Activity 2: The Impact of Invention

Have students use the search tools on the Mass Moments website to create a list of nineteenth-century industrial innovations. Transfer the list to a timeline, allowing space to add additional information. Have students note the impact each innovation had on workers, if they know what it was. Major inventions/innovations developed outside of Massachusetts can be included on the timeline as well.

As an additional activity, students may want to identify some recent innovations (for example, the cell phone) and discuss how they have affected people’s lives in general, and more specifically workers’ jobs.