," but one that is "strongly recommended." We echo that recommendation as this document allows students to see an alternative point of view on the event.

While students use primary sources as a vehicle for reshaping their initial hypotheses about industrialization, organized labor, and economic justice, information about the circumstances of each source's creation is not always readily available to students. Where this is the case, we recommend that teachers encourage students to use the source's content to identify the perspective of its author.

Overall, this is a good lesson that provides a useful tool in highlighting for students how their perceptions of history can change after exposure to a large mass of evidence. Often when teaching students the historical process, it is helpful to focus on just one aspect of historical thinking; otherwise students easily become overwhelmed. This lesson does just that: it helps students to focus on their own changing perceptions as they encounter the documents—an essential element of historical thinking.

Topic
Industrialization, organized labor, Progressivism
Time Estimate
2-3 class sessions
flexibility_scale
1
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes
A wealth of background information is available from the Cornell University website on the Triangle Factory Fire.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes
The lesson requires significant reading; there are many opportunities for teachers to insert writing activities as well. The second part of the assessment would be one ideal place.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes
Students analyze sources in an effort to refine their interpretation of the events at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

No
Some source information is included with the documents, and teachers can add a requirement that students note the creator and date of the source's creation.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

No
Some additional adaptation of documents and reading aids may be necessary for your students. Students may especially need help with reading the political cartoons closely—see this guide for ideas.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

Yes
The second part of the assessment, in which students create contents for a time capsule and must determine how the factory fire ought to be remembered, is especially strong. Its multiple parts allow you to easily tailor it for your students.
No assessment criteria are included.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes

Jamestown: The Starving Time

Teaser

Only 60 settlers out of 600 survived the winter of 1609–1610 in Jamestown Virginia. Was "the Starving Time" due to natural circumstances or planned extermination?

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Description

Students analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources to determine the cause of the Jamestown starving time during the winter of 1609–1610.

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This lesson provides a great opportunity for students to engage in real historical inquiry with prepared sources. The lesson is displayed in three locations on the site: the student view, which guides the student through the activity; the teacher view, which provides additional background information; and a PDF file that contains scripted instructions for the lesson.

Students first read a textbook passage about the Jamestown colony in 1609 and 1610. They then discuss how the writers of the textbook might have obtained their information, and go on to analyze primary source documents that expand upon the textbook account. Students essentially "do history" as they use a variety of sources to answer a clear, concise historical question—one that can be answered in multiple ways with the given data.

Another strength of this lesson is the document collection itself. A wide variety of primary sources offer greater insight into the reasons for the food shortage that resulted in the death of over 400 colonists in Jamestown during the winter of 1609–1610. Particularly helpful to teachers with struggling readers is the fact that the lesson includes not only the original documents, but also "modern" versions of the documents, written in language much more accessible to students.

While the detective log graphic organizer included in the lesson provides space for students to record source information, and the lesson itself provides a great exercise in sourcing, the documents themselves contain little source information. We recommend that teachers support students in using the available information about each document to understand its perspective and meaning. In general, the lesson provides good opportunities to engage in historical inquiry, to open up and go beyond the textbook, and to use primary sources to analyze the causes of an event.

Topic
Jamestown
Time Estimate
2-3 class sessions
flexibility_scale
5
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes
A passage from Joy Hakim's Making Thirteen Colonies is included in both the student view and the teacher view of the lesson.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes
Teachers will want to support students in using information about the perspective of the various sources as they interpret each document's significance and meaning.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes
Documents are included both in their original form, and in an adapted "modern version" that will be more easily accessible to most students.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

Yes
No assessment criteria are included, but the final writing assignment provides a great assessment of students' understanding and historical thinking.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes

Mind Mapping: Visualizing Historical Thought

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What is it?

Mind Mapping applications are tools that allow students to develop a physical representation, a blueprint of their thinking that goes from the concrete to the more abstract. Mind Maps provide a clear and organized visual snapshot of how the ideas and information are outlined in one’s head. This way one can see where ideas need to be further developed and how all the information is linked. This snapshot is developed and analyzed by the student. He or she identifies the logical flow of ideas connecting one to the next and building on each in a web-like form. Mind Mapping is truly a revolutionary way of thinking and learning!

