Subject Areas |
History and Social Studies
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U.S. History - Civics and U.S. Government |
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U.S. History - Other |
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World History - Human Rights |
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Time Required |
| Three or four class sessions |
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Skills |
| Using primary sources
Collaboration
Supporting a position with specific evidence
Conducting research online
Writing a position paper |
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Additional Data |
| Date Created: 10/02/02 |
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Date Posted |
| 10/2/2002 |
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The Industrial Age in America: Sweatshops, Steel Mills, and Factories
IntroductionAbout a century has passed since
the events at the center of this lesson—the Haymarket Affair, the Homestead Strike,
and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. For some people in our nation, these
incidents illustrated the unfair conditions faced by workers as the United States
assumed its position as the most highly industrialized nation in the world. For
others, they demonstrated the difficulty of managing industries. Such disagreements
continue to this day. Where do we draw the line between acceptable business practices
and unacceptable working conditions? Can an industrial—and indeed a post-industrial—economy
succeed without taking advantage of those who do the work? Note:
This lesson may be taught either as a stand-alone lesson or as a complement to
another EDSITEment lesson The
Industrial Age in America: Robber Barons and Captains of Industry. Guiding
Questions:What were working conditions like during
the Age of Industrialization? How did workers respond to these conditions? Where
do we draw the line between acceptable business practices and unacceptable working
conditions? Learning ObjectivesAfter
completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to: - List some
actions, both positive and negative, of the managers and workers involved in the
incidents studied.
- Discuss the working conditions that led to the Haymarket
Affair, the Homestead Strike, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
- Discuss
the significance of the featured events to the labor movement, the industrialists
involved, and the attitude of the American people toward working conditions in
the United States.
- Take a stand on sweatshops today, supported with evidence.
Preparing to Teach this Lesson- Review
the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites.
Download and print out selected documents and duplicate copies as necessary for
student viewing.
- Download the Labor
Events Chart, available as a PDF file. Print out and make an appropriate number
of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class.
- For concise background
information on the featured labor actions, consult the following resources:
Suggested
Activities
1. Background on
the Industrial Age 2. Workers
Respond 3. Sweatshops Today 1.
Background on the Industrial Age If necessary,
review with your class the historical context in which the labor actions at the
center of this lesson occurred. Use your class text or other classroom resources,
or refer to either or both of the following interactive timelines available on
the EDSITEment-reviewed website Learner.org:
Read with—or to—your class Riis
the Reformer and The
Gilded Age on the PBS website Learning
Adventures in Citizenship, a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library, and, if possible, share some of the images and the video.
Discuss the income and lifestyle disparities illustrated by these two articles.
What were some of the indications of poverty Riis noted? What specifics does "The
Gilded Age" article offer as evidence of the wealth of the industrialists? As
they continue to learn more about the Age of Industrialization, ask students to
think about the following: - Was the income disparity noted in the two articles
the norm? Is great income disparity part of the process when a nation is undergoing
rapid economic growth?
- Is there sufficient evidence to dispel the notion
that "the poor were lazy and deserved their fate?"
- Did the enormous wealth
earned by the "captains of industry" eventually benefit everyone through their
investments in new factories and their charitable donations?
- Were workers
better off in the Industrial Age than they had been before? Did the benefits of
industrialization eventually improve the lot of workers? Did benefits come to
workers through the actions of the industrialists or through the efforts of the
workers themselves or both?
Though not the specific focus of this lesson,
students might also have an interest in viewing archival photos of children at
work, an unregulated practice before 1906--and one that was not completely outlawed
until 1938. The photographs below offer an opportunity for students to consider
how the growth of documentary photography affected reform efforts at the end of
the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. One of the greatest crusaders
against child labor was Lewis Hine. Just as Riis had used compelling and sometimes
shocking photographs to provoke a public response to the conditions of tenement
dwellers, Hine used images to make a vivid case against the use of child labor:The
National Child Labor Committee campaigned for tougher state and federal laws against
the abuses of industrial child labor, and Lewis Hine was its greatest publicist.
A teacher who left his profession to work full-time as investigator for the committee,
Hine prepared a number of the Committee's reports and took some of the most powerful
images in the history of documentary photography —From American
Treasures of the Library of Congress, a link from the EDSITEment resource
American Memory In
his report "Child Labor in the Cotton Mills of Mississippi" (1911), Hines noted
that he had taken pictures of "most of the youngest workers," as well as older
workers under sixteen who worked 60 hours a week instead of 63 1/2, "reduced hours"
compared to adults. Hine's colleague, Edward F. Brown, in his report "Child Labor
in the Gulf Coast" (1913), identified 26 children from ages 7 to 14 (including,
for example, six 10-year-olds and five 12-year-olds) working at one oyster factory
at 4:45 a.m. Share with the class some of
Hine's photos, including the following, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website
American Memory: How old are the
workers in the pictures? Do the students believe they were able to put in a good
day's work? Were they likely paid a fair wage? Why do you think these children
and young people were working or allowed to work? Now
share with the class both Hine's and Brown's comments regarding these documentary
photos, and consider how Hine and Brown might have answered the questions above.
Child
Labor in the Cotton Mills of Mississippi
Child Labor
in the Gulf Coast.
