TEACHER RESOURCE LESSON PLAN TAKING IT TO THE STREETS the development of Michigan’s major economic activities from statehood to present. • 4-H3.0.2 - Use primary and secondary sources to explain how migration and immigration affected and continue to affect the growth of Michigan. • 4-H3.0.3 - Describe how the relationship between the location of natural resources and the location of industries (after 1837) affected INTRODUCTION and continues to affect the location and growth This lesson helps fourth grade students understand of Michigan cities. the life and culture in Detroit as it grew into one of the largest cities in the United States. Students COMMON CORE ANCHOR STANDARDS - ELA will learn about the industrialization of Detroit, as well as the key symbols that still represent the Reading city and its people today. The lesson includes • 1 - Read closely to determine what the text says a comprehensive background essay, a list of explicitly and to make logical inferences from additional resources, and copies of worksheets and it; cite specific textual evidence when writing primary sources. or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS • 9 - Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build What can we learn about Detroit and the history of knowledge or to compare the approaches the its people by looking at maps and street names? authors take. Speaking and Listening LEARNING OBJECTIVES • 1 - Prepare for and participate effectively in a Students will: range of conversations and collaborations with • Discover the history of Detroit through the diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and names of its great streets. expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • Design a visual display or marker depicting the • 2 - Integrate and evaluate information presented history of a selected Detroit street. in diverse media and formats, including visually, • Orally present information about a historic quantitatively, and orally. Detroit street. MI GLCES – GRADE FOUR SOCIAL STUDIES H4 – History of Michigan Beyond Statehood • 4-H3.0.1 - Use historical inquiry to investigate LESSON PLAN: TAKING IT TO THE STREETS BACKGROUND ESSAY By the 1860s, Detroit’s transformation from development, and Detroit became known for frontier outpost to bustling metropolis was almost manufacturing railroad cars. It was the largest complete. In 1870, the city’s population was 79,577. industry in Detroit in the 1890s. In 1892 several The city covered almost 13 square miles, and it companies, including the Michigan Car Company, ranked 18th in size in the United States. The city Peninsular Car Company, the Russel Wheel and boasted over 14,000 homes, 52 churches, 24 public Foundry Company and the Detroit Car Wheel schools, and 14 hospitals and asylums. Detroit’s Company merged to become the Michigan- streets were littered with horse-drawn streetcars. In Peninsular Car Company. The company made train 1886, streetcar lines covered 42 miles of streets in wheels and frameworks for rail cars, as well as the city of Detroit. In 1893, the streetcar horses were innovated on car design. In 1868, Detroiter William replaced by new electric trolleys. Davis patented the first refrigerator rail car. He sold Immigration from foreign countries was beginning the design to George H. Hammond, a Detroit meat to peak. Nearly half of all Detroiters were born packer, who built a set of cars to ship his meat to outside the United States, the east coast. It used ice with the highest-percentage harvested from the Great coming from Germany, Lakes to keep it cool. Ireland, Poland and Canada. Even railroad sleeper car Detroit’s economy was innovator George Pullman booming. One of the largest manufactured his cars in industries in the 1870s Detroit in the 1870s. was copper smelting. Raw In the middle of the copper ore was shipped 19th century, Detroiters from Michigan’s Upper had to purchase cast iron Peninsula to Detroit, where it wood and kitchen stoves was processed in factories. from upstate New York. It “Smelting” is the process of took a lot of time and a lot removing minerals and other of money to ship stoves contaminants from the ore and repair parts to Detroit. in order to make pure metal. In 1861, Jeremiah Dwyer, The copper was then made into several products, an apprentice stove maker from Albany, New like wiring, pipes, jewelry and other items. By the York, began dabbling in the manufacture of cast 1880s, Detroit was also known for its iron foundries. iron stoves in Detroit. By 1864, his Detroit Stove In addition to refining the raw iron ore, several Company was making stoves that were noted manufacturers melted the iron until it was a red hot across the country for their quality. By the 1870s, liquid, and poured it into molds to make stoves, the company had grown so large that it changed its candle holders, tools, building facades