Description: Your students will meet residents of the Ohio Village who are residents and business owners. While interacting with these business owners and residents, students will learn more about what life was like in 1859, just before the Civil War, when tensions were high over the issue of slavery. Students will gather information from several residents and then evaluate the effective traits of the community’s citizens in order to determine who the conductor is.
*This program is outside, so please have the students dress for the weather. *
Location: Ohio Village next to the Ohio History Center
Availability (April 2014): Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in April, with the exception of April 30. Please contact Scheduling Office about availability of specific dates.
Time Allowance: 1½ hours, Programs begin at 10:00 a.m. and 11:30.
Maximum: 60 students
Cost: $8.00 per student; $4.00 per chaperone; Teachers are free
As part of the program students gather together to determine which individual in the village is the conductor. This period is also a debriefing time and a chance to process the experience and share what they have learned. The presenters will facilitate this discussion particularly focusing on the objectives for their specific grade.
Cultural Background: The year is 1859 and James Buchanan is president. Few people have heard of Abraham Lincoln. Slavery, illegal in Ohio due to the Northwest Ordinance, is practiced throughout the south. Ohio played a key part in the Underground Railroad.
Vocabulary:
Abolitionist -- A person who supports the abolition of something, especially those who called for an end to slavery
Conductor -- A person who aided or directly transported slaves along the Underground Railroad
Discrimination – Unfair treatment of a person or group based on a variety of prejudices
Emancipation -- Freeing someone from the control of another
Fugitive Slave Law -- A law that made it legal for southern slave owners to capture slaves who had escaped to free states. It also required that all citizens help catch runaway slaves and stated that those who assisted runaways could be fined or jailed. This law was unpopular among the northern states and turned many neutral Northerners into abolitionists.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787 -- A federal ordinance that, among other things, did not allow slavery within the Northwest Territory
Prejudice – An adverse opinion or judgment formed beforehand without full knowledge or complete examination of the facts; a preconceived idea or preference
Responsibilities – The conditions or tasks for which a person is accountable or answerable
Rights – Just claims that belong to a person by law, nature or tradition
Slavery -- The practice of owning slaves; work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay
Station – A safe house or a safe hiding place that was a stop along the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad -- A secret network of people who helped slaves flee from the southern United States along trails, roads, and sea routes to Canada or other places of safety in the North prior to the abolition of slavery.
Social Studies Standards Connections (by Benchmark and Grade Level Indicator):
Current:
Grade 3: Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities – A2; Social Studies Skills and Methods – A1
Grade 4: People in Societies – B3; Government – A2; Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities – B2; Social Studies Skills and Methods – A3, B6
Grade 5: People in Societies – B3; Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities – B2; Social Studies Skills and Methods – B5, 6
Grade 6: Social Studies Skills and Methods – B2, D7
Grade 8: History – G9e; Citizenship Rights and Responsibility – A1b; Study Skills and Methods – A
Revised:
Grade 3: 9, 10
Grade 4: 7, 15
Grade 5: 11
Grade 8: 4, 11
New Social Studies Standards:
Fourth Grade: SS 4.7