Political Cartoons in the Gilded Age

As we begin to explore the Gilded Age (1870-1900), that era in American History sandwiched between the Civil War/Reconstruction and the Progressive Era to the Great War, I want students to be able to understand political cartoons and why they were used so often during this era. They will do this by examining multiple cartoons and deciding what they are about and why they were made. I think it is important to teach this lesson because political cartoons are a big part of history and can help understand certain events better than normal reading material.https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/gilded_age/1024/thumbnail.jp

The Captains of Industry

As we begin to explore the Gilded Age (1870-1900), that era in American History sandwiched between the Civil War/Reconstruction and the Progressive Era to the Great War, students will grasp how the Captains of Industry had a huge part to play in the Chaos of the late 1800s. Students will not only explore who they were and why they were important but to explain why they rose to such great power and how the government had to regulate them. This lesson will cover the three main Captains of Industry Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and JP Morgan. I will go in depth about how these men lived and how they were so influential in this time period. In the end Students will decide whether these men were Captains of Industry or if they were Robber Barron’s.https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/gilded_age/1022/thumbnail.jp

The Captains of Industry, An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Sources

Annotated bibliography to accompany The Captains of Industry lesson plan.https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/gilded_age/1023/thumbnail.jp

The Making of Modern America: Quantifying Chaos

As we begin to explore the Gilded Age (1870-1900), that era in American History sandwiched between the Civil War/Reconstruction and the Progressive Era to the Great War, we want students to grasp the enormity of the changes impacting the lives of Americans who have largely been engaged in farming in many cases not so different than their ancestors had for several hundreds of years. Technological changes in the first half of the 19th century contributed to some mechanization and manufacturing, but the enormity of the Civil War and the acquisition of the entire continental territory in the 1850s, accelerated changes in the production of goods, in the development of communication and transportation, in the growth of cities, in the opportunities for immigrants, for participation in politics, and in the reach of the government. In this lesson, students will dip into the many changes over the decades from 1860 to 1900 by searching for information on a variety of topics, including: Banking or Finance, Demographics, Government, Industrialization, Immigration, Middle Class Angst, Military, Natural Resources, Politics, Racism, Robber Barons/Captains of Industry, Technological Innovations, Transportation, Urbanization, Voter Turnout, and Xenophobia.https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/gilded_age/1001/thumbnail.jp