Our goal in designing this lesson was to use technology and the internet as a searchable resource where students
could formulate questions and find answers.  We wanted students to be able to understand how the Industrial Revolution represented a "new" way of life and society, rather than a cyclical return to the way things had been before.  We created the lesson to help students understand various groups perspectives on the Industrial Revolution through primary source investigation.  Our hope was that students would gain insight into the lives of women, children, factory workers, mine workers and factory owners during the Industrial Revolution.

Objectives:

1) Students should be able to cite the importance of the steam engine, the
cotton gin, and the steel making process.

2) Students should be able to describe conditions in the cities due to the
increased industrialization, the decline of the standard of living, and the
flight from rural to urban areas in all industrial countries.

3) Students should be able to explain how poor living conditions, and the
organization of disgruntled workers led to the development of labour unions.

4) Students will be expected to formulate at least 2 questions (from previous
reading and class notes/discussions) that they will be searching for when we
have time in the computer lab.

5) Students will be given a group that they will research and teach to the
class, manifesting in background knowledge of that group, and primary
sources.

Materials:
-A computer for each student or group of two students.
-Access to the internet and the website:  http://www.people.virginia.edu/~acj4e/industrialrevolution.html
-Individual handouts to guide the students through the resources devoted to individual groups.
-Follow up worksheets for each group to complete on their Industrial Revolution population.
-Large paper, colored pencils, scissors, photographs/images for the creation of student newspapers.

Procedure:
1) Divide the class into groups representing women, children, mine workers, factory workers and factory owners.

2) Give each student of pair of students the appropriate hanout to guide them through the resources devoted to their Industrial Revolution population (i.e. women, children, factory workers).

3) Access the website:  http://www.people.virginia.edu/~acj4e/industrialrevolution.html.

4) Students individually follow the links to the resources devoted to their Industrial Revolution group answering the questions on their handout as a guide through the primary sources.

5) Students convene in population groups back in the classroom, sharing information to complete the Industrial Revolution wrap-up worksheet.

6) Student findings on the various populations are presenting using one of the methods:  a) Each group presents their findings to the class,  b) Each student is assigned to a new group composed of one member of the women, children etc. groups and share findings or c) Class findings are compiled in a chart and distributed to each student.  (See link to our class student findings from the Wrap-Up Worksheet.)

7) In population groups students create the front page of a newspaper representing the interests of their group.  For example the women group would create a newspaper about women in the Industrial Revolution for other women in the Industrial Revolution.  The newspaper pages include four headlines, one picture with caption, a date, a city and a title. (Sample newspapers)

8)  Students collect a group where there is one person representing women, children, factory workers, factory owners, and mine workers.  (5 people per group)  In that group, design a tableau so that someone looking at the pictures can figure out what group you represented and the relationships between the other group members.

Evaluation: Each student is assessed individually on the worksheet they completed in the computer lab.  Groups are assessed on the group worksheet completed in the class and on their newspaper page.

Resources:

Background Information

Information on the life and inventions of James Watt
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6914/watte.htm

National Archives and Records Administration:  Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
http://www.nara.gov/education/cc/whitney.html

Information on Henry Bessemer
http://www.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/library/96jan/bessemer.html

Women

Women in World History Curriculum: Women's Work in the Early Industrial Revolution
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson7.html

Evidence presented before the Sadler Committee, 1832 Parliamentary Investigation into the conditions of textile workers
http://applebutter.freeservers.com/worker/index.html#sadler

Modern Internet History Sourcebook: Women Miners in the English Coal Pits
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1842womenminers.html

The Victorian Web
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/misc/search.html

Children

Spartacus Internet Encyclopedia: Child Labour
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRchild.htm

The Peel Web: Factory Page
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRchild.htm

The History Place:  Child Labor in America 1908-1912, the photos of Lewis Hine
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html

The Victorian Web
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/misc/search.html

Factory Owners

World History Archives:  Excerpt from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776)
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25/035.html

The Spartacus Internet Encyclopedia:  British History 1700-1900; Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/business.htm

The Peel Web: Factory Movement
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mbloy/peel/factopic.htm

PBS: The American Experience:  Andrew Carnegie
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/sfeature/mf_flames.html

The Illinois Labor History Society: Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848
http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/lowell.html

The Victorian Web
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/misc/search.html

Factory Workers

The Spartacus Internet Encyclopedia:  British History 1700-1900; The Textile Industry
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Textiles.htm

The Spartacus Internet Encyclopedia:  British History 1700-1900; The Textile Industry; The Trade Union Movement
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TU.htm

The Peel Web: Factory Movement
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mbloy/peel/factopic.htm

The Life of the Industrial Worker in 19th Century England
http://applebutter.freeservers.com/worker/

The Victorian Web
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/misc/search.html

Mine Workers

The Peel Web
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mbloy/peel/peelhome.htm

The Haig Colliery Mining Museum
http://www.haig1.freeserve.co.uk/index.html

The Life of a Coal Miner
http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/coal/lifeofCoalminer/

The History Place:  Child Labor in America 1908-1912, the photos of Lewis Hine
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html

The Victorian Web
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/misc/search.html

Photos

The History Place:  Child Labor in America 1908-1912, the photos of Lewis Hine
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html

"Industrial Revolution," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000
http://www.encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761577952

Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov