Cambell Soup

Discrimination and the Committee on Fair Employment

Strategic Lesson Plan

Don Owen

OAH Midwest Regional Conference – July 8, 2006

Click here to download lesson in PDF format

Enduring Understandings/Essential Question:

Content: Students will be able to create and research hypotheses about how world and national events changed the labor force.

How do individuals, labor unions, companies, and the government deal with issues of discrimination in the workplace?

Process: Analyzing primary documents, researching and reading secondary sources, to create a historical context.

Assessment:

Content: Students will research a claim of discrimination against a business and write an essay that analyzes why WWII was an era of change, conflict and progress for labor and the labor force in the United States.

Process: Students will organize information using graphic organizers and problem-solution notes as pre-writing tools.

Content:

o “Fair Employment Practices Committee,” Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site – Website: http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/fepc.htm

o Primary Documents from NARA Great Lakes Region, Record Group, 228, Fair Employment Practices Committee.

Preparing for Understanding:

o Elementary - Read Coming On Home Soon, by Jacqueline Woodson, Scholastic, 2004

o Secondary - ABC brainstorm about “Discrimination”

Engaging with Primary Sources:

o Primary Documents from Record Group 228, National Archives and Records Administration Great Lakes Regional Depository

o NARA Written Document Analysis Worksheet

o Context of Document Graphic Organizer

o Generating Questions (Questioning the Author/Document)

Web Resources

Classroom Discussions/Activities:

Hand out copies of (or display on overhead) letter from Mrs. Ethel Baker. Have students complete a “Written Document Analysis Worksheet” individually or in a small group. Discuss the analysis as a whole class. Questions to pose: “Who is responsible for dealing with issues of discrimination in the workplace?” “What facts can you gain from this document?” “What inferences can you make about life in the U.S. at the time this document was written?”

Introduce the idea of First Order Primary Documents, Second Order Primary Documents and secondary sources to build context (see Drake and Nelson, Engagement in Teaching History. 2005). A First Order Primary Document is the document that you choose as essential in teaching about a concept or era. Second Order Documents are supplementary documents that either support or refute inferences that were made after reading the First Order Documents. Third Order documents are primary documents that students find themselves. They combine all of the information to build an understanding of the historical context. Use the Context of Document Graphic Organizer to have students record their thoughts and notes about the documents and sources that they use.

Assign students to 4 groups. Give each group copies of one of the four remaining documents: UCAPAWA letter to Mr. Henderson; Letter to Mrs. Baker from City of Chicago, Office of the Mayor; Letter from Campbell Soup Company; and Memo from Joy Schultz. Have each group discuss and write how their groups’ document either supports or refutes hypotheses and inferences they made from reading Mrs. Baker’s letter (The First Order document for this lesson). Have groups share what they wrote and discussed with the class. The class should take notes about these documents on the Context of Document Graphic Organizer.

Have students research (online or in their texts) the Fair Employment Practices Committee, including the A. Philip Randolph-proposed March on Washington of 1941. For an example, see “Fair Employment Practices Committee,” Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site – Website: http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/fepc.htm

As a final assessment, have students answer the question, “Why was WWII a time of change, conflict and progress for labor and the labor force in the United States?”

Illinois Learning Standards:

14.C.2 Describe and evaluate why rights and responsibilities are important to the individual, family, community, workplace, state and nation (e.g., voting, protection under the law).

14.C.3 Compare historical issues involving rights, roles and status of individuals in relation to municipalities, states and the nation.

14.D. Understand the roles and influences of individuals and interest groups in the political systems of Illinois, the United States and other nations.

16.A Apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.

15.E. Understand the impact of government policies and decisions on production and consumption in the economy.

16.A.2c Ask questions and seek answers by collecting and analyzing data from historic documents, images and other literary and non-literary sources.

16.B. Understand the development of significant political events.

16.C.3c (US) Describe how economic developments and government policies after 1865 affected the country’s economic institutions including corporations, banks and organized labor.

16.C.4c (US) Describe how American economic institutions were shaped by industrialists, union leaders and groups including Southern migrants, Dust Bowl refugees, agricultural workers from Mexico and female workers since 1914.