As the oldest students started to create a annotated time showing the century from 1850 – 1950, they revisited and reviewed last year’s study of the Industrial revolution. Here we learned how inventions fueled a transformation of the US economy. The booming economy brought with it huge social problems in regards to how workers and children were treated. We reviewed the unrest that took place in factories all over the country, as workers advocated for a shorter work day and safer working conditions. The power of the individual to bring about change was demonstrated over and over again, as the working poor fought agains the powerful and privileged industrial giants like Carnegie and Rockefeller. Students researched and wrote paragraphs for our time line explaining the Lawrence Strike,   the Homestead Strike and the Ludlow Mine Strike. Other students wrote about the creation of the Industrial Workers of the World, and the American Federation of Labor. Another student described the creation of child labor laws.

We recently turned out attention to the world and studied a map showing the colonization of countries around the globe in 1914. Countries like Great Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Germany had each carved out chunks of Africa for their own benefit. With this as a backdrop we explored the alliances that were developing between these same countries which led us to the causes of World War I, the War to End all Wars. Again we discussed the countries with power, and how that power was wielded over people less fortunate than themselves. Together we read Russell Freedman’s The War to End All Wars which describes artfully “the tangled relationships and alliances of many nations, the introduction of modern weaponry, and top-level military decisions that resulted in thousands upon thousands of casualties all contributed to the “great war,” which people hoped and believed would be the only conflict of its kind.”