THE SECOND WAVE:
European Immigration from 1850-1920

Facilitator: Stan Brimberg

Overview

What was America like for arriving immigrants at the turn of the century? This activity is part of a year-long study of American history for middle school-age students. Participants take the part of students who are learning about 19th and 20th century European immigration. The teacher makes available an html list of documents, images and other sites, which narrows the initial search for resources. Small groups examine materials found at the sites to learn about the texture of the lives of immigrants from any of four groups. The information and some of the images are used to create a first-hand account of a fictional family from one of the cultures chronicling their experiences as immigrants.

Objectives

At the end of this activity participants will be able to:

• identify reasons for using primary sources and role playing exercises with middle school students;
• access and evaluate documents and photographs from the American Memory collections and elsewhere related to European immigration;
• describe the world of the immigrant, in terms a middle school student might use;
• discuss how historical events affect ordinary people, and how ordinary people may affect important events;
• identify the pros and cons of various ways students might express what they learn and understand;

Resources

1. Excerpts from middle school students’ history scrapbooks

2. The following American Memory online collections:
   1. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 - 1940
   2. Early Motion Pictures, 1897-1920
   3. The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920: Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections
   4. Panoramic Maps
   5. Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
   6. Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company
   7. Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years.

3. Immigration Resources, a list of miscellaneous sites and files assembled by the instructor.

Exercise

1. Introduction (30 minutes)

We discuss the basic questions teachers ask when planning an activity as part of a larger curriculum. The discussion will be focused on why it makes sense to use primary sources and an extended role play. We'll address the following questions about a project in which students research and create fictional immigrant family histories:

• What is the informational scope of the project?
• What concepts will students learn?
• How does this activity fit into the larger curriculum?
• How did we get here?
• How long should it last?
• Why is it important to have students do a multimedia project?
• How much should teachers structure the study?
• How much of the direction should be provided by students?
• How can we assess student learning?

2. Investigate a culture using two American Memory collections (60 minutes)

1. In pairs, choose one of the following immigrant groups to investigate:

2. Select the American Life Histories collection and one other collection listed below, and search for material about your immigrant group and their experience of late 19th and early 20th century America.
   
   Search tips: Vary your search words, trying out the name of your immigrant group, cities you know to be associated with them, common names, or places, activities and types of work they might have performed.
   • Early Motion Pictures, 1897-1920
   • The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920: Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections
   • Panoramic Maps
   • Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
   • Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company
   • Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years.

3. Examine several documents, including those from a text collection and a visual collection. Begin to evaluate them for usefulness using these questions:

   • To what extent do the images and documents from these collections reinforce or extend students' existing knowledge of immigrant life?

   • How might students use what they learn to make their own fictional immigrant families more realistic?

4. Print our two photographs and two text documents that deal with your chosen immigrant group and their experience in late 19th and early 20th century America. Examine the photographs. What do you see? What do they tell you about immigrant life? What questions do they raise? Read the life histories. What information confirms what you already knew? What information is new? What questions are raised?

5. Consult the other resources on the Immigration Resources webpage. Find one that complements / contrasts with the American Memory collections, in terms of information provided for students. Print it out.

3. Demonstrating Understanding (20 minutes)

Choose one of the following tasks:

1. Make an artifact (a drawing, a historical newspaper article, a 3D paper model) that conveys what you now know about immigrant life, and integrates something you saw in the photos. You might, for example, create a dollhouse-size room from a tenement, or a newspaper story about conditions for urban immigrants). By recreating an artifact, the student focuses on details that would ordinarily overlooked. S/he comes to appreciate something about both the technology and the texture of turn of the century life.

2. Write a journal entry, suggested by a document you read, from the viewpoint of a member of your fictional immigrant family. Be sure to include details you gleaned from the documents. You might describe, for example, going out to buy a pickle on the Lower East Side of New York City, or, playing street games with your friends using actual songs children sang. By using historical information found in the life histories, students come to appreciate social history, which complements their understanding of historical events or forces learned in other ways.

4. Follow-up Discussion / Viewing of Student Work (30 minutes)

We share the results of our investigations and look at samples of student products on the same themes.

1. What feels right about this project model of curriculum? What doesn't? What issues have arisen in the course of the today’s activity?

2. What was it like to use the collections? What are their advantages over other media and other sites? Disadvantages? How do we decide whether a collection is worth using to achieve curricular goals?

3. What kinds of learning are evident in the samples of student work? What's your response to the idea of a consolidating activity? What are its advantages and shortcomings?