Social Studies Lesson Plan Template
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Title: Workers in factories during the Gilded Age
Lesson Author: Jay Hipes and Matt Walker
Key Words: mass production
Grade Level: 7th
Time Allotted: 45 minutes
Rationale/ Purpose (so what?)
The purpose of this lesson is to give students the opportunity to experience what life was like in the factories during
the Gilded Age. Through this experience students will understand the reasons behind the move for work place reforms
of the Progressive era.
Key Concept(s) include definition:
To understand the factors that pushed for reforms of the work place in the Progressive Era.
NCSS Standard(s)
SOL Information (As written in the Virginia SOL “Curriculum Framework” for the grade level)
NCSS Theme (s) with indicators:
II. Time, Continuity, and Change
c. Learners identify and describe significant historical periods and patterns of change within and across cultures,
such as the development of ancient cultures and civilizations, the rise of nation-states, and social, economic, and
political revolutions
VII. Production, Distribution, and Consumption
a. Learners explain how the scarcity of productive resources (human, capital, technological, and natural) requires
the development of economic systems to make decisions about how goods and services are to be produced and
distributed
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d. Explain to learners the relationships among the various economic institutions that comprise economic systems
such as households, businesses, banks, government agencies, labor unions, and corporations
SOL:
USII.3
•
•
The student will demonstrate knowledge of how life changed after the Civil War by
b) Explaining the reasons for the increase in immigration, growth of cities, new inventions, and challenges
arising from this expansion
d) Describing the impact of the Progressive Movement on child labor, working conditions, the rise of
organized labor, women’s suffrage, and the temperance movement
Essential Knowledge
Essential Skills
(minimum for SOL Resource Guide)
(minimum for SOL Resource Guide)
Reasons why cities developed
Specialized industries including steel (Pittsburgh), meat packing
(Chicago)
Movement of Americans from rural to urban areas for job
opportunities
Inventions that contributed to great change and industrial
growth
• Lighting and mechanical uses of electricity (Thomas Edison)
Reasons for rise and prosperity of big business
• Lower-cost production
Factors resulting in growth of industry
• Availability of work force
• Inventions
Postwar changes in farm and city life
• Industrial development in cities created increased labor needs.
• Industrialization provided access to consumer goods (e.g., mail
order).
Make connections between past and present. (USII.1b)
Sequence events in United States history. (USII.1c)
Interpret ideas and events from different historical
perspectives. (USII.1d)
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Guiding Question(s):
What was life like for factory workers in the Progressive Era?
Assessment Tool(s):
Student responses during the experience
Student T-charts of the experience
Student created dialogue between an owner and factory worker
Background: How does this lesson fit into a unit of study? Looking backwards, looking forwards
This lesson would come after a unit on expansion to the West in the United States. This previous unit would set up the
reasons why cities in the Northeast started growing and expanding. Following this lesson there would be lessons that
deal with the results of poor working conditions in the factories. The next unit following this would be on Imperialism,
and how the United States started trying to expand beyond its borders.
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Lesson Objective(s):
Students will be able to:
1. Describe working conditions inside a factory during the Gilded Age.
2. Compare and contrast the concerns and wants of factory workers against factory owners.
3. Create a dialogue that might have taken place between a factory owner and a factory worker.
Historical Source(s): (include copies in materials
Additional Materials/Resources: (include
section)
copies in materials section)
-
Crayons
Pencils
Paper
Company slides
Just Do it handout
Section of Chapter describing working
conditions
Procedure/Process:
JUST DO IT! The “Hook”: (A high-interest activity that introduces new content with connections to students’ prior
knowledge. Between 1-5 minutes (Could also introduce the days guiding question)
Students design their own collared shirt on a sheet of paper. Even though their work time is limited they need
their shirt to be stylish and detailed.
Social Studies Lesson Plan Template
Obj #
See
above.
Processing Activity and Procedure -include directions,
question frames, assignment detail to be given to
students (these should all be made into explicit materials
(e.g. see material A), and time estimates
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Check for Evidence of Understanding
-Either Formal or Informal(Checks Essential Knowledge and Skills)
5 minutesStudent’s designs show their
Students design their own collared shirt on a sheet of paper.
understanding of what collared shirts
Just do it.
Even with a limited work time, they need to put as much effort
looked like in the past.
as possible into making it stylish and detailed.
After you have done all that work to create a collared shirt, you realize that the price you have to charge for
Transition: creating your own shirts is higher than the price of those produced by a local company. With no one buying
your shirts you run out of money, so you decide to get a job in a clothing factory.
