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Source set · 6 sources ✓ Lesson ready

Was the Industrial Revolution progress?

Adam Smith and the factory town meet Engels, child and women miners, Peterloo, and Marx.

Timeline of key events →Gallery Walk: cartoon stations →

Teach it

✓ Lesson ready

A ready-to-run lesson for this set: Rank-the-Evidence Card Sort. Slides include a hook, one slide per source, directions, a take-a-stand vote, an exit ticket, and a teacher script in the speaker notes.

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1. Hook: a striking quote 3-5 min

I know a woman who has gone home and washed herself, taken to her bed, delivered of a child, and gone to work again under the week.
Betty Harris, age 37, testimony to Parliament’s Mines Commission (1842)

Ask: Betty Harris worked in a coal mine. What does this tell you about work in the 1840s? Is this the price of progress?

2. Main activity: Rank-the-Evidence Card Sort

Grouping: Groups of 3 or 4

Materials (printables are in the Lesson Plan Doc)
  • One set of 6 evidence cards per group (printable pages in the Lesson Plan Doc)
  • A progress line on paper: “Clear progress” to “Clear harm”
  • Exit ticket slips
  1. Define progress 5 min
    Ask the class: what would count as progress? List ideas (more goods, higher wages, longer lives, more freedom).
  2. Sort the cards 12 min
    Groups place the 6 cards on a line from “Clear progress” to “Clear harm” and write a reason for each.
  3. Who is speaking? 8 min
    Groups label each author: owner, worker, reformer, economist, or revolutionary. Does the author’s position predict where the card goes?
  4. Share 10 min
    Each group explains its most surprising placement.
  5. Take a stand 8 min
    Use the vote slide.
  6. Exit ticket 5 min
    Students answer on a slip before leaving.

Take a stand: Was the Industrial Revolution progress?

  • Yes, progress: It produced goods and wealth on a scale never seen before, and Smith explained how the division of labor raised productivity; over time wages and living standards rose.
  • Not for those living through it: Engels, the Mines Commission, and Peterloo show crowded slums, dangerous work for women and children, and the violent suppression of a reform meeting.

3. Pacing options

15-minute bell-ringer

  • 3 min Hook: Betty Harris
  • 8 min Compare Adam Smith with Engels on Manchester: is the economy working for everyone?
  • 4 min Exit ticket question 1

Full 50-minute lesson

  • 4 min Hook: Betty Harris
  • 5 min Define progress
  • 12 min Sort
  • 8 min Who is speaking?
  • 10 min Share and vote
  • 5 min Exit ticket
  • 6 min Buffer

4. Exit ticket

  1. Is the Industrial Revolution best described as progress? Use one source.
  2. Pick one author. How might his or her position in society shape what he or she saw?

5. Differentiation

Support

  • This set has no Adapted Docs yet; read key passages aloud or chunk them for struggling readers.
  • Pre-sort the cards into “description” and “argument” cards.
  • Sentence frame: “This source shows progress/harm because ___.”

Extension

  • Research the Factory Acts and Mines Act. Did Parliament fix the problems in the sources?
  • Compare Smith’s and Marx’s views of the market in one paragraph.

Suggested sequence

  1. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
    Document · Project Gutenberg · World: Revolutions (1750-1900) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 30+ min
    Adam Smith's 1776 foundational work on economics.
    Ask: How does the division of labor increase productivity?
    Open with this source to frame the question.
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  2. Industrialisation: 19th c. town in Lancashire
    Image · Wellcome Collection · World: Revolutions (1750-1900) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 5 min
    Wellcome Collection item (found via Europeana): Industrialisation: 19th c. town in Lancashire.
    Ask: How did industrialization change towns in Lancashire, England?
    Original ↗See-Think-WonderOPTIC
  3. Engels: Industrial Manchester (1844)
    Document · Fordham University · World: Revolutions (1750-1900) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Engels's description of working-class Manchester.
    Ask: What did industrialization do to cities?
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  4. Women Miners in the English Coal Pits (1842)
    Document · Fordham University · World: Revolutions (1750-1900) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Testimony from women and girls to Parliament's Mines Commission.
    Ask: What did industrial work mean for women and children?
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  5. The Peterloo Massacre (1819)
    Document · Fordham University · World: Revolutions (1750-1900) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Accounts of the attack on a peaceful reform meeting in Manchester.
    Ask: How did governments respond to demands for the vote?
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  6. Communist Manifesto (Marxists Internet Archive)
    Document · Marxists Internet Archive · World: Revolutions (1750-1900) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 30+ min
    Marx and Engels, 1848.
    Ask: Why did Marx believe revolution was inevitable?
    Close with this source before writing.
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP

Watch

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Culminating writing prompt

Using evidence from at least three sources in this set, write an argument that answers the question: “Was the Industrial Revolution progress?” Cite each source by title, explain how its author, audience, and purpose affect its reliability, and respond to at least one counterargument.

Printable writing sheet (make a copy)

Students can plan with the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning organizer.