Gold, Silver....and Rust

   Last week in History class, my group and I became Museum Curators of the 4^th floor of our school.  We were given a letter from during the Industrial Revolution and had to research more about the letter to answer sourcing questions: Who wrote it?  Why did they write it?  This led to our group project.  We were given sources like paintings, statistics, and letters and we had to set up an exhibit based on the sources we were given. 

     After looking though all the sources, we had to decide what the theme was.  Based on the sources we were given, we concluded that the point we should try to inform our readers was that the Industrial Revolution had negative affects alongside positive affects towards the people and

Making Money,
Destroying Neighborhoods

environment.  After deciding the theme of our exhibit, we did background research on the sources and made sure the source was relevant to the exhibit.  Then we determined what should be learned from the exhibit and accordingly, we designed placards and labeled pictures and added captions.  Finally, we added a title, “Making Money, Destroying Neighborhoods.”  The title wasn’t too boring and it sums up what we want the audience to learn from our exhibit.  The Industrial Revolution did a lot of good things for society, factories were created and there was better travel!  It wasn’t all silver and gold though.  There was rust everywhere.  The environment was polluted and people weren’t living healthy and comfortable lives. 

     Other groups also did exhibits in my class.  Group A talked about how once the Spinning Machines were invented, only one person was needed to maintain them, usually the father.  So what used to be everyone earning some money for the week became only the father earning the money and was fully dependent on.  Group B talked about the new transportation systems such as the steam engine and the railway.  These really helped traveling become more efficient.  Group D talks about the regulations and laws passed for the children who work.  According to different sources, children under the age of 18 shouldn’t work during the night time and should only work 10 hours per day.  Group E talked about how slavery increased drastically because of the Industrial Revolution.  The Industrial Revolution made a lot of significant changes.  Not all of them were positive though; there were a lot of negative effects also.