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8th grade · Social Studies · Unit 12 of 12

Freedom & Change

Abolitionists, reformers and people on the move

What your child practices

Free Black communities in the North, abolitionists and the Underground Railroad, the women's rights movement, pioneer women in the West and the Exodusters, including Arizona's early vote for women in 1912.

Arizona Academic Standards learning standard: 8.H3.2; 8.H3.1 · how individuals and groups worked for change in American society

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Before the Civil War, most white Southerners were small farmers who owned no enslaved people.
  2. Abolitionists and reformers worked to end slavery and win rights.
  3. After Reconstruction, Black families moved west and north to own land and find jobs; those who went to Kansas in 1879 were called Exodusters.

Example: Is “the chance to own land” a push or a pull factor? A pull factor draws people to a new place. Owning land made the West attractive. So it is a pull factor. Answer: a pull factor

Freedom & Change in Arizona

In the Arizona Academic Standards, this is unit 12 of 12 in 8th grade Social Studies, after Markets & the Economy.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Arizona Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Why did many western territories give women the vote before eastern states?

    • women were banned in the East
    • they wanted settlers, and women's work on the frontier earned respect
    • Congress ordered it
    • there were no men in the West

  2. Question 2

    In Northern cities, Black migrants found…

    • slavery
    • more opportunity, but also discrimination in jobs and housing
    • complete equality
    • no jobs at all

  3. Question 3

    Arizona women won the right to vote in 1912, eight years before the…

    • 13th Amendment
    • 1st Amendment
    • 19th Amendment

  4. Question 4

    Richard Allen, a formerly enslaved man in Philadelphia, founded the…

    • Church of England
    • Freedmen's Bureau
    • Society of Jesus
    • African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church

  5. Question 5

    Why were schools and churches so important to free Black communities in the North?

    • they were required by the British
    • they built education, leadership and a voice for rights
    • they collected federal taxes
    • they were only for travelers

  6. Question 6

    How did the physical environment help shape white Southern society?

    • farmland suited to cash crops led to plantations, slavery and few cities
    • cold winters favored factories
    • mountains blocked all trade
    • deserts kept farming small

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