and other name to the Michigan Stove Company, and declared products. Detroit the “stove capital of the world.” They commemorated their title at the 1893 The Original “Big 3” World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago with a By the 1890s, Detroit had emerged as a center monumental structure: the world’s largest stove, of heavy industry. The availability of iron ore in which was a replica of their Garland wood stove Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and easy access to that was carved from wood, weighed 15 tons and coal via the Great Lakes made Detroit an ideal place stood 25 feet tall. (The stove had been restored and for factories. Manufacturers were building names erected at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in 1974. for themselves and the city in three key industries: It burned to the ground in August 2011 when it was railroad cars, stoves and ship building. allegedly hit by lightning.) Other stove manufacturers The railroad helped jump start Detroit’s in Detroit included the Peninsular Stove Company. LESSON PLAN: TAKING IT TO THE STREETS The availability of natural resources also made Progressive Detroit Detroit a shipbuilding center by the 1870s. Early Hazen S. Pingree was a cobbler who moved to entrepreneurs had built “dry docks” on the Detroit Detroit after serving in the Union Army during the River in the 1850s. Dry docks were landings in a Civil War. In Detroit, he quickly found success as a harbor next to a pier where ships were loaded and shoe manufacturer, and by the early 1880s he and unloaded or repaired. Most had a series of gates to partner, Charles H. Smith, were the largest shoe and let water in and out. In 1879, the Detroit Dry Dock boot manufacturer in the Midwest. Company purchased a large shipyard in Wyandotte, In the 1880s, Pingree was upset and angry by the Michigan and began building massive fresh water corruption he saw in Detroit’s city government. He vessels. Factories that made marine engines, steam had a distrust of private companies that did business boilers, and ship parts sprung up all over the city. for the city, such as paving streets, building sewers By 1905, Detroit shipbuilding companies were and supplying electric and gas, which he felt were manufacturing nearly half of all ships – both freight taking advantage of city contracts and charging and passenger – on the Great Lakes. exorbitant fees. Pingree ran for the office of Detroit In addition to heavy industry, Detroit was also mayor and was elected in 1889. known for making a Pingree’s host of other consumer administration was goods. Turning lumber known for fighting from northern Michigan corruption in the into boards was still city. He challenged an important industry, the privately-owned as well as making electric and gas leather and fur goods monopolies by and clothing, cigars creating municipally- and tobacco products, owned competitors. boots and shoes, soap His largest and most and candles, seeds, public struggle was and pharmaceuticals. against the private Dexter Ferry founded the D. M. Ferry & Co., a Detroit City Railways. He felt they overcharged flower and vegetable seed producer, in Detroit in patrons and demanded they lower their fares to 1879. People can still buy seeds from the company three-cents per ride. He even tried to create a today. Many common products and businesses that competing municipally-owned streetcar company, are familiar today got their start in the late 1800s, but did not succeed because it was prohibited by including Vernor’s ginger ale, Sander’s ice cream the Michigan Constitution. shops, Hudson’s department store, Stroh’s beer and In 1893, Detroit and the country faced a severe Kresge 5 and 10 (now known as Kmart). economic depression. Pingree took action by Detroiters were hard workers. The new industries creating public welfare programs and initiating public required both skilled and unskilled workers. Many of works projects for the unemployed which built new the foreign-born immigrants found jobs in factories. schools, parks, and public baths. In 1894, Pingree Women would sew or make cigars, and men would won national acclaim for his “potato patch plan.” work long hours in the factories. A normal work week He arranged for vacant city land, both public and was ten hours a day, six days a week. Most laborers private, to be converted to vegetable gardens that earned about $1.00 per day. The city also had many would provide food for the city’s poor. Pingree even professional jobs. Hundreds of doctors, lawyers, funded part of the garden plan with his own money. dentists, barbers, merchants, and clerks worked in In 1896, Pingree was elected Governor of offices spread across the city. Michigan. He still had one year left as mayor of Detroit, and he intended to serve in both positions LESSON PLAN: TAKING IT TO THE STREETS at the same time.