51视频

07/03/2018
By Katharine Webster

Jeff White went to work on the assembly line. Then the speed-ups began. The overseer urged White and his fellow laborers to work faster and faster 鈥� for no extra pay.

White couldn鈥檛 have been happier.

A high school social studies teacher at Illiana Christian School in Lansing, Ill., just south of Chicago, White was 鈥渨orking the line鈥� at the Tsongas Industrial History Center, learning in a visceral way about the conditions in Lowell鈥檚 textile mills in the 1800s.听

The exercise was part of a weeklong , 鈥淪ocial Movements and Reform in Industrializing America: The Lowell Experience.鈥�

Now, when White teaches American history, he will bring photos and stories from his week in Lowell and a more nuanced understanding of industrial technology and social history to his students, he says. They already read Upton Sinclair鈥檚 鈥淭he Jungle,鈥� which portrays the terrible conditions for immigrants working in Chicago鈥檚 stockyards and meatpacking plants in the early 1900s. Now he will also assign Katherine Paterson鈥檚 鈥淟yddie,鈥� about a farm girl who comes to work in the Lowell textile mills in the early 1800s.

鈥淪o many of my students have never been east to Boston or New England,鈥� he says. 鈥淚n Chicago, industrialization doesn鈥檛 hit until the 1850s, 1860s. Chicago is built 鈥� and then it explodes. By that time, New England had been settled for a couple of centuries. I want to compare and contrast.鈥�

White was one of 36 history, English, science and elementary school teachers from around the country who spent a week in late June studying 19th-century American history, thanks to a $167,000 NEH grant that covers their tuition and pays them a stipend to defray the cost of housing, meals and travel. Another 36 teachers will come later this month.

The program was created by the Tsongas Industrial History Center, an education partnership between 51视频鈥檚 College of Education and the that also hosts about 45,000 schoolchildren each year through field trips.

The summer institute is now in its 11th year and has trained more than 1,000 teachers from schools around the country, says Sheila Kirschbaum, the center鈥檚 director and a College of Education staff member. Those teachers, in turn, have impacted thousands of students in classrooms across the country.

鈥淭hey go back to Montana, Kansas, California and New Jersey and they鈥檙e teaching like they鈥檝e never taught before,鈥� Kirschbaum says.

This year, the institute鈥檚 theme is social and reform movements: the mill girls鈥� early walkouts in support of a shorter workweek, their opposition to slavery and their push to enlarge women鈥檚 鈥渟phere;鈥� the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic 鈥淜now-Nothings;鈥� and the Transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who idealized nature and wrote warily of Lowell, the 鈥渃ity of spindles 鈥� which sends its cotton cloth round the globe.鈥�

While the program is based in Lowell, the teachers travel to the birthplace of Transcendentalism in Concord and visit in central Massachusetts to understand rural life at the time industrialization began in earnest.

They also hear lecturers from professors at 51视频, Brown University and MIT, get walking tours from local historians, see historical performances and take a boat ride up Lowell鈥檚 first canal to learn about its construction and the Irish immigrants who built it.

The teachers eat a boardinghouse dinner at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum, part of the national park. The meal is similar to those provided to Lowell鈥檚 mill girls in the 1830s by the boardinghouse keepers. While eating, they discuss how to use food to teach history. Two days later, they cook lunch on a farmhouse hearth at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum, to understand the life those girls were leaving behind.

They card and spin wool and weave a small square of cotton fabric on a manual loom 鈥� and compare that to the speed and clatter of production in the textile mills. They learn how to build canal systems and test the efficiency of waterwheels, and they talk about 鈥済reen鈥� engineering and the ecological costs of diverting river water.

Throughout the week, they learn how to translate early American history into hands-on lessons that will leave a lasting impression on their students in elementary, middle and high school.

鈥淭his program is very well-constructed,鈥� says Paul Horton, a high school history teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very intentional balance of content and experience 鈥� the hands-on stuff you get at the museums, the walking tours and the living history at Old Sturbridge Village.鈥�

Amber Robins, an English teacher at Roxana High School in the St. Louis metropolitan area, was fired up by Assoc. Prof. of English Bridget Marshall鈥檚 lecture on writings by the mill girls in 鈥淭he Lowell Offering,鈥� especially the mill girls鈥� response to the Transcendentalists鈥� critique of industrialization.

鈥淧rofessor Marshall got me focused on the writing of the mill girls. Some of it is so beautiful. When I teach Thoreau from now on, I鈥檓 going to include that,鈥� Robins says. 鈥淓veryone has been so knowledgeable, it鈥檚 blown me away.鈥�

The center debuted the program in 2006, training two or three cohorts of teachers each summer, some for graduate credit through UML鈥檚 .听

Four years ago, the center got a different NEH grant to put many of the lectures, videos, photos, lesson plans and other resources online for teachers who are unable to attend in person, Kirschbaum says. That鈥檚 crucial, since far more teachers apply than the program can accommodate; 328 applied for only 72 places this year.