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Lesson

Workers in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Duration
180 min
Published
Nov 5, 2020
Black and white newspaper headline announcing a strike by all unions in Seattle on February 2, 1919.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American workers experienced the convulsions of the industrial revolution. While workers generally made impressive gains in wages over these decades, they often toiled for long hours in dangerous conditions. Workers sought to protect their interests against management by organizing into unions and taking collective action, though with mixed results. Some unions chose utopian or violent solutions which usually failed to achieve the results attained by a more business-like approach. Prior to the twentieth century, these efforts to organize workers faced determined opposition and had little success. However, support for the labor movement grew following 1900, and this support was reflected in the actions of all three branches of both state and national government.

Founding Principles

Due Process, Equality, Federalism, Freedom of Speech, Limited Government, Property Rights, Rule of Law, Separation of Powers

Objectives

  • Students will learn about various incidents of labor strife by participating in role play to reenact the Haymarket Riot, Homestead Strike, and the Pullman Strike.
  • Students will evaluate successes and failures of various methods that workers used when seeking to bring about economic and political change.
  • Students will analyze constitutional principles and the guarantees of the First Amendment and list recommendations for effectively solving social and economic problems.
  • Students will identify examples of the presence or absence of essential virtues for civil society.

Materials

Lesson Components

ActivityHandout A: Background Essay: Workers in the Gilded Age
ActivityHandout B: Haymarket Riot Scene Card 1886
ActivityHandout C: Homestead Strike Scene Card 1892
ActivityHandout D: Pullman Strike Scene Card 1894
ActivityHandout E: Graphic Organizer Comparing Haymarket, Homestead, and Pullman Incidents
ActivityHandout F: Constitutional Principles and Essential Virtues
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Lesson plan

180 minClick a phase to open it

Key Terms

Industrial revolution
Artisans
Taylorism
Piecemeal work
Depression

Standards

Advanced Placement

  • National

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