The Data Behind Industrial America

Between 1860 and 1910 the United States became the world's largest industrial economy — but who benefited? Students test two competing primary sources (Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, 1889, and Thomas O'Donnell's 1883 Senate testimony) against four real datasets — wealth concentration, industrial capital, infant mortality, and patents — practicing pattern recognition, percent-change calculation, incommensurable-dataset comparison, and data-source criticism before writing a 300–400 word civic memo to a fictional 1905 Senate reform commission.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Subject Area U.S. History
Grade Band 11-12
Technology Tool CODAP
Class Time Estimate 2
Data Science Focus
  • 11-12.C.2.1a Use simulations to investigate associations between two categorical variables and to compare groups.
  • 11-12.C.2.3b Construct prediction intervals and confidence intervals to determine plausible values of a predicted observation or a population characteristic.
  • 11-12.C.5.1b Assess relationships in the context of uncertainty, bias, and reliability of the data.
Standards Alignment C3.D2.Eco.1.9-12
Prerequisites Familiarity with what a dataset is; percent, trend/pattern, and increase/decrease; awareness that sources can be incomplete or biased. (Percent-change procedure is taught here, so it is not a prerequisite.)
Version 1.0
Date Created July 9, 2026
Last Updated July 9, 2026