Early 20th Century Urbanization (1890-1916)
Historical context
The Second Industrial Revolution radically altered the United States. Millions of immigrants moved to America to escape war and poverty, or to seek better jobs and education. New technologies changed manufacturing and increased the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Rural Americans moved to urban areas, and some cities became overcrowded. The dangerous working conditions in many workplaces led to new reforms in child labor, workplace safety, sanitary conditions, and limitations on a workers' schedule. The pattern of urbanization has continued since the early 20th century, as rural areas decline in population and urban and suburban areas grow, due to migrating Americans and increases in immigration.
Culturally relevant pedagogy considerations
Depending on where you teach, these documents could feel very familiar or very foreign to your students. The tack you take with this set will rely on the ways students can connect and find significance in these documents. To what degree can you as the teacher let go of your role as "keeper of knowledge" and allow students to craft the inquiry surrounding these documents? What structure do they need from you to support their investigation, in terms of skills and processes rather than content knowledge? How can you help them focus on the most significant connections they make?
Urban population
Date: 1890
Creator: United States Census Office
Type: Chart
The Tenement-House Committee maps
Date: 1895
Creator: F.E. Pierce
Type: Map
New York, NY, yard of tenement
Date: 1900-1910
Creator: Detroit Publishing Co.
Type: Photograph
The tenement - a menace to all
Date: 1901
Creator: Udo J. Keppler
Type: Cartoon
Noon hour in a furniture factory, Indianapolis
Date: 1908
Creator: Lewis Hine
Type: Photograph
Newsgirl and boy selling around saloon entrances
Date: 1910
Creator: Lewis Hine
Type: Photograph
“More than 140 Die as Flames Sleep Through Three Stories of Factory Building in Washington Place”
Date: 1911
Creator: New-York Tribune
Type: Newspaper
In the Alexandria glass factories, negroes work side by side with the white workers
Date: 1911
Creator: Lewis Hine
Type: Photograph
Woman, labeled “the state”, leading children away from a factory and toward school
Date: 1914
Creator: Carl Meyer
Type: Cartoon
Girls Wanted
Date: 1916
Creator: Henry Glintenkamp
Type: Cartoon
Contact
Meghan Davisson (meghan.davisson@mnhs.org), grant director
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