Essay Question: American power would not exist without the factory production capacity developed through the Industrial Revolution.Europe also underwent an Industrial Revolution as well.First, Great Britain and then the rest of Western Europe followed.Examine the development of industrialization in Europe and the United States by the 1850s and complete a detailed comparative analysis of both regions.Be sure to include the political and economic effects of industrialization.
Project Based Lesson: Life in the Lowell Factories Students will assume the roles of owner, manager, foreman, skilled craftsman, unskilled floor worker and will choose the following assignments: role playing factory work on the floor of the textile mills, writing a newspaper account for and against working conditions, painting the conditions, labor and individuals of the factories and writing a series of diary entries based on women factory workers.
Readings/Internet: Accounts from women in the Lowell factories, Labor issues in the 1830s in the United States, the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
Links Lesson: 1) Divided page of inventions made by Americans before the Civil War, 2) Compare and Contrast chart between economic expansion in ante-bellum America and the technology-generated Internet economic boom of the 1990s, and 3) Cause and Effect chart of the growth of the middle class in ante-bellum America
Essential Questions: 1) Can a society be politically, economically and socially equal at the same time? 2) How, in the history of America, have control of natural or produced resources changed policy? 3) What is the best working relationship between worker and owner? 4) What is the relationship between capitalism and technological innovation? 5) Have the effects of industrialization had a positive or negative impact on American society?
Identification Terms
Plantations
Plantations
Plantations
Plantations
Plantations
Lowell Mills
Lowell Mills
Lowell Mills
Lowell Mills
Lowell Mills
Cotton Exports
Cotton Exports
Cotton Exports
Cotton Exports
Cotton Exports
Steamboats
Steamboats
Steamboats
Steamboats
Steamboats
Railroads
Railroads
Railroads
Railroads
Railroads
Telegraph
Telegraph
Telegraph
Telegraph
Telegraph
Short Answer Questions
1.What are the strengths & weaknesses of both the plantation and factory system as far as profits, conditions & wages are concerned?
2.Is the economic stratification of society an effect of market capitalism or a natural condition of social organization?Explain fully.
3.Did the Lowell Factory system represent a symbol of the new industrial labor force or was it an exception?Fully explain why.
4.Describe the role of technological innovation in transportation during this period and its impact on American business & society.
5.In what ways did either Chicago/New York symbolize a changing America labor force and social structure?In what ways didnt they?
6.How did communication affect the evolution of business and society in America in the pre-Civil War period? Explain fully.
7.What was the political, economic and social impact of the Irish Potato Famine on American society and business during the 1850s?
8.As far as competing economic systems were concerned, describe the strengths & weaknesses of Adam Smiths & Karl Marxs ideas.
9.Describe the struggle of both workers and management in labor conflicts involving workers organizing for their economic rights.
10. How did the development of agricultural technical innovations impact American society in the period before the Civil War?
