Background
Thick dark smoke billowing out of smokestacks several
stories high proliferated across city skylines, heralding
America's rise to world prominence and industrial supremacy.
After the Civil War, Americans embraced the smog and
dirt of rapidly rising cities as a sign that America
was fulfilling its destiny as a world power. Eager immigrants
withstood the dangerous trip across the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans. Traveling in crowded ships, they left
all they knew behind them in the hope that America would
bring those better lives. With all the progress
that Americans made, new problems arose. While
many immigrants found work and new homes in America
they also experienced racism, lived in dilapidated tenements,
and performed dangerous jobs. As industry grew and revolutionized
American life, society became stratified: the poor became
poorer and the rich, richer. Big businessmen like J.P.
Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt lived
in luxury during what historians call the Gilded Age
(1877-1890). They consolidated smaller businesses
and created monopolies; where, for example, Rockefeller
drove other oil companies out of business through ruthless
tactics and created a giant oil company, Standard Oil.
During the Progressive Era (1890-1917), the Progressive
Party formed to try to reform American society and the
US government, which they believed was controlled by
special interests and big business. Conservation of
America's natural beauty was yet another way that Americans
ushered in this period of reform. Teddy Roosevelt
was a Republican when he served as President but he
believed in much of the Progressive Party's platform
(in 1912 he ran for President as a Progressive and lost).
During his terms as President, Roosevelt battled big
business to regulate it and prevent monopolies from
harming American society. He believed that these so-called
robber barons (or captains of industry, depending on
one's view), had helped America advance and become a
major influence internationally, but he also wanted
to tame them so they could not to harm the average citizen.
Overview of the Lesson
In this two-day lesson students will grapple with
the benefits and problems of monopolies through a classroom
simulation by looking at the desire of businessmen to
create trusts and the harm they can cause society at
large. By reading speeches given by Theodore Roosevelt,
students will examine the respect he had for businesses
and his desire to regulate them to help the general
welfare. Through pictures students will identify the
disparity of living conditions between big businessmen
and the typical industrial worker. Lastly, by looking
at political cartoons, students will analyze visual
representations of trusts and how the artists perceived
the destruction of America. Accompanying this
lesson plan is a PowerPoint that is integral in understanding
this time period.
Objectives
- Students should be able to explain a monopoly or trust.
- Students should be able to identify the problems associated with a monopoly.
- Students should be able to identify the Gilded Age and how monopolies affected Americans.
- Students should be able to interpret Teddy Roosevelt's
opinions of big business and regulation through reading
primary source speeches.
- Students should be able to interpret political cartoons relating to monopolies, and explain how many Americans felt about the power of trusts.
Materials
- "The Progressive Era: Teddy Roosevelt and Trust-Busting"
PowerPoint by Elise Stevens TR_Trusts.ppt
- Theodore Roosevelt: Controlling the Trusts speech
(1901) http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/sotu1.html
- Theodore Roosevelt Announces the New Nationalism
(1910) http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=501
- Worksheet to accompany speeches by Elise Stevens
Teddy
Roosevelt Worksheet.doc
- Anti-Trust Political Cartoons (See links at the
end of lesson plan)
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