Students learn how industrialization led to the rise of big business and how John D. Rockefeller used ruthless efficiency to lead Standard Oil to dominate the oil industry and the positive and negative impacts it had on the country.
Gilded Age Lesson Overview
Students learn how industrialization led to the rise of big business and how John D. Rockefeller used ruthless efficiency to lead Standard Oil to dominate the oil industry and the positive and negative impacts it had on the country. Tracing Rockefeller’s childhood of poverty, students learn how industrialists like him and Andrew Carnegie used methods like vertical and horizontal integration to consolidate business, increase efficiency, and dominate the economy. Covering the benefits of innovation and transformations that occurred with industrialization students grapple with the ultimate cost of the rise of big business on America then to better consider its impact today.
What Students Do:
Students read a secondary source on Robber Barons and Captains of Industry, create a T chart to gather evidence, and finally write an op-ed for a newspaper if trusts should be broken up.
Skill Development: Critical reading, evidence gathering, and argumentative writing.