Objective 25 minutesStudent’s complaints show their empathy
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-5 minutes- Students are grouped into two separate factories,
for what workers in factories experienced
the Tri company and the Angle company, arrange the students
during the Progressive era.
into an assembly line. Allow two or three students to stand off
to the side to represent immigrants that would want jobs in the
factories. Show students how each of them will perform a
specialized task in the creation of the shirts. Tell students that
their wages for the day is one quarter and that the line that
produces the most shirts will receive an extra dime for each
employee.
Students are supplied with scrap paper and crayons to create
the collared shirts. Assume the role of production supervisor
and urge the students to speed up, concentrate, and work
harder.
-3 minutes- Tell students that technological advances have
been invented and they will help the students to make better
shirts.
Distribute pencils to each employee and give each line a stack of
regular paper. Continue to push the students for more work.
-3 minutes- Tell students that in order to make more money, as
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owner you have decided to but out the Angle company and
create the Triangle company. In order to increase productivity
you have decided to continue to allow competition to exist
between the two assembly lines. Paying whichever line creates
the most shirts an extra quarter for each employee on the line.
Continue to push students to create more shirts, remind them
that there is a bonus for whichever side creates the most shirts.
-3 minutes- Tell students that in order to have better access to
workers, markets, and transportation the company will be
moving to the city. So there will be less room available for them
to work so they need to move their desks together to work. Also
workers that have been going slow will be fired, and replaced by
immigrants who will work for a dime a day. Tell them that in
order to save money you will be turning off the lights since the
window lets plenty of light in.
Continue to push students to hurry, if anyone is complaining
about the conditions destroy what they are working on and tell
them to stop complaining and work harder. Their complaining is
making their work look worse.
-11 minutes- Stop the assembly line work, and have two
students count how many blouses they were able to create in
their assembly line. Pay whichever line has created the most
their bonus. Also compare the shirts off the assembly line with
those created earlier by each student. Then debrief the exercise
by having the students create a T-chart with their feelings for
one column and workers feelings for the second column,
together as class fill out the side with their feelings.
After experiencing a small taste of what working conditions were like in factories, take some time to answer
Transition: the questions on this worksheet about your experience, as well as some other questions about working
conditions in the factories from the reading.
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Students will fill out the T-chart with the
feelings of the workers in factories that
10 minutesthey will get from the reading
Objective Hand out the reading assignment, once students have read the
assignment. Through this the students
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assignment ask them to fill in the workers feelings column on
are able to see the connections made
their T-chart.
with their feelings in class. This T-chart
will go in their notebook.
Now that you all have had some time to reflect on your experience and learn more about the conditions
Transition:
workers faced, I would like for you to create a dialogue that might have occurred during this time.
5 minutesStudents will create a dialogue that will
Objective Students will create a dialogue that could have occurred between show the different perspectives of factory
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a factory worker and a factory owner. Display the instructions on owners and factory workers. This
the screen for the students.
assignment will also go in their notebook.
Transition: Dismiss students
Closure/Writing Prompt:
Write a dialogue between a factory owner and a factory worker that might have taken place in 1900. They can
start with the following opening lines:
Worker: We on the assembly line aren’t happy.
Owner: Well, what is your problem?
Worker: I’ve got a list of complaints, and I wanted to know your response to them. To begin with...
Contain at least 4 concerns, have accurate responses by the owner to the workers concerns, use language that
would reflect the feelings held by each individual
Social Studies Lesson Plan Template
Materials
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(one resource per page- so it becomes a teacher or student handout, or overhead directions or ppt
presentation):
Material A: Section of chapter describing working conditions handout
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Material B: Just Do it handout
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Material C: Company slides
TRI
ANGLE
TRIANGLE
Company
Company
Company
Write a d ialog ue b e twee n a fa cto ry own e r a nd a
fa cto ry worker tha t m ig ht h a ve ta ken p lac e in 19 0 0 .
Yo u r dia lo g ue nee d s to :
• Begin with the following opening lines
Worker: We on the assembly line aren’t happy.
Owner: Well, what is your problem?
Worker: I’ve got a list of complaints, and I wanted to k now your
response to them. To begin with...
•
Contain at least four concerns of the workers
• Accurate responses by the owner to the workers concerns
• Language that reflects the feelings held by each individual
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Material D: Paper
Teacher Notes (Reflections/clarifications/explanations):
Also to help students that have difficulty writing the dialogue, they may partner up with another student and
actually have the conversation following the model.