• What changes occurred in the United States during the period of industrialization before the Civil War? Do the changes that occurred in the lives of Americans from about 1790 to 1860 suggest a revolutionary or evolutionary process?

After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to do the following:

• Cite examples of change in the lives of Americans during the era of the First Industrial Revolution
• Discuss positive and negative effects of early industrialization on the lives of Americans
• Take a stand as to whether the early period of industrialization should be considered a revolution based on evidence from first-hand accounts

• 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 set of worksheets, Americans at Work, available here as a PDF. Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class.
• For background information on the First Industrial Revolution, consult the following EDSITEment resources:
  • From American Studies at the University of Virginia
    • Chapter V of American System of Manufactures, by John Sawyer
• This lesson features 23 potential role assignments, first-hand accounts through which students enter the lives of working Americans. Having many assignments allows flexibility—some can be assigned to individuals, others to pairs or small groups. Two assignments (17 and 18) require little reading but do offer the opportunity to gather information and make conclusions. Students must judge whether or not an account indicates dramatic, rapid change. It is not expected or essential that every article be covered. Students should read the introductions to the passages, when present, as they are useful.
  
  A chart is provided for students to use in compiling notes and coming to conclusions on the cases of six individuals. This handout could also be adapted to suit your own individual classroom goals. Decide how students will be assigned (or choose) cases on which to take notes.
  
  It should be noted that there is a built-in bias in the readings in that totally contented workers would be less likely to compose some of the kinds of first-hand accounts offered here. Stress to the students the need to look for indicators of change when arriving at conclusions for the central question, "Was the First American Industrial Revolution really a revolution?" Dissatisfaction, while often widespread in times of rapid change, should not by itself be taken to signify evidence of change in the absence of other evidence. The chart does dedicate some space to quality of life issues, which are interesting and can be discussed as desired.
• For further reading, consult the Recommended Reading List provided here as a PDF.

• Activity 1. Reading First-Hand Accounts
• Activity 2. Role Playing and Class Interviews
• Activity 3. Drawing Conclusions

Activity 1. Reading First-Hand Accounts

In this activity, students will read "First-hand Accounts from the Industrial Revolution" on pages 1-4 of the PDF (see Preparation for download instructions), which detail experiences of individuals during the period of early industrialization in the U.S. Depending on your class, these passages can be assigned to individuals, pairs, or small groups. After the passages have been carefully read, one student will play the role listed while being interviewed by class members.

Activity 2. Role Playing and Class Interviews

For each reading assigned, one student will be interviewed briefly by the class. Answers must come from the article or be reasonable extensions of it. The interview subject can pass on some questions. Interviewees should be introduced according to the role they have been assigned. Questions should focus on that role. As the interviews are conducted, students can fill out the chart "The Lives of Americans During the First Industrial Revolution" on page 5 of the PDF (see Preparing to Teach This Lesson for download instructions).

Activity 3. Drawing Conclusions

What conclusions have the students drawn? Based on the interviews and other knowledge of the period students have gained, were working Americans living in a period of dramatic and rapid economic change? Was the First American Industrial Revolution really a revolution? If desired, let any disagreement among students lead to a class debate.

• Conduct any of the lessons from Unit Two: Early Industrialization, outlined in the EDSITEment resource Whole Cloth, including the game "Industrial Life."
• Students can use narrative and descriptive strategies to create lively accounts of the lives of American workers during the Industrial Revolution based on the first-hand accounts.
• Students can further explore the United States Historical Census Browser, available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website History Matters.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• American Memory
  
  • Emergence of Advertising in America
  • Timeline: Emergence of Advertising in America
  • Anesthesia (1941 or 1942)
  • Boiler (1942)
  • Compass (1943)
  • Cotton Gin (1938)
  • Microscope (1943)
  • Plow Between (1945 and 1982)
  • Printing Press (Between 1930 and 1950)
  • Reaper/Harvester (1936)
  • Rotary Press (1944)
  • Steamboat (Between 1930 and 1950)
  • Telegraph (1942)
  • Train (Steam Engine) (Between 1930 and 1950)
  • Transit 1939
• American Studies at the University of Virginia
  
