and Labor
What are the human costs and benefits of industrialization?
OVERVIEW
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and Labor What are the human costs and benefits of industrialization? OVERVIEW |
| Overview
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Where are we going?
According to historian Milton Melzer, the war that freed the slaves transformed the nation's industrial life. More than a million dollars a day were spent on ammunition, weapons, machinery, clothing, boots, shoes, and canned goods. Old factories were remade and giant new ones sprang up, using faster, better methods of manufacture. Thousands of miles of railroads and telegraph wires laced the country together. The returned soldiers became an army of volunteers in the industrial revolution. Along with new immigrants, they swept over the prairies and mountains, digging out the iron ore, the coal and the oil, the silver and the gold. They manned the machines of countless new industries. Looking at it from the outside, it was a great victory for humankind. Human labor and inventiveness had created machines to conquer the forces of nature, What would the new industrial system mean for the industrialists? For the working men and women? What changes would it make in American life? How would it benefit the country? What would it cost? Our next area of focus in Humanities will be Industrialization and Labor, emphasizing the period between 1865 and 1915, but making connections to more contemporary events and issues, as well. Throughout the unit, we will explore an essential question: What are the human costs and benefits of industrialization? How will we get there? Our study of these ideas will take us to various sources, including your textbook, the Internet, primary documents and interpretive commentaries, art, literature and film. You will read The Jungleby Upton Sinclair, have seminars on excerpts and articles from your Industrialization and Labor Reader and keep an interactive notebook in which you record and reflect on your learning. [Note: During this unit, you will also be learning the Jane Shaffer method of writing an essay.] How will we know when we've arrived? As a culminating project, you will research and take on the role of an historical figure who was an industrialist, a labor leader or a reformer. Adopting this role, you will participate with other historical figures in a symposium which will address contemporary issues involving industry and labor. After the symposium, you will write an essay which addresses the essential question. Finally, you will complete a multiple-choice assessment of unit knowledge. |