Pamela Terwilliger
Teacher Developed Activity, T-DA!
Activity name: Knowing Where You’re At…And How You Got There
Seminar: Building America: Minnesota’s Iron Range, U.S. Industrialization, and the
Creation of a World Power
Grade ban: Grades 9-12
For use with lessons about: Immigration; Minnesota History
Time needed: Three to five class periods of 60 minutes each.
Materials:
 Powerpoint: Knowing Where You Are At
 Map of Minnesota’s Iron Ranges from Minnesota’s Iron Country: Rich Ore, Rich Lives by
Marvin Lamppa, Lake Superior Port Cities, Inc.: Duluth, MN, 2004. (attached)
 DVD – Iron Country, Episode 11 – Immigrant labor, unions and Range politics (55 min.), by Judi
Kellner, Ted Pellman, Marvin Lamppa, WDSE-TV, Duluth, MN, 2000.
 DVD – The Shaping of the American Nation, The Immigrant Experience – The Long, Long Journey
(28 min.), The Phoenix Learning Group, Inc., St. Louis, MO.
 “Save Your Breath and Start Climbing: The Milford Mine Disaster, 1924” from Minnesota’s
Twentieth Century, Stories of Extraordinary Everyday People by D. J. Tice, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1999.
 “The People of the Mesabi Range” by John Sirjamaki, pp. 261-271, Selections from Minnesota
History: A Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology, edited by Rhoda R. Gilman and June Drenning
Holmquist; Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, MN 1965.
 They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups by June Drenning Holmquist,
Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, MN, 1981.
 “Immigrant Life in the Ore Region of Northern Minnesota” by LeRoy Hodges, The Survey, Vol.
28, September 7, 1912, pp 703-709.
 The Color of Mesabi Bones by John Caddy, Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, MN, 1989.
Overview: This activity is designed to teach students about immigrants who came to Minnesota in
the late 1800s to early 1900s to work in Minnesota’s iron ore industry.
Essential question: Where did Iron Range mine workers emigrate from? Why did they come
and what was life like for them in their new country? How might the experience of today’s
immigrants differ from that of those who emigrated to the Iron Range?
Outcomes:
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Students will be able to evaluate experiences of selected Iron Range immigrant groups.
Students will be able to discuss what an immigrant is, why they immigrated to the Iron Range,
and what they encountered when they arrived in northern Minnesota.
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Students will mark on a world map the countries where the majority of Iron Range immigrants
came from.
Students will select one ethnic group who immigrated to the Iron Range and write a two-page
(minimum) typed essay describing the immigration experience of that group.
Prior knowledge: Students should have a basic understanding of Minnesota’s Iron Range, although
this is designed as an extended lesson on the ethnic and cultural development of the Iron Range.
Background information: Students should be able to develop a well-organized essay (minimum of
two pages), including relevant details, and using conventions of Edited American English.
Activity steps:
1. Show students map of Minnesota’s Iron Ranges and ask students what they know about the
Iron Range and the people who worked in the mines in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
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2. Read aloud “Mine Town: Knowing Where You’re At” by John Caddy (attached).
Guided Questions:
What does John Caddy mean by “knowing where you’re at?”
What is he saying about the people who live on the Iron Range?
John Caddy refers to joking relationships. What does he mean by that? Do we have joking
relationships today?
What can you infer about life on the Iron Range from John Caddy’s essay?
3. View Iron Country, Episode 11 – Immigrant labor, unions and Range politics.
Guided Questions:
What does the film tell us about working conditions in the mines in the early 1900s?
Who provided the labor force for the mining companies? What was life like for mine laborers at
the time?
Why was there discontent among the workers?
What happened as a result of this discontent?
4. View The Shaping of the American Nation, The Immigrant Experience – The Long, Long
Journey
Guided Questions:
What does the film tell us about immigration?
How does this compare with what you know about the experience of those who immigrated to
the Iron Range?
What kind of qualities do you think it takes for individuals to make the decision to leave one part
of the world for another?
What kind of conditions (economic, political, cultural), do you think motivates people to leave
one part of the world for another?
Is coming to the US an easier decision in more current times than it was at the end of the last
century? Why/why not?
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4. Have students pair up, with each pair choosing one of the following ethnic groups to study:
Croatia, England (Cornish), Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Montenegro, Russia and the former
Soviet Union, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries. They are to use They
Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups, along with other resources, to research
what the immigration experience was for their chosen group.