  • American System of Manufactures
  • Smithsonian National Museum of American History
  • 19th Century Fashion and the Sewing Machine
  • American Westward Migration
  • Belter Sidechair
  • Boiler of the Stourbridge Lion 1829
  • Color Daguerreotypes
  • Description of First Run/Significance of the Stourbridge Lion
  • Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin
  • Engines of Change
  • First mass-produced American stopwatch
  • First Pocket Watch Made By Production Machinery (1852)
  • First Successful Commercial Microscope (1850s) … In The United States
  • History of the Telegraph
  • Hoe Four-Cylinder Rotary Press 1843
  • Howe's Sewing Machine Patent Model
  • Image of an early version of inline skates
  • Isaac Singer
  • John Bull Locomotive
  • John Deere Plow 1830s
  • John Henry Belter
  • Mill
  • Oldest Extant Surveyor's Transit (1830s)
  • One of the First Operational Steam Vessels in the United States Navy. Completed In 1841
  • Photo Micrograph
  • Pivotal Typecaster
  • Samuel Morse
  • Sewing Machines
  • Solar Compass (1840s)
  • Steam Locomotive
  • Text about the skates
  • Wolcott Camera
• At Home in the Heartland
  
  • Newspaper Ads from 1840 (Alton Telegraph, Illinois)
  • At Home: 1800: Clues to the Past -- Geo. L. Ward
  • At Home: 1800: Clues to the Past -- Iron Goods
  • At Home: 1800: Clues to the Past -- Stoves
• History Matters
  
  • David Johnson Recalls the Shoemakers' Shops of Lynn, Massachusetts
  • "Factories are talked about as schools of vice: Elias Nason Considers Careers"
  • "The Happiest Laboring Class in the World: Two Virginia Slaveholders Debate Methods of Slave Management, 1837"
  • "I Must of Course Have Something of My Own Before Many More Years Have Passed Over My Head: Sally Rice Leaves the Farm," 1838 by Sally Rice
  • I Was a Cabinet Maker by Trade, 1825-1835
  • Lowell Girls Go on Strike, 1836
  • Manager N. B. Gordon Tends to the Union Cotton and Woolen Manufactory in Mansfield, Massachusetts, 1829
  • "The Natural Tie Between Master and Apprentice has been Rent Asunder: An Old Apprentice Laments Changes in the Workplace," 1826
  • The Canal Boat: Nathaniel Hawthorne Travels the Erie Canal (1835)
  • "No One Ever Hurried During 'Cake-time': Work and Leisure a New York Shipyard," 1835
  • "So Cheapened the White Man's Labor: White Artisans Contest the Labor of Black Workers," 1838
  • "They Must Work Harder Than Ever: A Working Man Remembers Life in New York City," 1830s
  • "The Treatment of the Help in Those Days Was Cruel: Hiram Munger Remembers Factory Life" by Hiram Munger (early 19th century)
  • "We Call on You to Deliver Us from the Tyrant's Chain: Lowell Women Workers Campaign for a Ten-Hour Workday" (circa 1845)
  • "Are We Nothing But Living Machines? A New York Sewing Woman Protests Wages and Working Conditions," 1863
  • "Elevate Us to a Free and Independent Position: William J. Brown (a free black) Looks for Work," 1831
  • Liberty Rhetoric and 19th Century Women
  • Drawing of a Mill Girl, from the Cover of the Lowell Offering, 1840
  • Fabric Label for Merrimack Power Loom Jeans Yardage, c. 1830
  • Timetable of the Lowell Mills
  • Tintype of Two Woman Weavers, 1860 (Merrimack Valley Textile Museum)
  • Title Page of the Lowell Offering, 1840
  • Life on the Farm
  • United States Historical Census Browser
• Internet Medieval History Sourcebook
  
  • Internet Modern History Sourcebook
  • Lowell Mill Girls (1832-1848)
  • The Two Countries That Invented the Industrial Revolution
• Internet Public Library
  
  • The American Experience
  • Anesthesia
  • Cotton Gin
  • McCormick Reaper
  • Sewing Machine
  • Steam Engine
  • Technology Timeline
  • Telegraph
• Links to the Past
  • National Park Service
  • John J. Hall at Harper's Ferry
• Whole Cloth
  
  • Alexander Telfair, "Plantation Rules," from Ulrich Phillips, ed., Plantation and Frontier, Volume 1 (New York, Burt Frantlin, 1910)
  • Plantation Management, De Bow's xiv (February 1853): 177-8
  • Regulations to Be Observed by All Individuals Employed in the Lewiston Mills
  • Unit Two: Early Industrialization
  • Tsongas Industrial History Center (NOTE: According to the Resources Section of Whole Cloth, the Tsongas Center is an interactive
    museum about the Industrial Revolution, geared for students in grades 4-12.)
  • Curriculum Materials Page
  • "Workers on the Line"