In this activity, you’ll use the historical thinking practice of contextualization to understand how and why ideas about childhood began to change during this period. People today generally think of childhood as a distinct stage in the development process to becoming adults; however, this is actually a relatively recent way of thinking. By contextualizing this period, you’ll understand why these changes took place in the nineteenth century, and how they prompted industrial societies to see child labor as problematic in a way previous societies had not.

Claim testing, causation
You will use your claim-testing skills to determine the best information to use to answer the prompt and contextualize the changes that occurred regarding child labor. You’ll also examine the time period in which these changes occurred to determine what historical events or processes caused these reforms to take place.

In this activity, you will use the event cards to complete the Contextualization Tool, which is included in the Contextualization – Child Labor worksheet. Then, you’ll use the information from your completed tools and evidence from the article “Child Labor” to write a one- to two-paragraph response that answers the following question:

What historical context related to the time period, location, and culture changed people’s ideas about childhood and child labor in industrialized societies?

First, look at the pictures and read the passage below:

Imagine you’re 8 years old and living in the nineteenth century. But instead of getting up and getting ready to go to school, you are getting up to go to work. At 4:00 AM! If you were a boy, there was a good chance you were headed off to a coal mine, where you would put in 13 hours or more. Coal mines were extremely dangerous and unhealthy with cramped passages, toxic coal dust, and explosive coal gas. And if you were a boy or girl who lived in the city, you were probably headed off to a textile (clothing) factory, also very unhealthy and dangerous. Now, that might sound awful—and to be clear, it was—but before the second half of the nineteenth century, the concept of “childhood” didn’t really exist. Children were expected to contribute to the economic well- being of the family. For most of human history, that meant helping secure and produce food. After the Industrial Revolution, it also meant mine or factory work to earn a meager wage for your family, but a nice profit for the mine or factory owner.

Next, your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Contextualization – Child Labor worksheet. You should be familiar with the Contextualization Tool, but remember to follow all the worksheet’s directions. Your teacher may ask you to work in pairs or in small groups to complete the tool. 

First, write the dates and locations where child labor occurred in industrialized countries (from c. 1750 to c. 1914, mainly in Europe and North America), and then divide the event cards into broad and narrow context.

You’ll share your broad and narrow context decisions with the class by placing your event cards on the funnel on the board. Be sure to share your reasons for categorizing your event cards as broad or narrow context. You are allowed to move any event cards that you think were placed incorrectly by the prior group, but you must provide justification for doing so. After your group has moved any of the previous group’s event cards, place two of your event cards that are not already up on the funnel and explain your reasoning to the class. Then, return to your partner or group to answer the remaining questions on the tool.

Finally, use your descriptions of broad and narrow context from the tool and information from the “Child Labor” article to individually write a one- to two-paragraph response to the question posed at the beginning of this activity:

What historical context related to the time period, location, and culture changed people’s ideas about childhood and child labor in industrialized societies?

Your thesis statements should be one or two sentences that directly answer the question being asked. Be sure to include evidence from your completed tools and the “Child Labor” article to support your thesis statement including information about the temporal (time), spatial (location), and cultural context. Your teacher will collect your completed tools and paragraphs to assess how your contextualization skills are progressing.

Children worked in pre-industrial societies, but it was usually work done in their home and with their families. Industrialization, however, created a demand for cheap labor, and children seemed to fit that need quite well! And for parents who needed the money, it was an addition to household income. Slowly, some reformers began to demonstrate that children and society suffered from child labor. They began to demand reforms. But these reforms, as usual, had their limits.

This article demonstrates changes in the experiences of childhood, and attitudes towards children, in some societies during the long nineteenth century. This is one of the social transformations described in the unit problem, and this article will help you to respond to that problem. The actions of reformers will also help you to understand the shape and limits of networks of reformers in this era as you evaluate the networks frame narrative that has been given to you.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. According to the author, what was Lewis Hines’ contribution to the child labor reform movement?
2. Why did formal child labor increase, especially in Europe and the United States, during this era?
3. What was the moral objection to child labor?
4. How and why did labor unions argue against child labor?
5. Once child labor was outlawed, what did children usually end up doing?
6. How did reforms in child labor impact areas in colonized Asia and Latin America?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. What do Matthew Crabtree’s testimony and Louis-René Villermé’s brief report tell you about child labor? Do they give you enough evidence to make an argument against child labor? If you were making an argument to outlaw child labor, is there any additional evidence you would want?
2. What does this article tell us about how reformers communicated to the public? What networks and communication technologies did reformers use to spread information about child labor conditions?

