Reform Movements
Driving Question: How did industrialization lead to calls for reform?
Industrialization reshaped lives and raised new questions about equality and human rights. In this lesson, you’ll explore how people around the world responded through reform movements like abolition, child labor laws, and women’s suffrage. You’ll also consider how individuals played powerful roles in demanding change.
Learning Objectives:
- Use the historical thinking process of sourcing to examine the causes for the abolition of slavery.
- Utilize comparison skills to examine how women’s reform movements developed in different regions and addressed issues of rights and representation.
- Use a graphic biography to support, extend, or challenge the overarching narratives of this period.
Vocab Terms:
Dive into the complex story of abolition by focusing on Harriet Forten Purvis, a lesser-known but powerful activist. Using visual evidence and historical clues, you’ll piece together her story and start to explore how individuals helped shape global movements for freedom.
Note: This sourcing activity is intended to be a teacher-led, collaborative activity. If you’re pressed for time, students can easily complete this activity on their own or with a partner.
Be sure to reference the Lesson Guide. It includes extensive sample answers that will help you guide students through these readings.
These materials explore why slavery was abolished and highlight the role of abolitionist voices. You’ll use evidence to understand how abolition reshaped politics and the economy in the industrial age.
-
Guiding Questions
If you’d like to extend student learning about child labor reforms, check out the Sadler Report activity in extension materials below. In this activity, students role-play as figures during a parliamentary inquiry into child labor.
These materials will help you understand how child labor fit into the world of the Industrial Revolution, and how reformers began to push for change.
-
Guiding Questions
Assign student roles: Organizing students into groups and assign roles, such as vocabulary master, claim cruncher, evidence gatherer, and content connector. While they’re reading, each student writes down and looks for the specific thing they’re assigned. When they’re finished, students meet in their homogenous groups and share, and then meet with their heterogenous groups and discuss the reading.
Explore how the fight for women’s voting rights took shape in different countries. You’ll compare movements to see how context shaped their goals and outcomes.
-
Guiding Questions
Dig deeper into Harriet Forten Purvis’s biography to find evidence of how morals, economics, and activism shaped her fight for abolition—and decide which one mattered most to her mission.
Khanmigo Writing Coach is an AI-powered tool designed specifically for teachers and students in K–12 and secondary classrooms. This tool can help you teach many OER Project: World History writing activities. It can be used to provide individual feedback and revisions on early student work. If you’re interested, check out this Khanmigo Writing Coach Guide.
In this writing activity, you’ll use evidence from sources to support an argument that responds to the question: How did industrialization impact society during the long nineteenth century?
This simulation offers a vivid picture of industrial child labor in nineteenth-century Britain.