Tracing the Growth of a Town

Living History
Tracing the Growth of a Town

Write a biography of your town or neighborhood. Using what you’ve learned about Industrialization and Urbanization, how cities grow, and why people migrate and immigrate, discuss the following:
· The town’s or neighborhood’s founders;
· Major ethnic groups, including when they arrived and what they contributed to the area;
· The problems created by growth and the way that the problems were solved;
· What the future of the town/neighborhood might be.



Tracing the Growth of a Town: Gathering Information

Use the local newspaper, library, or museum to find books, maps, websites, and other information;
Prepare questions and then interview older members of the community, your family, tape or video recording them and their comments;
Get permission to visit schools, places of worship, the Chamber of Commerce, and other sites of interest;
Check your own family’s sources for photographs and memorabilia.



Project Planning Guide

Step 1
Students prepare a list of persons and places to visit.
Step 2
Students gather information from the persons and places they have listed in Step 1.
Step 3
Students organize the data they have collected.
Step 4
Students write a summary of the neighborhood’s past, including relevant materials such as photographs, maps, graphs, etc., to predict the neighborhood’s future.