United States History: 1877 to the Present

Reshaping the Nation and the Emergence of Modern America: 1877 to the Early 1900s

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Begin the unit with some questions: why did immigration increase, why did cities develop, what inventions created great change and industrial growth in the United States, and what challenges faced Americans as a result of those social and technological changes.
• Explain that as population changed, growth of cities, and new inventions produced interaction and often conflict between different cultural groups.
• Explain that population changes, growth of cities, and new inventions produced problems in urban areas.
• Explain that inventions had both positive and negative effects on society.
• Reasons for increased immigration included the following:
  • Hope for better opportunities
  • Religious freedom
  • Escape from oppressive governments
  • Adventure
• Reasons why cities developed included the following:
  • Specialized industries, including steel (Pittsburgh) and meat packing (Chicago)
  • Immigration from other countries
  • Movement of Americans from rural to urban areas for job opportunities
• Inventions that contributed to great change and industrial growth included the following:
  • Lighting and mechanical uses of electricity (Thomas Edison)
  • Telephone service (Alexander Graham Bell)
• Introduce this session by showing students a contemporary political cartoon. Have the class analyze the cartoon to ascertain its meaning. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at http://www.archives.gov/index.html has a worksheet to help students understand political cartoons.
• Show students some period political cartoons that reflect attitudes toward increased immigration at the turn-of-the-century. Sources for historical cartoons can be found at Cartoons of Thomas Nast: Reconstruction, Chinese Immigration, Native Americans, Gilded Age, http://www.csubak.edu/~gsantos/cat15.html, and Views of Immigrants: The Ram's Horn, http://history.osu.edu/Projects/Rams_Horn/Views_of_Immigrants.html. Have students, working in small groups or as a whole group, analyze the cartoons, using the worksheet from the National Archives or a teacher-generated worksheet with questions that are specific to a particular cartoon.
• After the analysis is finished, help students make some generalizations regarding discrimination against immigrants. Include the concepts of racism, anti-Semitism, and the fact that in slow economic times, immigrants are seen as a threat to employment. Below are some sample questions to help students make such generalizations:
  • What are some positive points regarding immigrants in the cartoons?
  • What are some negative points regarding immigrants in the cartoons?
  • What general attitudes, as shown in these cartoons, did Americans have on increased immigration during this period?
  • How might these attitudes have differed among different groups, such as businessmen, workers, social reformers, and politicians?
  • How are these attitudes concerning immigration in the early 1900s similar to and/or different from attitudes regarding immigration today? Use some contemporary cartoons to illustrate attitudes today.
• Have students create their own political cartoons that express opinions regarding immigration at the turn of the twentieth century or contemporary attitudes towards immigration.
• Share an example of a letter written in the late 19th century by a recently arrived immigrant (see U.S. Postal Museum resources listed in materials list above). Ask students to note what they can learn historically from reading the letter. Have them also note the level of emotion in the letter.
• Have students assume the identity of a recently arrived U.S. immigrant in this time period and compose a letter to a relative back in the "old country." Have them include information related to the boat trip from the old country, living and working conditions in their new home, job opportunities they may have found, and some of the other people they have encountered. Allow students to use the information they have gathered from previous sessions.
• A sample grading rubric can be used. For the Thoughts of a New Immigrant grading ruberic, CLICK HERE.
• Discuss the origin and ethnicity of students' last names. Explain to students how all Americans, with the exception of American Indians (First Americans), are immigrants to this country. This introduction also permits a brief discussion of immigration patterns over time.
• Using the Ellis Island: Through America's Gateway Web site at http://www.internationalchannel.com/education/ellis/, take students on a virtual tour of the museum. Give students the Ellis Island Virtual Tour worksheet to use as a guide. (Note: This worksheet is a sample and will need to be expanded by the teacher.) For a copy of the Ellis Island Virtual Tour worksheet,
• Explain that rapid industrialization and urbanization led to overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods and tenements.
• Discuss efforts to solve immigration problems such as:
  • Settlement houses, such as Hull House founded by Jane Addams
  • Political machines that gained power by attending to the needs of new immigrants (e.g., jobs, housing)
• Ask students what they think society should expect of state and local government, and list these on the board as they are offered. Then, have students read in their text about the political machines that dominated major urban areas in post-Civil War America. NOTE: You may need to provide additional notes on this topic.
• Have the students read a short selection from Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. Note: Chapters 1 and 23 are the best examples of the workings of a political machine. Help the students define and understand the terms ward boss and Tammany Hall. Prompt a class discussion with questions that relate to the primary duties of a ward boss and how political machines operated within a city.
• Share some dissenting opinions regarding political machines. A sample of these can be found in the article "Urban Political Machines" at http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us28.cfm. Help students understand both the positives and the negatives of political machines.
• Use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast "Positive Actions of Urban Political Machines" vs. "Negative Actions of Urban Political Machines." Have students replicate the diagram in their notebook for future reference. Review the posted student observations regarding society's expectations of state and local governments. Have they changed since the turn of the twentieth century? If so, how? How do these changes help make government less corrupt?
• Explain that interaction and conflict between different cultural groups resulted in the following:
  • Indian policies and wars
    • Reservations
    • Battle of Little Bighorn
    • Chief Joseph
  • Discrimination against immigrants
    • Chinese
    • Irish

WEB SITES

http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/?article=cohn.immigration.us
Immigration in the United States

http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/pitts.htm
History of the economy of Pittsburgh

http://www.thomasedison.com/
Thomas Edison home page

http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/inventor/edison.html
Thomas Edison as a scientist and inventor

http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/inventor/bell.html
Alexander Graham Bell

http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/albell/homepage.html
Alexander Graham Bell's path to the telephone

http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/ja_bio.html
Biography of Jane Addams

http://www.hullhouse.org/
Jane Addams Hull House

http://www.connerprairie.org/HistoryOnline/policy.html
American Indian policies

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/west/indian.html
American Indian policies in the late 1800s

http://www.nps.gov/libi/
Little Big Horn Battlefield

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm
Battle of Little Big Horn

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/chiefjoseph.htm
Chief Joseph

http://www2.gsu.edu/~eslmlm/chiefjoseph.html
Biography of Chief Joseph

Copyright ©2008 Prince William Network/Virginia Department of Education