Injuries and Disability in 19th Century Industry

In this lesson students will learn that incurring a disability at work was a common occurrence of the Industrial Revolution.  This lesson integrates disability history content within a larger 14-day unit on the Industrial Revolution. The lesson plan provides a series of activities that highlight the importance of children and adults with disabilities in 19th century workplaces, and the ways primary source photographs provide information and inspire critical questions. In total, these activities, teaching tools of analysis for primary sources, and exploring disability history, could take up to six hours.