After
they have read and discussed these comments, ask students to think about their
earlier response to Hine's photographs and to consider the following questions:
How might Brown and Hine have responded to the same pictures? Why might their
responses differ from yours? How does the effect of Hine's photographs compare
with that of Riis the Reformer's? 2.
Workers Respond Divide the class into
three student groups (or six, if you'd like each labor incident to be covered
by two groups). Assign one of the historical incidents below to each group. Distribute
to the groups the "Labor Events
Chart" on page 1 of the PDF file (see Preparing to Teach
This Lesson, above, for download instructions). Using the following resources
and/or any other approved sources available in your classroom or online, each
group should fill in the chart for their assigned individual. Note:
The Haymarket Affair and the Homestead Strike were violent and the language from
both sides was inflammatory. Teachers should review all websites below before
sharing with students.) - Haymarket Affair,
1886-87 (NOTE: The specific documents listed below are particularly useful but
are by no means the only useful documents.)
- Homestead
Strike, 1892 (NOTE: The specific documents listed below are particularly useful
but are by no means the only useful documents.)
It shall be the rule
for the workman to be Partner with Capital, the man of affairs giving his business
experience, the working man in the mill his mechanical skill, to the company,
both owners of the shares and so far equally interested in the success of their
joint efforts. —Andrew Carnegie - From Andrew
Carnegie, the Richest Man in the World on The
American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library
- From the EDSITEment resource History
Matters
- The Musical
Saga of Homestead "Workers sang during strikes not only to state their beliefs
and goals, but because singing helped bind workers together. The Homestead strike
of 1892 even had its own Homestead Strike Songster, and the story of the strike
can be traced in the lyrics of the following four songs."
- "I
Will Kill Frick": Emma Goldman Recounts the Attempt to Assassinate the Chairman
of the Carnegie Steel Company During the: Homestead Strike in 1892 "Known
for his uncompromising and cruel tactics, Frick became an obvious target for labor
activists looking to make a statement during the protracted strike."
- Frick's
Fracas: Henry Frick Makes His Case "During the 1892 strike at the Homestead
Steel Works, plant manager Henry Clay Frick attempted to defeat the strikers forcibly
by hiring three hundred armed agents of the notorious Pinkerton Detective Agency.
The strikers fought back, and, after casualties and deaths on both sides, the
Pinkertons surrendered. In the aftermath of the Pinkerton debacle, Frick spoke
with a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post. He laid out his implacable opposition
to dealing with the union, his belief that the Pennsylvania governor should send
in troops, and his goal of reducing wages at the plant, the central issue in the
conflict. Frick argued that the Homestead owners were not allowed to reap the
fruits of their investment because of workers' inordinately high wage scales.
The union, on the other hand, claimed that the cost of producing steel at Homestead
was well below the industry standard, in large measure because the Homestead workers
had cooperated in the recent mechanization of the plant."
- Sweatshops
and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 1911 (NOTE: The specific documents listed below
are particularly useful but are by no means the only useful documents.)
When the groups are finished with their
research, have each present its findings to the class. Do students think workers
were justified in their actions? Were owners/managers? What lessons can be gleaned
from the situations studied? 3.
Sweatshops Today Contrary
to what you have heard, sweatshops in third-world countries are a good deal for
the people who work in them. Why? Because work, other than slave labor, is an
exchange. A worker chooses a particular job because she thinks herself better
off in that job than at her next-best alternative. Most of us would regard a low-paying
job in Nicaragua or Honduras as a lousy job. But we're not being asked to take
those jobs. Those jobs are the best options those workers have, or else they would
quit and work elsewhere… sweatshops are a normal step in economic development. —From
"The Case for Sweatshops" by David R. Henderson Hoover
Institution, a link from the Hoover
Presidential Library, administered by the National
Archives and Records Administration
As part of the Clinton/Gore
Administration's ongoing commitment to the improvement of working standards around
the world, the Departments of Treasury and State will announce two new initiatives
to protect workers, children, and families from abusive and unfair labor practices.
These two new initiatives represent important milestones in the President's leadership
on anti-child labor and sweatshop efforts… —The
White House, January 16th, 2001, housed at the National
Archives and Records Administration
Read
with—or to—your class the essay The
Case for Sweatshops, available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website
Digital Classroom.
Make sure the students understand the argument offered. Does that argument echo
ideas that were stated during any of the labor controversies studied in Part
2, above? Share with your class the following
two documents available through the EDSITEment-reviewed CongressLink:
the Washington
Post article about sweatshops on U.S. territory and the companies that use
them (one of many informative documents from U.S. Congressman George Miller's
Information on Sweatshops);
and the Garment Enforcement
Report October 1995 - March 1996 from the Department of Labor. Students can
also read Is
It Getting Better? on the Smithsonian
National Museum of American History, a link from the EDSITEment resource American
Studies at the University of Virginia. Do these documents echo any ideas that
were stated during the labor controversies studied in Part
2, above? Would students recommend that
sweatshops be abolished or supported? Have individuals or student groups compose
position papers, stating their stance with support from the materials reviewed
in this lesson. Extending the Lesson
Selected EDSITEment Websites
Standards Alignment
View your state’s standards
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