5. Show students the images in a Powerpoint or have them use the Internet to view the photos.
6. Review the rubric for the writing assignment. Each student is to submit an essay of his/her
own.
Blackline masters: Map of Minnesota’s Iron Ranges (attached)
Handout: “Immigrant Life in the Ore Region of Northern Minnesota”
Rubric/Assessment tool: Immigrant Experience Essay Rubric (attached).
Additional resources:
 DVD – Lake Superior Iron: The Mines Around Lake Superior (52 min.) by Prairie Works, Eden
Prairie, MN, 2004.
 DVD – Soudan Underground Mine: The “Cadillac” of Underground Mines
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MINE TOWN: Knowing Where You’re At
By John Caddy
He saw nation in every cheekbone, every movement of a lip. Pops Schibel stood in front of Palace
Clothing, greeting all in their mother tongues. Saw nation in a walk, the way a scarf or babushka was
worn, and knew which of his seven tongues to greet. He apprenticed in Helsinki and Riga, Malmo and
St. Petersburg, and in none of them could he own land.
Pops knew all these sons and daughters of hardrock miners who drilled underground in Budapest and
Cornwall and Helsinki before they came across in the 1880s and 90s, jostling sons and daughters of the
Canuck and Swede end Yank loggers who stayed to finish off the pine. He knew the steerage families
from Italy and Montenegro, Finland and the Ukraine who came later with sharp elbows and notes on
their clothes, knew the Greeks and Irish, the Baltic Jews, Chinese.
Nation was basic on the Mesabi. And where that tension ruled, so did clarity. A glaring clarity that let
you know where you were at – like it or not. A restful clarity that saved the energy of politesse, saved
work, allowed work. Clarity sired by Necessity out of Babel.
Here, even Italians said Eye-talian. To the rest, Dagos, Serb, Croatians, Slovenian – any Slav – lumped
into Bohunk. Cornish were Cousin Jacks. Finns so lucid and sure they were simply Suomilainens,
Finnlanders. Necessity: second and third-generation kids routinely insulted their friends to greet them,
to defuse their parents’ dislikes, their own suspicions. Insult with a smile. Hey, Dago, how ya doin’?
Insult to enable love.
Years later in Anthropology 1A, I hear a lecture about the Eskimo custom of joking relationships, crude
ritual insults to lower winter tensions and prevent murder. Norwegian and German farmboys furrow
their brows and push forward heavily in their chairs, trying to comprehend, and for a change, I lean back
and cross my feet, happy to hear of other civilized groups in the north, knowing where I’m at.
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Immigration Experience Rubric
Exemplary
Accomplished
Developing
Beginning
4
3
2
1
Sharp, focused,
relevant details; fullydeveloped ideas;
insightful.
Adequate focus;
superficial ideas;
overlooks less
important ideas and
details.
Confused focus;
limited information;
stereotyped thinking.
No focus; no
information;
minimal
understanding.
Logical order; good
Organization introduction; relevant
details; smooth
transitions; solid
conclusion.
Introduction and
conclusion evident;
connections seem
forced.
Writing lacks
direction; fuzzy
connections;
confusing or
irrelevant details;
unclear purpose.
No direction; no
connections; no
details; purpose is
unclear.
Content
Style
Mechanics
Small/Large
Group
Participation
Score
Flat, barren
writing; no
imagery;
confusing
sentences;
reliance on
clichés.
Original, expressive,
engaging; good word
choice; flows
smoothly
Some precision and Flat, lifeless writing;
vocabulary choice;
fuzzy imagery;
lack of detail; use of awkward sentences;
clichés.
monotonous patterns.
Grammar,
capitalization,
punctuation, usage,
spelling,
paragraphing used
effectively;
mechanics reinforce
organization.
Weaknesses impair
writing; incorrect
grammar,
capitalization,
punctuation, usage,
and spelling.
Text virtually
Numerous errors; text
unreadable;
difficult to read; nonmassive editing
standard English
required; nonused; extensive
standard English
editing required.
used.
Participates
enthusiastically;
assumes leadership
role in discussion;
freely volunteers
thoughts/insights.
Moderate
participation;
contributes to
discussion without
prompting.
Little or no
Minimal
participation;
participation;
relies on others to
contributes only when
generate and share
called upon.
ideas.
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www.minnesotahumanities.org
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