The experiences of women throughout history differ between regions and time periods. However, by using a historical investigation tool like comparison, we can view how women in history confronted similar challenges and common social expectations, regardless of place and time. By zooming in on the stories of women in specific societies, we can better understand the challenges women faced throughout history and continue to face in many parts of the world. You will question which groups get rights in our society, perhaps revealing who is included and excluded from our systems of government.

Contextualization, CCOT, writing
In this activity, you will examine the context in which women’s roles were defined, and how women sought to challenge the traditional power structures in different regions. Additionally, you will need to identify how women’s suffrage changed over time within the regions, why that change was possible, and how those changes inform women’s roles in society today. Finally, you’ll be writing thesis statements in response to two comparison prompts.

In this activity, you will compare and contrast women’s road to suffrage in two of the following six regions: New Zealand and Australia, Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa.

First, your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Comparing Women’s Suffrage Movements worksheet. With your class, review the questions that you are being asked to respond to in the Comparison Tool, included in the worksheet. This will ensure you’re focusing on the right details when reading the article.

Then, individually read “A World Tour of Women’s Suffrage.” As you read, think about the most important similarities and differences in how women achieved suffrage across all of these regions. Once everyone’s finished reading the article, your teacher will divide the class into pairs and assign each pair two regions from the article. You’ll focus on these two regions and complete Part 1: identifying and Describing of the Comparison Tool.

Once you and your partner have completed Part 1 of the tool, you’ll work together on Part 2: Analyzing to write two thesis statements in response to the following prompts:

• What is the most significant similarity when comparing how women achieved suffrage across these regions?
• What is the most significant difference when comparing how women achieved suffrage across these regions?

After you’re finished writing your thesis statements, join with another pair of students to form a group of four. Share and discuss your thesis statements in your new group and build upon or revise your thesis statements based on these discussions.

Then, return to your seat and (working alone) write an exit slip on the back of your worksheet answering the following question (remember to support your answer with evidence from today’s class):

• To what extent are women’s rights in the region and period you studied similar to women’s rights in your nation today?

Your teacher will collect your worksheets at the end of the activity to assess your understanding of the topic and this historical thinking practice.

Nation-states were supposedly all about expanded liberty and political participation. But the first modern nation-states universally excluded women from the right to vote. Women only achieved inclusion through activism and a struggle to change the status quo. Women gained the right to vote gradually, beginning in a few regions of the world, with local voting rights. These rights continued to spread gradually, supported by a global network of suffragists. Women’s rights to vote then sparked other reforms, to a startling degree.

Networks of reform created social change in the long nineteenth century, and beyond. These changes included expanded rights for women, and these rights in turn relied on women’s political power through the right to vote. To respond to the Unit Problem, which looks at these kinds of transformations, you therefore need to understand how and when women achieved the right to vote. This topic will also help you to evaluate the role of networks in this period, and of course the right to vote is an important theme in understanding the nation-state within the communities frame, as well.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What is suffrage, according to this article?
2. What kind of reform movement helped to stimulate the development of a women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand, and how?
3. Why did a government of men, in the United Kingdom, give women over 21 the right to vote in 1929?
4. Why was women’s suffrage so slow to be granted in India, which was also ruled by the United Kingdom (Great Britain)?
5. What groups of women were excluded from voting in North America before the 1960s?
6. What arguments did women in Latin America use to get suffrage, according to the author?
7. What important political change made universal women’s suffrage possible in most of Africa?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. This article looks at women’s suffrage by region, but we know that women’s suffrage networks stretched across borders and around the world. What trends in women’s suffrage do you see that look similar across several different regions?
2. Reflect on the last sentence of the article. How do you think achieving women’s suffrage changed political conversations and actions within nation-states?

Make sure you have the UP Notebook worksheets that you partially filled out earlier in the unit.