One Teacher's Experience:

As an educator I have found the electronic tool of Mind Maps to be pivotal in the success of some of my students, particularly when looking at students who are visual learners and mathematical/logical learners. I have also found that students in the special education classroom benefit from Mind Mapping. The tool allows them to demonstrate their understanding without the rigor of extensive writing. It also allows them to monitor their own understanding, and thus helps them continue to build toward metacognition . . . every educator’s dream.

Getting Started

Below are just a few of the many Mind Mapping sites available. I happen to be partial to Mindjet, but click on the links and check them out for yourself.

Examples

Furthermore Mind Mapping can be used in the following ways. Please note: this list details just a few ways to use this tool. There are countless ways to incorporate it into your classroom.

  • Vocabulary development—detailing what the word is, what it’s not, and examples
  • Outlining an essay or other form of writing
  • Viewing and analyzing differing points of view of two historical figures/events in history
  • Developing a timeline of a historic event
  • Comparing and contrasting events and people in history or present day issues
  • Identifying the main event and detailing the cause/s

Historical Thinking Poster!

Date Published
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Note: Thank you for your interest in our posters. We no longer have the Historical Thinking poster in stock, so please visit our interactive poster or print a copy. Please be sure to check out our 2011-12 interactive poster, How Do You Piece Together the History of the Civil War? Are you a K-12 U.S. history or social studies teacher, librarian, or teacher educator? Looking for ways to promote thoughtful, critical reading of primary and secondary sources in the classroom? Teachinghistory.org now offers a poster to help you out! Our double-sided color poster features definitions of primary and secondary sources and guides students through the process of historical inquiry. What questions should you ask when examining a primary source? Where should you look for reliable secondary sources? How do you use the evidence you've gathered to make an argument?

Click image to enlarge

Bright illustrations and snappy captions present history as a mystery for elementary students, while the flip side asks middle and high schoolers how historians know what they know about the past. Both sides feature clear visual examples of primary sources.

My Lai Massacre Political Cartoon

Video Overview

Professor Meredith Lair examines a 1971 political cartoon and what it says about U.S. reaction to the My Lai Massacre and the trial of Lt. Willam Calley. She also looks at how important photographs were in proving that the Massacre happened, and at the conflicting information offered by primary sources.

Video Clip Name
Meredith1.mov
Meredith2.mov
Meredith3.mov
Meredith4.mov
Video Clip Title
Introducing the Cartoon
Introducing the Massacre
Word Spreads
Reacting to the Sources
Video Clip Duration
1:57
4:13
4:51
2:59
Transcript Text

This is an editorial cartoon by Paul Conrad that ran in the Los Angeles Times and was picked up by a lot of other newspapers. And the image itself was in reaction to a particular moment in history when Lieutenant William Calley—who was on trial for war crimes committed in March of 1968—was convicted and sentenced. There was a great deal of public reaction of varying kinds at the time and this cartoon was as much a reaction to the verdict as it was to the reaction to the verdict.

People sent hundreds of thousands of letters and telegrams to the White House, 99 percent of them demanding his release. What Paul Conrad is drawing here is that reaction: the cheering, the yelling, the flag waving. At the top of the ditch represents that swell of sentiment, that Calley was this hero and he was being scapegoated unfairly. You see mostly male figures and they seem to be wearing suits. And there are two signs evident. One says "We're With You, Lt. Calley." The other says, "Well done, Lt. Calley."

The caption is "The My Lai Ditch Claims Another Victim." It references the event of My Lai itself. And the ditch in My Lai was one of the most searing moments of the massacre. Conrad is clearly saying that the United States lost something very dear in that moment.

What appealed to me and caught my eye initially was that he was not just targeting some narrow facet of this story, but was literally attacking the American sense of conscience, and the American sense of what is right and what is wrong. Everything that American soldiers are supposed to be fighting and protecting is gone.

