Inventions: 1780-1870
Grade Levels: 6 - 8
Objectives
- Students will learn about the proliferation of inventions that took place during the years between 1780 and 1870.
- Students will gain skill in classifying information and arranging events in chronological order on a graph (time line).
Materials
- Index cards
- Clothes pins
- String
- Markers, pens
Procedures
- Classifying Information
- Write the following headings across the top of a chalkboard: Industry, Transportation, Communication, Agriculture, Home.
- Have your students print the headings across the top of a piece of paper.
- As you present each invention from the list that follows, ask how it should be classified.
- Then, write the invention in the proper column on the board with your students following suit.
- Completing a Time Line
- String a cord along one of the walls of the classroom.
- Mark off sections of ten years each, starting with 1780.
- Assign inventions to various students. Each invention is to be recorded on a card, including date and a picture of the invention.
- Using clothes pins, hang the cards on the line at appropriate places. If two or more inventions have close dates, strings of different lengths may be hung from the horizontal cord.
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Inventions
Photography (C) Ice-Making Machine (H) Telegraph (C) Gasoline Engine (T) Typewriter (C) Bessemer Converter (steel) (1) Steamboat (T) Steam Locomotive (T) Corn Picker (A) McAdam Paving (roads) (T) Reaper (A) Pneumatic Tire (air-filled) (T) Bicycle (T) Dirigible Airship (T) Cotton Gin (A) Safety Match (H) Hot-air Balloon (T) Canning Foods (H) Portland Cement (1) Vulcanized Rubber (tires, rubber boots, etc.) (T) Lathe (cutting wood, metal) (1) Sewing Machine (H) (1) Glider (T) Safety Pin (H) Lawn Mower (H) Elevator (T) |
Date
1822* 1850* 1840 1860 1867 1855 1785* 1804 1850 1815 1834 1845 1860 1852 1793 1844 1783 1787* 1824 1839 1800 1845 1853 1846 1831 1853 |
Note: * after a date indicates that the device may not have been invented by one individual at a particular time; rather, the device was perfected over a period of time by several people contributing to the whole. The safety pin, for example, was invented in a matter of hours, but the steamboat was brought to practicality over a period of time by various persons making contributions. For example, many people attribute the invention of the automobile to Henry Ford because his name is so closely associated with the vehicle. In actuality, dozens of inventors contributed to the final invention. Ford had the ability to use the inventions of others along with his own so as to produce a practical automobile.
Excerpted from Ready-to-Use American History Activities.