This is a continuation of the UP Notebook activity that you started in this unit. As part of WHP, you are asked to revisit the Unit Problems in order to maintain a connection to the core themes of the course. Because this is the second time you’re working with this unit’s problems, you are asked to explain how your understanding of the unit’s core concepts has changed over the unit. Make sure you use evidence from this unit and sound reasoning in your answers.

Fill out the second table on your partially completed worksheet from earlier in the unit. Be prepared to talk about your ideas with your class.

Most societies throughout history have defined different roles for men and women. These definitions change over time. In the long nineteenth century, a new set of ideals—Victorian values—arose in Europe and spread around the world. These prescribed certain public roles for men and restricted women. But in reality, people were sometimes able to use the tools of modernity to fight back against these rules and restrictions. As a result, this period saw both a tightening of restrictive gender roles and the opening of new possibilities for freedoms.

Gender roles are more fluid, across time and place and societies, than you might think. The long nineteenth century tightened the restrictions of these roles in many places, but also shaped tools to create more freedom. Together, these are some of the transformations that will help you to respond to the Unit Problem and to understand “how all of these changes together helped to create the world we live in today”.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What were “Victorian” ideals of gender roles, according to the article? How did they spread around the world?
2. This period saw the rise of the “new women” in Europe and America. Who were “new women”?
3. What kinds of impacts did European imperialism have on women in Asia in this period, according to the author?
4. How did women in Nigeria attempt to use their traditional roles as mothers to protest British taxes and colonialism?
5. How did the rise of Marxism (socialism) create potential for change in gender roles?
6. According to the author, did nationalism create new opportunities for gender equality, or not? Explain your answer.

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. This article begins with the spread of European-inspired “Victorian” gender roles. How were these ideas expressed in new nation-states being created around the world? What does this tell us about empire as a community?
2. This article also looks at the spread of ideas like nationalism and socialism as forces that could challenge Victorian gender roles, but only to a certain degree. What does this tell us about the role of networks in spreading new ideas about gender, and their limitations?

Understanding claim testers is just the beginning! It is now time for you to support, evaluate, and refute claims. You will apply what you know about authority, logic, intuition, and evidence to write supporting statements for claims and analyze the quality of the statements put forth by your peers. In doing so, you will be gaining experience in supporting your own claims with evidence—which will promote your development as a reader, writer, and critical thinker.

Reading, writing
As readers, we need to be equipped with the tools required to be critical of the stories we hear and the narratives we accept and promote. You will practice reading for meaning while exploring the various claims—and you will engage with the claims by creating supporting statements. Next, you will analyze the supporting statements and determine the quality of such statements in collaborative conversation in small groups. Writing will be practiced in multiple parts of this activity, as you will write supporting and refuting statements in relation to the claims you were given.

In this claim-testing activity, you are given four claims about social class and gender. You are asked to work with these claims in three different ways:

1. Find supporting statements for those claims.
2. Evaluate the strength of the supporting statements provided for those claims.
3. Provide statements that refute (argue against) the claims.

Get into small table groups. Each group should have a complete set of Claim Cards in the middle of their table. Listen for your teacher’s directions for when to start.

Round 1

1. Grab one Claim Card from the center of the table.
2. On the card, write down a statement that supports the claim. You can use prior knowledge or course materials for this.
3. Pass your Claim Card to the person to your right.
4. Write down a statement that supports the claim on the card that you now have. It can’t be the same as any of the supports already written on the card.
5. Repeat the process until each group member has written a supporting statement on each card.
6. Put the Claim Cards back in the center of the table.

Round 2

1. Grab one Claim Card from the pile and stand up.
2. Find at least three other students who have the same claim as you and get into a group with them (if there are more than six people in your group, let your teacher know).
3. Look at all the supporting statements that were written for your claim. Decide which supporting statements are strongest (that is, they best support the claim).
4. Write the strongest supporting statements on the whiteboard so everyone can see them.

Round 3

1. With the same group you were in for Round 2, consider any historical exceptions to your claim. What can you offer to refute the claim?
2. Add at least one refuting statement, what we often refer to as a counterclaim, on the board so everyone can see it.
3. Write both your strongest supporting statements and the exception to the claim as an exit ticket—be sure to explain your reasoning for choosing your supporting statements and refutations. Your teacher may also have you share your statements and counterclaim with the class.