A turning point in the Vietnam War took place in January or February of 1968 with the Tet Offensive. Anti-war sentiment in the United States was swelling in late 1967 and to try and keep a lid on opposition sentiment, President Johnson and his administration embarked on a kind of pep talk campaign for the American people. The message to the American people was that we've almost got the communists licked and this war is almost over.

The enemy in fact was laying in wait and so January 31st, 1968, the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies launched a massive, country-wide assault on both American and South Vietnamese military and government installations. And the hope of the enemy with this offensive was that the people would join them and rise up, a mass uprising to evict what they saw as this American invader in their country.

So, the American people, having just been told that the war is almost over, are now treated on the nightly news to images of fighting in the American embassy compound in Saigon, to images of great carnage at the Marine Base at Queshan, at the imperial city of Hue. People are thinking, this war is not over. We've been lied to. We've been had. And public opinion started to tank.

In Vietnam, this really unnerved American soldiers. And the knowledge that the enemy had been able to orchestrate this offensive without any awareness on the part of the United States was deeply disturbing to soldiers who were trusting that the guys in charge know what they're doing.

They were enduring very harsh conditions in terms of rain and mud and sleeping outside and not eating hot meals. And they were experiencing casualties, but not casualties due to enemy engagement. They were getting picked off by snipers or by booby traps or by injuries. And there's a great sense of frustration that they can't find the enemy. They don't have anybody to blame.

The 1st Platoon, and perhaps the company as a whole, were not particularly well led. There's evidence from February 1968 of a breakdown in discipline. But what we see of Charlie Company in the month of February, in the early weeks of March 1968, is a group of soldiers starting to unravel. So when they were charged with this operation to go into My Lai, which the military referred to as "Pinkville," tensions were very, very high.

Vietnamese villages are complexes of little hamlets and this village was, to the Vietnamese, known as Song My. My Lai was just one of several hamlets in Song My village.

In fact, everyone agrees that the first shots fired at My Lai were against an old man who was farming when the helicopters came in. He waved at them and they shot him. The fog of war is often invoked for what came after that. Maybe some soldiers heard shots and interpreted that as enemy fire. But they basically moved the 150 meters from the landing zone into the village and continued firing at any Vietnamese person they saw.

At one point, a large group of civilians was gathered into the irrigation ditch, about 170 people. Calley told them, told some of his soldiers to "take care of them." So these guys are standing there watching these villagers, and Calley came back after a while and said, "I thought I told you to take care of them," and they said, "We're watching them, we're guarding them." And he said, "No, I meant kill them."

There was one instance where a helicopter landed and interceded. There was a helicopter piloted by a man named Hugh Thompson and he had a good view of what was going on underneath him. And he saw American soldiers shooting at women and children and he landed near the ditch and put his ship in between American guns and Vietnamese civilians. He managed to pick up around 20 people and loaded them on his helicopter and carried them to safety.

A turning point in the Vietnam War took place in January or February of 1968 with the Tet Offensive. Anti-war sentiment in the United States was swelling in late 1967 and to try and keep a lid on opposition sentiment, President Johnson and his administration embarked on a kind of pep talk campaign for the American people. The message to the American people was that we've almost got the communists licked and this war is almost over.

The enemy in fact was laying in wait and so January 31st, 1968, the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies launched a massive, country-wide assault on both American and South Vietnamese military and government installations. And the hope of the enemy with this offensive was that the people would join them and rise up, a mass uprising to evict what they saw as this American invader in their country.

So, the American people, having just been told that the war is almost over, are now treated on the nightly news to images of fighting in the American embassy compound in Saigon, to images of great carnage at the Marine Base at Queshan, at the imperial city of Hue. People are thinking, this war is not over. We've been lied to. We've been had. And public opinion started to tank.

In Vietnam, this really unnerved American soldiers. And the knowledge that the enemy had been able to orchestrate this offensive without any awareness on the part of the United States was deeply disturbing to soldiers who were trusting that the guys in charge know what they're doing.

They were enduring very harsh conditions in terms of rain and mud and sleeping outside and not eating hot meals. And they were experiencing casualties, but not casualties due to enemy engagement. They were getting picked off by snipers or by booby traps or by injuries. And there's a great sense of frustration that they can't find the enemy. They don't have anybody to blame.

