Oklahoma Academic Standard 2. The student will analyze the social, economic and political changes that occurred during the American Industrial Revolution, the Gilded Age, and significant reform movements from the 1870s to the 1920s.

Objective 2.1  Evaluate the transformation of American society, economy and politics during the American Industrial Revolution.

  E. Evaluate the significance of the Labor Movement on the organization of workers including the impact of the Pullman strikes, the Haymarket Riot, and the leadership of Eugene V. Debs. 

In a Nutshell

Teacher Action 

Student Action 

• Provide opportunities for students to organize, and analyze various kinds of primary and secondary source evidence related to efforts to organize labor, public opinion and public order.  

• Assist students to evaluate how multiple, complex events are shaped by unique circumstances of time and place, as well as broader historical contexts.

• Gather, organize and analyze primary and secondary sources such as cartoons or photographs related to disputes between laborers and industrialists.

• Use interdisciplinary lenses to gather and evaluate information regarding complex local, regional, and global problems; assess individual and collective actions taken to address such problems.  

Key Concepts 

Misconceptions 

• “new” factory system

• Knights of Labor, Federation of Labor

• common goals of organized labor movement

• strategies used by organized labor including striking, parading, boycott and collective bargaining  

• Some students mistakenly assume that the only purpose of unions is to obtain higher wages and better working conditions; whereas, in reality, unions also provided social and fraternal approaches to social and economic problems.  

Instructional Resources