Virginia SOL VS.9.a
The Standard
explaining the importance of railroads, waterways, new industries, and the growth of cities to Virginia’s economic development in the late 1800s
Virginia Standards of Learning for History and Social Science
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace how Virginia goods moved by rail and water from farms, mines, and factories to markets. They explain how better transport attracted businesses, created jobs, and helped cities such as Richmond, Norfolk, Newport News, and Roanoke grow.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a map or short source, a student can build an accurate chain from transportation to industry to jobs and population growth. The student supports the explanation with a Virginia example, such as coal reaching markets by rail or shipbuilding expanding at Newport News.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think railroads mainly carried passengers, rather than coal, farm products, and manufactured goods. They may assume every region grew equally or that cities grew before industries and transport links developed.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Choose railroads or waterways and explain in three linked steps how it helped one Virginia industry and one city grow after the Civil War.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Lay yarn and blue ribbon on a Virginia map, then move coal, tobacco, factory, and city cards along likely trade routes.
Write a cause-and-effect paragraph answering: How could one new railroad line change a small Virginia town?
Play a matching relay where teams connect transportation cards, industry cards, job cards, and city-growth cards into accurate chains.
Compare historic and current maps of Roanoke or Newport News, then identify how rail or port access still shapes the city.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
- VS.1.c
locating, identifying, and describing the impact of Virginia’s bodies of water on its history, economy, and culture
- VS.4.e
explaining the reasons for the relocation of Virginia’s capital from Jamestown to Williamsburg; and
- VS.13.a
examining major products and industries important to Virginia; and
- USI.5.b
explaining Virginia’s importance as one of the most populous and wealthiest colonies
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