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7th grade · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 10

Factories & Reformers

Inventions, immigrants and reform

What your child practices

The Industrial Revolution in the North, canals, roads and railroads, immigration, public schools, and the abolition and women's rights movements before 1861.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 7.4.20.1; 7.5.24.1 · reformers and the campaign for women's right to vote

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The North built factories, canals and railroads; the South relied on plantation crops worked by enslaved people.
  2. Interchangeable parts made manufacturing faster. Mills like Lowell hired young women from farms.
  3. Reformers worked for abolition and women’s rights: Sojourner Truth, David Walker and the Seneca Falls Convention (1848).

Example: What did the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 call for? It was a meeting about women’s rights. It called for equal rights, including the vote. Answer: equal rights for women, including the vote

Factories & Reformers in Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 3 of 10 in 7th grade Social Studies, after Industrial America and before Rights & Amendments.

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: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

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

    The cotton gin was invented by…

    • Samuel Morse
    • Thomas Edison
    • Robert Fulton
    • Eli Whitney

  2. Question 2

    The Lowell mills in Massachusetts hired many…

    • young women from farms
    • soldiers
    • sailors from Spain
    • kings

  3. Question 3

    The Declaration of Sentiments (1848) demanded…

    • More slavery
    • Lower tariffs
    • Equal rights for women, including the vote
    • Independence from Britain

  4. Question 4

    Horace Mann worked to build…

    • canals only
    • railroads
    • private castles
    • free public schools for all children

  5. Question 5

    Harriet Tubman is known for…

    • Leading the Trail of Tears
    • Inventing the telegraph
    • Writing the Constitution
    • Escaping slavery and guiding many others to freedom on the Underground Railroad

  6. Question 6

    Interchangeable parts made manufacturing…

    • Faster, since identical parts could be swapped
    • Impossible
    • Only handmade
    • Slower

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