Title: Why Did People Come Here?
Duration: 40 minutes
Objectives: Students will be able to discuss how and why New Haven developed into a city and early community while observing geographical features.
Vocabulary: Community, Native, Immigrants, Census, geography
Materials: Colored popsicle sticks with census data, New Haven pictures 2 and 3, world map, flip books.
Anticipatory Set: The teacher will ask the students where they came from and about their family background. The teacher will project the world map and label New Haven. The teacher will also draw travel lines indicating areas of the world where people came from. Students will be encouraged to mark the classroom map to show where their ancestors came from, as well. Then encourage students to name countries that were mentioned from the previous lesson.
Direct Instruction: Use colored popsicle sticks to show students the different groups of people that came to New Haven. (Example: a blue popsicle stick represents people from France, a yellow popsicle stick represents people from Poland, and so forth. The teacher will write the number that represents the people who came from that particular part of the world.. Using the 1920 Census, teachers may focus on the larger numbers for each color while also including the classroom demographics). During this activity, the teacher will ask the students to think about where they are from. The teacher should keep in mind that students have different histories, and some may not know of their own as it may have been systematically erased. For this reason, the teacher is encouraged to recognize this and designate a popsicle stick for people whose origin is unknown. Students should understand that while some paths are known, many are not, and this largely a result of the history of enslavement. This conversation may lead to a meaningful conversation about students having a sense of community in New Haven, and how they are a new generation of kind, open-minded individuals with purpose and an identity.
The teacher will instruct the students to work in small groups to discuss today’s flipbook activity.
Content to discuss: New Haven was considered a port city in New England. This meant that items were regularly traded to different parts of the world, especially England. Such items included timber, maple syrup, fish, and furs. Enslavers also bought and sold enslaved people in the region. The port enabled the growing economy to bloom, which would continue to attract more immigrants looking for opportunities. To this day, the New Haven Port is an essential part of life in the area.
The New Haven Port Authority is responsible for improving the competitiveness of the Port of New Haven and waterborne transportation to the economic benefit of New Haven and the State of Connecticut. The Port of New Haven is the biggest deep-water port in Connecticut, handling some 18 million tons of cargo per year, including almost all of the State's manufactured goods. (World Port Source, 2005-2022).
New Haven’s Long Wharf port was constructed in response to the demand for more goods to come into the area. The port would allow for large ships to transfer items for purchase throughout New Haven. Many of the goods were shipped from Boston, New York, and the West Indies, which are better known as the Caribbean Islands, today. Some of the resources that were transported to and from the port included livestock, gun powder, sugar, hats, and lumber.
New Haven has served as a reliable port as it connects to major bodies of water and travels through the state itself. The depth of the New Haven Harbor and its width have enabled large ships to easily maneuver large shipments of products from place to place. Today, New Haven continues to transport goods to and from other places in the world.
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Images and Citations:
- Leonard Reid Band: Greater New Haven African-American Historical Society Archives: An Ethnic History of New Haven. Courtesy of the Ethnic Heritage Center
- City of New Haven- WEBSITE DESIGN BY GRANICUS Newhavenct.gov
- World Port Source. http://www.worldportsource.com/ports/commerce/USA_CT_Port_of_New_Haven_781.php