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.