In this activity, you’ll continue practicing your CCOT skills by evaluating whether a historical event like the Industrial Revolution represents a significant change in history or if it was simply the result of a series of continuities. By evaluating how historical processes have both evolved and stayed the same over a given period, you’ll further develop this historical thinking practice and apply your historical knowledge to formulate a paragraph response to a CCOT prompt.

Comparison, causation, contextualization, writing
In this activity, you’ll use your comparison, contextualization, and causation skills to complete the CCOT Tool and compare events and processes that took place from Unit 4: Revolutions (1750–1914 CE) to Unit 5: Industrialization (1750–1914 CE). In addition, you’ll be writing a paragraph response to answer a CCOT prompt.

Your teacher will either hand out or have you download the CCOT – Revolutions to Industrialization worksheet (which includes the CCOT Tool), and divide the class into pairs or small groups. Once you’re in groups, follow the directions on the tool and start by adding the timeframe (1750–1914). Then, you’ll identify the continuities and changes that took place from Unit 4: Revolutions to Unit 5: Industrialization. Remember, you can use any of the articles and videos from these units to help you identify continuities and changes—the Units 4 and 5 overview articles are a good place to start!

Once your group has identified the continuities and changes, write these on sticky notes (one change or continuity per note). Then, work together to decide if the continuities and changes you identified are positive or negative and place them on the graph in the tool.

Next, your group will work together to complete the remaining questions on the tool. Remember that you can use the acronym ADE to determine historical significance. Consider if most people’s lives were affected by these changes and continuities (amount); if people living in this time period were deeply affected by these changes and continuities (depth); or if these changes and continuities were long lasting (endurance).

Then, craft thesis statements in response to the following CCOT prompts:

• To what extent were the changes that occurred from c. 1750 to c. 1914 positive?
• To what extent were the continuities that occurred from c. 1750 to c. 1914 positive?

Finally, use your thesis statements to individually write a paragraph response as an exit ticket that fully answers the following question: To what extent were the changes and continuities that occurred from c. 1750 to c. 1914 positive?

Your teacher will collect your worksheets and paragraphs and use them to evaluate how your comparison skills are progressing.

This activity will help you respond to the Unit Problem: How did industrialization transform societies around the world? You will look back on what you’ve learned during this unit by exploring the geography of industrialization. Among other materials you will review are your predictions about what regions would industrialize during the long nineteenth century. Finally, you’ll investigate whether the presence of railroads might or might not be a good indicator of industrialization.

This activity begins with identifying major areas of industrialization by 1871. Next, you will look back at the map you made in the Unit 5 Part 1 map activity, and revisit you predictions. Finally, you will look at regions of intense railroad development, and interpret where and why they did or did not coincide with industrial centers in this period.

Step 1

In small groups, open the 1871 Political Map and the Industrialization and Imperialism Thematic Map. You should note which regions are identified as being industrial centers by 1871, and list those regions.

Step 2

Once you have finished identifying the industrial centers, you should look back at your annotated maps from the Part 1 activity earlier in this unit. To what degree was the emergence of cities of over 1,000,000 people a good predictor of industrialization. To what degree was it not? What explanations might there be for this?

Step 3

Finally, you will look at the Industrialization and Imperialism Thematic Map again. You should be able to identify which regions had intensive railroad building in this period. Then you will answer a similar set of questions as in Step 2, but for railroads. Finally, you’ll consider this question:

What do you think is the overall relationship between urbanization, railroads, and industrialization? Is that relationship always the same for all regions of the world? What might be some explanations for your answer?

Download the Sentence Starters worksheet (optional)

In this writing activity, you’ll circle back to the first row of the WHP Writing Rubric: Claim and Focus. You’ll progress from analyzing an essay for its major claim and focus, to identifying and revising these elements in a student-written essay. The move from analysis to application should help you advance your claim-making skills so you can generate your own well-crafted thesis statements and claims. This is an important skill to practice—a clear thesis statement can be thought of as the backbone of a well-written essay.

It’s another writing activity! And although you’ve done it before, you are once again going to take a look at claim and focus in a student-written essay. However, this time you’ll get an essay that needs some improvement.

