Chapter 5 New Industries and People

10/28/13-11/01/13

In Chapter 5 we will continue our discussion of why the population, economy, and size of the United States continued to grow through out the 1800's. As always, the link for worksheets and note pages are at the top of the page.

This chapter will introduce students to a lot of new and some familiar people. It is important that they study up on what each person did.

Lesson 1 - (10/28/13) Railroads link the Nation

• Transcontinental Railroad provided a safer and faster way for people to travel and allowed for faster movement of raw materials in the West to the factories and markets in the East.
• George Westinghouse developed an air brake system to stop individual cars.
• Granville T. Woods developed a telegraph system that allows each train car to communicate with each other.
• The Central Pacific Railroad was created by the "Big Four" (Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker) along with Theodore Judah who engineered the pass through the Sierra Nevadas.
• The railroad was payed for by the 1862 Pacific Railroad Act.
• Central Pacific Railroad moved west from Sacramento, California, while the Union Pacific Railroad moved east from Council Bluffs, Iowa.
• After six years, the two railroads met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

Lesson 2 - New Industries (10/29/13)

In this lesson, students learned about some of the nation's leaders of industry. They need to know what each one accomplished. This information should be in their notes.

Edwin Drake

John D. Rockefeller

Andrew Carnegie

William Jenney

John Roebling

Thomas Edison

Alexander Graham Bell

Lewis Lattimer

Lesson 3 - A Changing People (10/30/13)

In this lesson, students learned about the reason for the numerous immigrants that entered the United States at the end of the 19th century. 

• Most came to America to start a new life and flee from a poor repressive country.
• Mostly they settled in the cities near people from their country forming ethnic neighborhoods.
• Life was difficult for immigrants living in tenements, struggling to find jobs, and learning English.
• On top of that many immigrants faced severe prejudices!

Lesson 4 - Growth of Cities (11/1/13)

In this lesson, students examined the problems associated with overcrowding cities:

• disease
• garbage piled up
• fires spreading quickly
• crime increased
• insects and rats

They also examined the reform movements led by Jacob Riis, who photographed and reported on the tenements, and Jane Addams, who began a settlement house in Chicago called Hull House.

Cities also changes in transportation with the invention  of the cable car and trolley car.

Finally, students saw the formation of labor unions were formed and began to lead to change in working conditions across the country. Students also examined one of the worst work place accidents in American History - the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

Ch. 4 Homesteading

October 21st - 25th

During this week we will be examining the move west following the Civil War. We will examine the Homestead Act and how it allowed many immigrants and women own land for the first time! We will also examine how hard it was for settlers to live in the Great Plains, once known as the Desert of America. Finally, we will examine how the United States began to acquire territory outside of the continental U.S. for the first time with the purchase of Alaska and the annexation of Hawaii. This will set us up for the development of the United States as a world power at the turn of the century.

Notes for the Chapter can be found in the link, labeled Ch. 4, at the top of the blog (underneath the title). Since this is a short chapter we will have our Chapter 4 test on Thursday, October 24th.



In Chapter 4 Lesson 1 we learned about why settlers began moving west.

1. 1849 and 1868 prospectors moved west in search of Gold and Silver. This created boom where towns grew rapidly, but once the gold and silver were gone, these towns went bust. 
2. 1862 the Homestead Act allowed anyone 21 years old and head of the family to get 160 acres of land if they worked it for five years. These people became known as homesteaders.
3. Of course, during this time ranchers and farmers had disagreements that led to range wars and fences being put up to block each other from getting to the water.
4. Between 1865 and 1880, Native Americans were forced to move to reservations and as some resisted battles were fought, as in the case of the Battle of Little Bighorn where General Custer and his men were killed by the Sioux Indians led by Crazy Horse.

Chapter 4 Lesson 2:

1. Homesteaders faced a tough life with limited resources and the hardships of the Great Plains, many were not able to last long. Drought, dust storms, insects in the summer, and cold, hard winters, were just a few of the problems. However, some were able to survive thanks to new technologies that were available, such as, the steel plow, windmills to pump water, dry farming method, planting Russian wheat, and the use of the reaper.
2. Ranchers faced long cattle drives to get their cattle to the markets back East, until the railroads were built after the Civil War. While cattle drives still took place, using the railroads were faster and cheaper.

Chapter 4 Lesson 3

1. The United States added two new territories, Alaska and Hawaii.
2. Alaska was bought from Russia for $7 million dollars in 1867 by Secretary of State William Seward. Many people thought this idea was foolish and called this deal Seward's Folly.
3. Eventually gold and other minerals were found in Alaska leading to thousands of prospectors looking to get rich. Alaska's population soon doubled and was on the road to becoming a territory in 1912 and a state in 1959.
4. Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898, following the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. In 1900, Hawaii became a territory and in 1959 became the 50th state.

Chapter 4 test Thursday!!

Heritage Research Project

10/4 - 10/16

Today students will receive information that will describe their research project that they will begin on Monday. The research will be about their family heritage as we begin to study the immigration into the United States by a variety of ethnic groups. Students should be interviewing family members about their family tree and the origin and meaning of a family name. So that means another FAMILY HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT!!! Students were excited the last time we had a family homework assignment. Use this opportunity to discuss with your child about their family heritage and maybe everyone will learn something unique. You never know there may be a future historian in the making!! :)

As always there will be a link to the Heritage Research Packet as well as the power point template so students can download and work on it at home if they desire or need to. I hope everyone has fun with this assignment and learns some interesting facts.

Final two days of our project are beginning today. Students should be working on their power points and getting ready for their presentations.