Oklahoma Social Studies OKH.C.6.1
The Standard
- OKH.C.6
- Examine Oklahoma’s political, economic, and social history regarding race during the early decades following statehood.
Examine how the development of the oil industry affected major sectors of employment and the development of communities, including the role of entrepreneurs (e.g., Frank Phillips, E.W. Marland, Thomas Gilcrease) and the designation of Tulsa as the “Oil Capital of the World.”
Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies (2026) · OKH.C.6
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Trace how oil production created jobs in drilling, refining, transport, and local businesses. Explain how Phillips, Marland, and Gilcrease shaped Oklahoma towns and why Tulsa became an oil industry center.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can use a map and a period source to link an oil business to a town, two kinds of jobs, and a change in local services. They can explain that Tulsa's role went beyond drilling wells.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think oil jobs meant only drilling, or that every worker became rich. They may assume Tulsa had the nickname because it had the most wells, rather than because oil companies and related businesses clustered there.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Choose Phillips in Bartlesville or Marland in Ponca City. Name one job beyond drilling that his business supported, one change in the town, and one reason Tulsa became an oil center.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups a blank Oklahoma map and cards naming Phillips, Marland, Gilcrease, three oil towns, and oil jobs; have them place and connect the cards.
Read a 1920s Tulsa newspaper oil ad and ask, “Which workers might gain jobs, and who might struggle with rising rent?”
Play a job-chain card sort: connect an oil well, refinery, rail line, and grocery store to workers each would hire.
Compare a current Tulsa energy job posting with a 1920s refinery help-wanted ad; circle one skill that stayed and one that changed.
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Related Standards
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