Lesson Plan: Day 10

  

Grade: _11_

Unit: The Rise and Fall of a Textile Empire:  Lowell, Ma 1820-1861

 

 

Goal (enduring understanding):

 

Massachusetts has a rich history.  Among one of the many events of historical significance is Lowell’s rise as a textile manufacturing empire, leading to the birth of the American Industrial Revolution.

 

The Civil War economically devastated the Southern states while the Northern states prospered.  Lowell was an exception because the supply of raw cotton stopped coming from the war torn south.

 

 

Essential Question(s):

 

Did the Lowell experiment fail?  Why?

 

Did the Civil War have a positive or negative impact on Lowell?  Why?

 

Does Lowell Deserve to be the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution?

 

Development and selection of activities and resources:

 

  • Finish group PowerPoint presentations
  • Go over list of economic terms from the Boott Mills
  • Brief lecture on the impact the Civil War had on the decline of textile factories in Lowell and the new waves of factory workers
  • Hand out performance assessment

 

Content:

 

  • Background on Lowell just prior and during the Civil War
  • Background on the immigrant workers that followed the Mill Girls in the factories

 

 

Curriculum Standard:

 

Economic Growth in the North and South, 1800-1860

 

USI.26 Explain the importance of the Transportation Revolution of the 19th century (the building of canals, roads, bridges, turnpikes, steamboats, and railroads), including the stimulus it provided to the growth of a market economy. (H, E)

 

USI.27 Explain the emergence and impact of the textile industry in New England and industrial growth generally throughout antebellum America. (H, E)

a. The technological improvements and inventions that contributed to industrial growth

b. The causes and impact of the wave of immigration from Northern Europe to America in the1840s and 1850s

 

c. The rise of a business class of merchants and manufacturers

 

d. The roles of women in New England textile factories

 

History and Geography

 

5. Explain how a cause and effect relationship is different from a sequence or correlation of events. (H, C, E)

 

6. Distinguish between long-term and short-term cause and effect relationships. (H, G, C, E)

 

7. Show connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical events and ideas and larger social, economic, and political trends and developments. (H, G, C, E)

 

 

Assignment:

 

In your journals answer the following question:

 

Does Lowell deserve to be the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution?  Has your answer changed from the beginning of the unit?  Why or why not?  Please use examples from your notes, projects, exhibits, etc.

 

 

 

How will the essential question be assessed?

 

  • Informal assessment will take place during class discussion
  • Formal assessment will take place by student journal