Social Studies – Unit Activity Planner: Austin Past and Present
Austin Independent School District
Grade: 11
Unit Length (Number of class periods): 7, plus one
suggested follow-up activity for a later unit. For teachers
wanting a shorter unit, the material for the first 4 class periods
can easily stand alone.
Course: U.S. History
Topic: Economic Development: Post-Reconstruction South and Today
Required Technology: The activities for the first and fifth class periods’ lessons will work best in a setting in which each student has access to
a computer with internet access and with the Austin Past and Present DVD. Aside from these class periods, students are working in groups and
will need to make intermittent reference to materials on the DVD, but having several computers available to the entire class should suffice;
teachers will not need a computer lab with a computer for each student.
Concepts: community growth
economic opportunity
needs and wants
resources
Overarching question: How does a community adapt to changing economic
realities?
Unit Understandings:
 Economic opportunity helps to shape population
movements and living patterns (such as urbanization).
Unit Questions(s):
 Why did Austin experience rapid growth in the 1870’s?
 What were the foundations of Austin’s economy in the late 1800’s?
 What were the political, social, and economic challenges associated
with industrialization and urbanization in America’s largest cities in
the Gilded Age? Which ones did Austin experience?
 How did the presence of the University of Texas shape life in Austin
in the late 1800’s? In what ways does the University enhance
Austin’s economy today?
 In what way do cities today act to try to promote economic growth?
What tensions or controversies are created by growth?
 Rapid growth creates physical and social challenges for
a community.
 Economic development depends on both natural and
human resources.
Austin Independent School District
Social Studies Curriculum Department
June, 2006
Social Studies – Unit Activity Planner: Austin Past and Present
Austin Independent School District
TEKS/TAKS Questions:
 How did the growth of railroads in the late 1800’s spur economic growth in the United States? What other industries or occupations
benefited from construction of a nationwide rail network? [TEKS 2(B), 23(A); American Republic ch. 9, sec. 2]

What new problems and challenges were created by Americans’ move to the cities in the late 1800’s? What social groups benefited? Were
any new social divisions created by living in an urban environment? [TEKS 2(C); American Republic ch. 10, sec. 2]

How do changing demographic patterns such as immigration and urbanization affect citizens’ lives and the physical environment? [TEKS
10(A), 10(B)]

What effects might Austin’s future growth have on the physical environment? [TEKS 11(A)]

How did African-Americans and other groups excluded from educational opportunities in Austin in the late 1800’s act to meet the needs of
their communities? [TEKS 21(A)]
Materials:
 Austin Past and Present Time Tour “Railroad and University”
 Austin Past and Present Time Tour “Railroad and University”
 Austin Past and Present Time Tour “Railroad and University”
 Austin Past and Present Time Tour “City of the Violet Crown”
 Austin Past and Present Time Tour “City of the Violet Crown”
1871-1892 Video
1871-1892 Timeline
1871-1892 Selected Biographies
1893-1929 Video
1893-1929 Selected Biographies

Primary documents from the late 1800’s are suggested, including: Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives, Henry Demarest Lloyd’s “Lords
of Industry, and “Honest and Dishonest Graft” from Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.

Austin American-Statesman articles about the effort to attract Samsung.

Austin Chamber of Commerce website: www.austin-chamber.org

Envision Central Texas website: http://envisioncentraltexas.org
Austin Independent School District
Social Studies Curriculum Department
June, 2006
Social Studies – Unit Activity Planner: Austin Past and Present
Austin Independent School District
Preview:
In the 1871-1892 segment of the Austin Past and Present time tour, students learn about how the arrival of the railroad transformed life in
Austin, about Austin’s competition with other cities for the main campus of the University of Texas, and about plans to make Austin into an
industrial center of the Southwest.
Students will use these materials to consider how urbanization in the late 1800’s changed American life, and especially what challenges were
created for municipal government and by the disruption of settled social structures.
They will also be asked to think more generally about the concept of economic development – how community leaders try to shape economic
growth and position a community to take advantage of economic trends, and how economic growth can change lifestyles (for better or worse).
Students will look at a recent effort to promote Austin’s economic growth (the successful bid for a Samsung factory), think about how economic
and why development has changed since the late 1800’s, and finally engage in an activity to envision their own community a generation in the
future.
Student activities that support the TEKS/TAKS :

Graphic organizer on effects of arrival of railroad in Austin (1871) [TEKS 24(A)]
Assessment(s):
 Economic development plan for Austin (1881)
Austin Independent School District
Social Studies Curriculum Department
June, 2006