With your class, first review what makes a claim good and an essay focused. Then, get ready to read an essay that didn’t exactly get high marks for claim and focus. Your job is to revise and improve upon claim and focus in the essay. Take out the Writing – Claim and Focus Part 2 worksheet and the WHP Writing Rubric for reference and follow the directions. Your teacher may also hand out a Sentence Starters Worksheet to give you some ideas about how you might revise some of the writing in this essay.

First, locate the major claim/thesis statement in the essay, then revise it. Next, look for focus in the essay, and then revise at least two sentences where the focus could be improved. It’s important to follow the instructions in order, since it will be difficult to improve the focus without a clear and convincing major claim to connect to. Keep in mind that improving focus might mean adding more text and not just revising what is there.

Finally, look for one counterclaim in the article. You didn’t do this before, but it is part of claim and focus as described in the rubric: “The essay maintains a strong focus on defending a directly stated position, using the whole essay to support and develop the claim and counterclaims while thoroughly addressing the demands of the prompt.” Although a counterclaim doesn’t support the claim, it’s an important addition to essays because it does recognize when something deviates from a trend and anticipates where a reader might push back on the major claim.

Unit 5 DBQ: Analyze how the Industrial Revolution impacted Britain and India similarly and differently c. 1750–1914.

Have the Comparison, CCOT, and Causation tools available (find all resources on the Student Resources page)

This assessment will help prepare you for the document-based questions (DBQs) you will probably encounter on exams. It will also give you a better understanding of your skills development and overall progress related to constructing an argument, interpreting historical documents, and employing the historical thinking practices you are using in this course.

Comparison, contextualization, sourcing, reading, writing
All DBQs require you to contextualize, source documents, and of course as part of this, read and write.

Day 1

In this activity, you are going to prepare to respond to a DBQ, or document-based question. In this course, document-based questions give you a prompt or question along with seven source documents, and you’ll use the information in those documents (and any additional knowledge you have) to respond to the prompt. Your responses will be written in essay format, and will usually be five or six paragraphs long.

This DBQ asks you to respond to the following prompt: Analyze how the Industrial Revolution impacted Britain and India similarly and differently c. 1750–1914. To make sure you’re clear on what you’re being asked, take out the Question Parsing Tool. Work with your classmates to deconstruct the prompt.

Next, take out the DBQ and relevant thinking tool to help you analyze the documents. Take a look at the document library. As you do with the Three Close Reads process, quickly skim each of the documents for gist. Then, do a closer read of each one. For each document, write down the information you think you might use in your essay. If possible, also provide a source analysis for each document. Write your ideas on the relevant tool as you work through the documents. Discuss your ideas with the class.

Now, come up with a major claim or thesis statement that responds to the prompt. Use the information from your thinking tool to help you come up with an idea. What you have written should help you support your claim. One common mistake students make when responding to a DBQ is not directly answering the prompt—so, in creating your thesis, make sure that it directly answers and is relevant to the prompt.

Finally, it’s time to contextualize. Remember, that ALL historical essays require you to contextualize. If you need to refresh your memory, contextualization is the process of placing a document, an event, a person, or process within its larger historical setting, and includes situating it in time, space, and sociocultural setting. In this case, you are contextualizing the documents. Contextualization will often come at the beginning of your essay, or at least in the first paragraph, either before or after your thesis statement. As needed, you can use the Contextualization Tool for this part of the process.

Day 2

This second day is your writing day. Feel free to use your tools and notes from any prewriting work you completed as you craft your essay response. Make sure you have a copy of the WHP Writing Rubric available to remind you of what’s important to include in your essay. And don’t forget to contextualize! In doing that, think of the entire time period, not just the time immediately preceding the historical event or process you are writing about. Your teacher will give you a time limit for completing your five- to six-paragraph essay responding to the DBQ.

In order to improve your writing skills, it is important to read examples—both good and bad—written by other people. Reviewing writing samples will help you develop and practice your own skills in order to better understand what makes for a strong essay.

Your teacher will provide sample essays for this unit’s DBQ prompt and provide instructions for how you will use them to refine your writing skills. Whether you’re working with a high-level example or improving on a not-so-great essay, we recommend having the WHP Writing Rubric on hand to help better understand how you can improve your own writing. As you work to identify and improve upon aspects of a sample essay, you’ll also be developing your own historical writing skills!