The 1st Platoon, and perhaps the company as a whole, were not particularly well led. There's evidence from February 1968 of a breakdown in discipline. But what we see of Charlie Company in the month of February, in the early weeks of March 1968, is a group of soldiers starting to unravel. So when they were charged with this operation to go into My Lai, which the military referred to as "Pinkville," tensions were very, very high.

Vietnamese villages are complexes of little hamlets and this village was, to the Vietnamese, known as Song My. My Lai was just one of several hamlets in Song My village.

In fact, everyone agrees that the first shots fired at My Lai were against an old man who was farming when the helicopters came in. He waved at them and they shot him. The fog of war is often invoked for what came after that. Maybe some soldiers heard shots and interpreted that as enemy fire. But they basically moved the 150 meters from the landing zone into the village and continued firing at any Vietnamese person they saw.

At one point, a large group of civilians was gathered into the irrigation ditch, about 170 people. Calley told them, told some of his soldiers to "take care of them." So these guys are standing there watching these villagers, and Calley came back after a while and said, "I thought I told you to take care of them," and they said, "We're watching them, we're guarding them." And he said, "No, I meant kill them."

There was one instance where a helicopter landed and interceded. There was a helicopter piloted by a man named Hugh Thompson and he had a good view of what was going on underneath him. And he saw American soldiers shooting at women and children and he landed near the ditch and put his ship in between American guns and Vietnamese civilians. He managed to pick up around 20 people and loaded them on his helicopter and carried them to safety.

Any soldier who was there that day would have had the ability to write a complaint or to let someone in authority know what had happened. Hugh Thompson was the only one who did. He spoke with his chaplain with the understanding that the chaplain would follow this up the chain of command. The chaplain in this case dropped the ball and didn't pursue it.

Thompson also spoke with Colonel Henderson, Lieutenant Colonel Barker's superior officer, and nothing official was done about the accusations. In fact, there was a great deal of effort to cover up what had happened. The official report sent up the chain of command said that 128 enemy combatants had been killed in combat at My Lai and that three weapons had been captured.

The person who actually made the effort to tell the story wasn't even there. There was a soldier named Ron Ridenhour who was serving in Vietnam. He was not in Taskforce Barker. He had nothing to do with the incident at My Lai in March 1968.

Ridenhour was really troubled by it and so he started to seek out other men from the company to find out what happened. As a result of his own informal investigation, he starts to hear that the first guy's story is being corroborated down to the finest details.

And so in March of 1969, he writes a letter to his congressman who had just come out against the war. And he also sends copies of the letter to military and government officials, other congressmen, senators, the president, senior officials in the Pentagon. And so in April of 1969, the Army launches a preliminary inquiry.

Details about what Calley did started to come out in November of '69. The rumors were starting to emerge that a massacre had taken place, that perhaps hundreds of Vietnamese civilians had been killed by American soldiers. And I think people didn't want to believe that it was true.

Anything that makes it into Life Magazine is kind of a big deal. And so you're flipping through your Life Magazine, having heard these rumors or read a newspaper article or two about this Calley guy, and suddenly you turn the page and there, in Technicolor, is a pile of bodies. A pile of Vietnamese women and children. There's one photograph in particular that's become iconic of the My Lai massacre and it is of this pile of people in a road. On the top of the pile is a baby, a little, naked baby, with its bottom facing up. It's really hard to understand why the baby needed to be shot.

So the photographs pretty much silenced the naysayers who said this was a rumor. This was definitive proof, vindication for Vietnamese people who knew that this had happened. And it became the biggest story of the day, which is quite an amazing thing given that the war itself was incredibly controversial. Given that atrocities committed by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese army had recently been unearthed in the city of Hue in Vietnam. It reignited anti-war sentiment. So what ensued then was the release of a lot of detail as the trials were underway and publicized with updates day in and day out. The people who cheered William Calley had seen those photographs and they had seen the interviews with the perpetrators and they had seen interviews with the victims in My Lai. And they had read the testimony in court. They knew what they were cheering.

