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8th 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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 8.13(B); 8.23(A); 8.24(A); 8.24(B); 8.27(A); 8.28(B) · inventions and industry, immigration, and the abolition, women's rights and school reform movements

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The North built factories and cities, like the Lowell mills, which hired many young women from farms.
  2. The South relied on plantation crops worked by enslaved people.
  3. Reformers acted: Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and guided many others to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

Example: Why did the North and South develop different economies? The North had rivers for mills and growing cities. The South had a long growing season for crops like cotton. Plantations there relied on enslaved labor. Answer: The North had more factories; the South relied on plantation crops.

Factories & Reformers in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 3 of 10 in 8th grade Social Studies, after Rights & Amendments and before Reconstruction.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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 Lowell mills in Massachusetts employed many…

    • Enslaved people
    • Retired soldiers
    • Young women from farms
    • Children from Europe only

  2. Question 2

    Why did factory workers sometimes form unions?

    • To push for better pay, shorter hours and safer conditions
    • To leave the country
    • To own the factories
    • To stop all work forever

  3. Question 3

    Horace Mann worked to build…

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

  4. Question 4

    Many Irish and German immigrants came in the 1840s and 1850s. Where did many Irish work?

    • In Congress
    • As plantation owners
    • In cities, factories and building canals and railroads
    • In gold mines in Alaska

  5. Question 5

    The cotton gin was invented by…

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

  6. Question 6

    The Industrial Revolution brought…

    • Machines and factories that made goods faster
    • Horses replacing trains
    • The end of all work
    • Only farming

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