The following lesson serves as an introduction to the Age of Progressivism. In this unit, students should connect the various ways individuals and communities respond to new innovations. In response to industrialization, civilizations across the globe reacted in a number of ways ranging from violent protests to political engagement to isolating from the political process. In the early 1840s in a town in western Massachusetts, Northampton, the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI), formalized their beliefs in a binding constitution.

This lesson is designed to expose students to the immigrant experience through primary and secondary sources. Students may focus more on the difference between primary and secondary sources through the lens of immigration. An extensive number of primary and secondary sources round out this lesson focused on skills that will carry students well into their middle and high school years.

The following unit plan highlights how patterns of immigration are both similar and different for immigrant groups coming to America. The cornerstone of the unit is a diagram and PowerPoint Presentation detailing the progression of the immigrant experience that serves as a model for a variety of immigrant groups. Included in the set is a Universal Design for Learning chart and an extensive annotated list of primary source documents from the Library of Congress provide a visual reinforcement of the immigrant journey both before, during, and after their arrival in the United States.

This two-day lesson is based on students acquiring a better understanding of the effects the Great Depression had on migrant workers and their children as portrayed in the novel: Esperanza Rising. The use of photographs, as primary sources, will support understanding of this time period, as well as provoking oral discussion among English Language Learner students. As a summative assessment, students are asked to write a paragraph explaining their increased understanding of the time period through the use of primary source documents.

The topic of immigration is just as controversial today as it was at the turn of the twentieth century. In this one-day lesson, students will immerse themselves in the attitudes and opinions of many native-born Americans (Nativists) who did not welcome the arrival of immigrants from certain countries. Students will use music and political cartoons from the period to wonder, investigate, and construct new understandings of the popular opinions towards immigrants at the time.

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 this lesson, students will explore several primary sources addressing the treatment of people with mental illness at Blackwell Island in New York in the mid to late 1800s.  After analyzing the sources, students will discuss our responsibility and the responsibility of government to people with mental illness and cognitive disability. Period film, photographs, maps, and a written account by pioneering investigative journalist Nellie Bly animate the lesson.

The lesson invites students to think about what life was like as a disabled veteran of WWI and to connect to background knowledge as well as personal experiences. The teacher will provide historical information and guide the class in a read-aloud from the perspective of a soldier wounded and recuperating in Italy from Ernest Hemingway’s “In Another Country.”

The instrumental role Dorothea Dix played in reforming prisons and mental institutions, and the actions of Horace Mann in his campaign for free public education are at the center of this lesson. How did improvements in conditions for people in the public charge, whether prisoners or people institutionalized because of disability, come about? How did the the idea of who gets to be educated change? By focusing attention on the strategies used by these social reformers, the lesson engages students in critical thinking about the methods of reformers as well as their goals.

Care for veterans is relevant to understanding war and the role of government, and is critical to disability history. In this lesson, students gather information through a variety of primary sources on the experiences of veterans from the War of Independence through today. They ask, ‘How has U.S. government care for veterans changed over time?’ Using their evidence, students develop a proposal to today’s Veterans Administration that outlines how veterans should be cared for.