A Mobile People:  American Immigration and Migration,
1750-1900

• America's Melting Pot

• Asian American Immigration: Struggle for Civil Rights

• Child Labor in Turn of the Century America:  Child Slavery versus Child Empowerment

• Primary Sources Speak:  Part 3—
  The Plains and Western Indians After Lewis and Clark
   

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America’s Melting Pot
Jacquelyn D. Clemm
Grandview Elementary School

America is the home of many different ethnic groups, and for the most part, these groups live together in harmony, secure in the fact they are free to follow the American dream. At what point in our family history did my relative(s) arrive in America.  From where did they come? What were the circumstances? 

Food, artifacts, family stories, recipes, etc, are all incorporated to help the Social Studies teacher who wants to help very young children (ages 7-10), realize their “roots.”

 Asian American Immigration: Struggle for Civil Rights
Sonia Henze

Taylor Allderdice High School

 My exploration of Asian American civil rights begins with immigration and naturalization restrictions. I investigate the origins of Chinese and Japanese laborers, desirable entities by large corporations in the U.S. in the early twentieth century, yet scapegoats for workers. The popularity of Asian workers shifts when the “Yellow Peril” hits the West Coast around the turn of the twentieth century. Labor organizations petition local, state and federal government to exclude many efficient and well organized Asian immigrants. Government documents reflect the desire to keep out Chinese and Japanese immigrants even before the 1921 and 1924 Immigration Quota Acts.

The Chinese are the first immigrants to suffer discriminatory restrictions based on their ethnicity or race. The Japanese soon follow with less overt exclusions but equally daunting. This unit explores the connections between immigration, restriction and discrimination abundant in the United States after the Civil War and Reconstruction.
 

 

Child Labor in Turn of the Century America
Child Slavery versus Child Empowerment
Frances E. Jetcyk
Carrick High School 

Juniors in high school will examine the moral and ethical implications created by young children in the work force in late 19^th and early 20^th century America.  People admired America’s “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” philosophy, and industrialists frequently stated that they were performing a noble act by promoting child labor.

      This curriculum unit will seek to directly involve students in examining the pros and cons of child labor from the perspective of migrant/immigrant parents and factory owners, and the Progressives who considered child labor tantamount to child slavery.  The goal/objective of this lesson is to have the students write a persuasive essay, either condoning child labor as good and necessary, negating government regulation, or prohibiting child labor and seeking government and social intervention.

  

Primary Sources Speak:  Part 3—
The Plains and Western Indians After Lewis and Clark
Dr. Don Roberts
Pittsburgh Gifted Center 

            This curriculum unit was written specifically for eighth grade American history teachers who would like to add another historical perspective when studying the area explored by Lewis and Clark. Many of the hands-on activities may be team taught with a Communications or Language Arts teacher. The over-riding purpose of the unit is to make students aware of pivotal primary sources that document the legal basis for the territorial and cultural dispersion of Native Americans in the West.

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States in 1803, but it was already populated. This curriculum unit examines the inevitable conflict that ensued between Native Americans and the westward moving Americans. Students will examine primary source documents that are related to the Federal Government’s Indian Removal Policy of the 1830’s (leading to the Trail of Tears), the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 (setting up Indian reservations), and the Dawes Act of 1887  (breaking up these reservations). Lessons and classroom activities are designed around these three main topics (Learning focus # 1: the Cherokee Land-Grab; Learning Focus # 2:  the Western and Plains Indians; and Learning Focus # 3: the Federal Government’s Indian Policy). Teachers may choose to use any or all of these three topics as a primary source supplement to material already in the eighth grade curriculum. They may use them all at one time, or insert one or more into the topics being studied during the school year.

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