1877: The Grand Army of Starvation Viewer's Guide: Close Reading Worksheet
This worksheet helps students to undertake a close reading of a section (pages 4-7) of the 1877: The Grand Army of Starvation Viewer's Guide, which accompanies the 30-minute ASHP documentary of the same name.
To Strike or Not to Strike in 1830s Lowell: A Role Play
In this activity students perform a role play of a talk show between Lowell workers and factory owners. To research their characters, students analyze primary sources. This activity is used to teach with the film Daughters of Free Men, but can be [...]
Active Viewing: Daughters of Free Men
In this activity, students watch short clips of the ASHP documentary Daughters of Free Men to learn about the experiences of Lowell mill girls in the 1830s. Students follow the life of Lucy, a young girl working in Lowell in 1836. After each clip, [...]
Daughters of Free Men Active Viewing worksheets
These worksheets guide students as they watch the short film Daughters of Free Men.
A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836
Harriet Hanson Robinson began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and advocate of women's suffrage. In 1834 and 1836, the mill owners reduced wages, increased the pace of work, and raised the rent for the boardinghouses. The [...]
A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836 (with text supports)
Harriet Hanson Robinson began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and advocate of women's suffrage. In 1834 and 1836, the mill owners reduced wages, increased the pace of work, and raised the rent for the boardinghouses. The [...]
To Strike or Not to Strike worksheets
These worksheets help students plan their characters for the role play "To Strike or Not to Strikein 1830s Lowell." Also included is a rubric that students and teachers can use to evaluate the role play as it is performed.
Background Essay on Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl
This essay explains the significance of young female immigrants in the labor upheavals that helped define the Progressive Era.
An Ybor City Resident Describes Work in the Cigar Factories
The family of Cesar Marcos Medina moved from Cuba to Ybor City in Tampa, Florida in 1903. In this interview, Medina details the experiences of his father, who worked as a lector (reader) in the city's cigar factories. Medina also describes the [...]
Mexican and Japanese Laborers Form a Union
In 1903, Mexican and Japanese farmworkers in Oxnard, California joined together to resist a wage cut by their employers. When they requested that their union be allowed to join the American Federation of Labor, President Samuel Gompers told the [...]