Alabama Social Studies SS24.US1.17a
The Standard
- SS24.US1.17
- Analyze the push and pull factors contributing to the rapid growth of cities in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Summarize social, economic, and cultural consequences of urbanization for American society, including changes in living and working conditions, the emergence of new social classes, and the growth of leisure opportunities.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how city growth changed where people lived, worked, and spent free time. They show how factory jobs, class divisions, and paid entertainment affected people differently.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain how factory jobs drew people to cities, where many workers faced crowded housing and unsafe work. They can contrast workers' lives with middle-class lives and name leisure options such as baseball games and amusement parks.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume every city resident lived in a tenement or had the same workday. They may also assume everyone could afford a baseball game or had time to go.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: How did city growth change one worker's living conditions and one leisure option? Explain how income shaped both.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed tenement floor plan and six paper figures; have them fit a family inside, then mark problems with space and light.
Ask students to write two diary lines, one from a factory worker and one from a factory owner, comparing housing and free time.
Give teams cards labeled tenement, factory wages, department store, and amusement park; have them sort the cards by social, economic, or cultural change.
Compare today's movie ticket price with one hour's pay, then use a 1900 wage and baseball ticket price to repeat the comparison.
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Related Standards
- SS24.US1.17
Analyze the push and pull factors contributing to the rapid growth of cities in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- SS24.HG.11
Analyze how the economic and cultural activities of urban places shape surrounding regions.
- SS24.WH.4c
Describe the effects of urbanization on Europe during the nineteenth century, including the evolution of the middle and working classes.
- SS24.US2.3
Evaluate how key figures, events, and trends shaped United States society and culture from the conclusion of World War I through the 1920s.
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