Cotton Gin Role Play Objective: 1. Students will be able to understand how the invention of the cotton gin made cotton farming so much easier and profitable. 2. Students will be able to explain how the invention of the cotton gin led to a rise in slavery. Supplies Needed: 2 pairs of scissors Plenty of copies of the raw cotton paper (included with this packet) A stopwatch (although not necessary) Lifesavers (or any other small, cheap candy) Room Set Up: On the floor in the back of the room, spread out the pieces of raw cotton paper. This will serve as the cotton plantation field. Also, leave a table free in the front of the room for the cotton cleaners to sit. Explanation: For the sake of the role play, pretend that each piece of raw cotton paper is one basket of real raw cotton. Students will have to pick the cotton in the back of the room, and bring it to the front table to get cleaned. In order for the cotton to be shipped up north, the seeds along the edges must be cleaned out. In order for the cleaned cotton to pass inspection, all four sides (containing seeds) must be NEATLY (straight edged) removed from the raw cotton paper. (see diagram on raw cotton paper basically, creating a smaller rectangle piece of paper). For every 2 pieces of cleaned cotton that pass inspection, the class will1 lifesaver. Then, tell the students that you will need 5 volunteers 2 to clean the cotton, 2 to pick the cotton, and one to inspect the cotton. The students who pick the cotton can only bring ONE sheet at a time to the front, as again, one sheet will represent an entire basket of cotton. Procedure: 1. Give students 2 minutes to pick and clean as much cotton as possible. If needed, bribe the inspector with extra lifesavers to ensure that he or she does an effective job at approving only well cleaned cotton. 2. After 2 minutes, most likely the class would have earned 1 or 2 lifesavers. Hopefully, too much cotton would have been picked as the cleaners should be able to clean the cotton as fast. 3. Then, tell students, 2 new inventions will change everything: New textile mills in the north have increased their demand for cotton. Now, a 2 lifesavers can be earned for just 1 piece of cleaned cotton. Also, with the invention of the cotton gin, cleaning cotton will be a lot easier. Hand the 2 cotton cleaners each a pair of scissors. 4. Give the students (or other students if there are a lot of volunteers) 2 more minutes to pick and clean cotton. Tell the cotton cleaners that they may stack the raw cotton paper and cut (clean) more then one piece at a time.
5. After 2 minutes, most likely this time there should not be enough cotton picked to keep the cotton cleaners busy, but the class would have earned some more lifesavers. Ask them what they need (direct the answers so that they will realize they need more cotton pickers). 6. Tell them, that they can buy additional pickers for the price of one lifesaver each. (Allow them to go into debt if they have to; try to keep the additional number they buy between 4 and 6). 7. Then, give the students another 2 minutes to pick and clean the cotton. This time, they hopefully cleaned a lot of cotton, and earned plenty of lifesavers. If you want, keep the lifesavers, since as owner, there would be no sharing of the profits with slaves Follow-up: Discuss how before the cotton gin (scissors) and the increase in demand for cotton, that cotton farming was not that profitable, as the class had earned few life savers. Also, point out that there was not much demand for slavery. Then, as cotton farming became easier and more profitable, we more then doubled the amount of slaves we had. Also, if students who are picking cotton are running back and forth between the front and back of the room (in the quest for more lifesavers), it could be interesting to discuss if slaves really would have hustled like that.
Jeremy Hales Teaching American History Grant Cape Cod September 24, 2009 Unit: Cotton, Slavery, and the Lowell Mills (The connection between the agricultural south and the industrial north). Objectives: Students will be able to describe the effect the cotton gin had on the economy of the south, slavery, and the country as a whole. Students will be able to explain how the Industrial Revolution led to a rise in slavery and increased economic differences between the north and south. Students will be able to analyze the complex relationship between southern plantation owners and northern textile mill owners. Students will be able to describe the conditions of workers in the textile mills, and compare them with the conditions of slaves. Activity #1: Introduction of Unit & Key Terms 1) Introduce the unit by showing students the cartoon titled The innocent cause of all the trouble (an overhead transparency copy is included). Discuss it with students 2) Pass out the worksheet titled Cotton, Slavery, & the Lowell Mills. Working in groups, students should complete the worksheet using materials in the room. This worksheet will serve as an overview for the unit. 3) As a class, discuss and add to students answers. Assessment: Students must choose either the cotton gin or textile mill, and then make a drawing or illustration explaining how it worked. Activity #2: Cotton & the Cotton Gin 1) Pass out raw cotton to students in the room and encourage them to try to get the seeds out. The cotton can be ordered at www.cottonman.com/cotton.htm. 2) Do the Cotton Gin Role Play. See the sheet included in this packet for direction and explanation of the role play. Assessment: Students should write a brief essay, a Pearl, no more then 200 words, on how the Industrial Revolution actually increased economic differences between the north and south. If time, brainstorm in class possible ideas. Activity #3: The Connection between Lowell and the South 1) Pass out copies of Document 2, from the Cotton, Cloth, and Conflict packet prepared by the Tsongas Industrial History Center and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell (copy included in packet). As a class, discuss the chart and the conclusions that students draw from it.
2) Then, pass out copies of Documents 8 and 9. Working in groups, students should read and the answer the questions. Each group should present one key conclusion they came away with from the documents. 3) As a class, discuss answers to the questions. Also, point out that while it was clear that Lowell was benefiting from slavery, and that there were ant-abolitionist feelings in Lowell, that there were also plenty of people in Lowell who did support abolition. Activity #4: Who had it worse slaves or mill workers? 1) Divide the class into 2 sides the north and the south. 2) Then, tell those representing the north, that they need to defend the conditions of mill workers while condemning the conditions of slavery. Obviously, the southern side must do the opposite. 3) Then, pass out copies of the following to every student (included in packet): Excerpts from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Document 16 (from same packet as Activity #3) Document 18 Document 19 Document 20 Document 21 Document 22 4) Then, tell students, using these primary source documents, they need to make their case attacking the other side while being prepared to defend your side. 5) As a class, debate the two sides. Assessment: Write a Pearl taking the other side (from the one assigned in class) in the debate on whose conditions were worse.
Name Period Date Cotton, Slavery, & the Lowell Mills The Connection between the Agricultural South and the Industrial North Use a your textbook, the internet, or previous knowledge to define the following terms. 1. cash crop 2. slavery 3. Industrial Revolution 4. Eli Whitney 5. cotton gin 6. textile industry 7. Samuel Slater 8. Francis Cabot Lowell 9. Lowell Mills 10. Lowell Girls