Unit Plan 22 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Industrial Revolution in America
Explore how 1800s innovations, labor shifts, and urbanization reshaped U.S. life—mapping trade, interdependence, and cost–benefit choices of the market revolution.
Focus: Explore technological innovations, changing labor systems, and rapid urbanization in the 1800s; analyze trade/interdependence and cost–benefit choices shaping the market revolution.
Grade Level: 8
Subject Area: Social Studies (U.S. History • Economics • Geography)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Students investigate how new power sources, machines, and transportation networks transformed work and daily life. Using factory rules, workers’ accounts, maps, and data, they compare artisan production to the factory system, consider who benefited or bore costs, and connect regional specialization to national markets.
Essential Questions
- How did key innovations and power sources change production, labor, and cities?
- In what ways were regions and people made interdependent by canals, railroads, and markets?
- How should we evaluate the benefits and costs (economic, social, environmental) of industrial growth?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Explain causes and effects of early U.S. industrialization, linking technology to changes in work and settlement.
- Describe diverse perspectives of women and child workers, immigrants, artisans, owners, and Black Americans in industrial contexts.
- Use economic reasoning to analyze earning, saving, credit, taxation, and investment decisions in households and firms.
- Trace trade and interdependence across regions and abroad, using maps, transport data, and supply-chain examples.
- Evaluate resource use (natural/human/capital) and conduct a cost–benefit analysis that considers equity and externalities.
Standards Alignment — 8th Grade (C3-based custom)
- 8.C3.Hist.2: Causes/effects of major developments.
- 8.C3.Hist.3: Diverse perspectives/experiences.
- 8.C3.Econ.3: Earning, saving, credit, taxation, investment.
- 8.C3.Econ.4: Trade and interdependence (domestic/foreign).
- 8.C3.Econ.5: Natural/human/capital resources; benefits/costs (labor, environment, equity).
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can build a cause→effect chain from an innovation (e.g., steam power) to changes in labor and cities.
- I can compare two perspectives (e.g., Lowell worker vs. mill owner) with corroborated evidence.
- I can explain a supply chain and show how regions and nations became interdependent.
- I can conduct a cost–benefit analysis using resource categories and note possible externalities.