Eventually, the charges that came down were charges of murder against William Calley. I think he was charged with over a hundred murders because of the incident at the ditch where he ordered his men to kill. And then there actually came a moment where his soldiers refused to continue because there were only children left and Calley took one of their rifles and "finished the job."

Calley's trial drew a tremendous focus and part of it was because of the defense that he used. He did not deny that he had done these things. In fact, he testified rather proudly about his conduct at My Lai. The Army law is the Uniform Code of Military Justice, says that soldiers have to follow orders and if in a combat or a wartime situation, they don't follow orders, that is a treasonable offense. So the defense went something like this: Calley was given these orders and under penalty of being shot or being prosecuted, he had to follow through. But the Uniform Code of Military Justice says that soldiers are not under any obligation to follow unlawful orders. So the question then becomes whether or not Calley and his men understood that the orders to kill unarmed civilians, women and children, were unlawful.

When I've used images like this or images of propaganda, I have them just work through the story. I think students sometimes are reluctant to just tell a narrative, where they think that somehow they're supposed to be offering some incredibly complicated insight. And, so, if you just have students answer the question, what is going on here, what do you see, they can collectively start to put it together. I see people about to fall off a cliff, or people celebrating.

He gives us this maw in the ground, this sense of divide, that there's one figure on one side and that there's another group of people on another side. They will, I think, arrive, at some sense of division, and that's a great starting point for understanding what happened to the American public during the Vietnam War.

There are clues that Conrad gives us. "The My Lai ditch claims another victim," so obviously this space that he's drawing represents the My Lai ditch. It's not any ordinary ditch. It's this iconic image of the 20th century, and Lt. Calley, his name as well is spelled out. He is not an anonymous person.

I would look at an image like this as a starting place and as a launching point to get students interested in a really complicated story. You can engage so many facets of the Vietnam War, you can talk about the actual incident at My Lai, you can talk about the trial, public reaction to the trial.

The image of the ditch and the incident at My Lai lends itself to a discussion of American strategy there, but I think what it ultimately arrives at is questions of the ethics, of who's responsible and which version of the story American wants to claim. And if students are conflicted I think that's okay. Anyone who has too definitive a perspective on My Lai isn't really paying attention.

I think Conrad would agree with me because he's targeting not the people who are confused, he's not criticizing the people who are sorting through, he's criticizing the people who are cheering and celebrating and are taking this singular one-sided view of the event.

Using Facebook to Engage with Historical Figures

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Sara Romeyn, social studies department chair at Bullis School, MD, teaches AP U.S. History to high-school juniors. In this video (2 min. 47 sec. long), she describes a project in which her students used Facebook to report on early 19th-century reform and political figures. Instead of researching and using the collected information to write reports, students created Fan pages, hosting albums of images related to their figures, detailed biographies, and continual status updates written "in character." At the conclusion of the project, students gathered for a 45-minute "virtual salon," viewing and commenting on each other's pages.

Students involved in the project demonstrated continual engagement, updating their pages and interacting with others' pages over weekends and after school. Romeyn has since repeated and improved on the project, asking students to use Google Maps to pinpoint locations important to their historical figures and Survey Monkey to poll other students' historical figures on controversial issues important to their lives.

Check out an example of one student's project, on DeWitt Clinton.

NOTE: In order to view the video, you must be on a computer that has YouTube access.

Using Visuals to Build Interest and Understanding

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For more information

Kathryn Lindholm-Leavy and Graciela Borsato, “Academic Achievement,” in F. Genesee (Ed.), Educating English language learners (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 192.

Cruz & Thornton, "Social Studies for English Language Learners: Teaching Social Studies that Matters," Social Education, in press.

See Cruz & Thornton book, 2009; see also, Jennifer Truran Rothwell, History Making and the Plains Indians, Social Education, 61, no. 1, pp., 4-9, 1996.

Teaching history to English Language Learners poses special challenges owing to its conceptual density and assumed cultural knowledge. It seems obvious that ELLS need additional support and materials to understand content, yet many social studies classrooms are ill-stocked in this regard.

Here we outline how visuals can help ELLs build interest and understanding.

Rationale