Focus: Understanding Economics in U.S. History

Half-Day Workshop

3.5 Hours

1. Introduction (10 minutes)

  • Introduce the workshop leaders.
  • Provide an overview of the workshop. Describe the schedule of the day’s activities.
  • Ask the workshop participants to introduce themselves.

2. What Does Economics Contribute to History(30minutes)

  • Explain that the student achievement levels in history are often criticized. Perhaps introducing students to the economic way of thinking in history may strengthen the teaching of history.
  • Show the PowerPoint slides from the file titled: How Economics Can Strengthen the Teaching of History. This presentation provides an overview of the problems that face U.S. history teachers. It explains how stressing the economic way of thinking can be a powerful way to improve the teaching and learning of history. The presentation also includes an overview of the Table of Contents.

3. Introduction to the Economic Way of Thinking (30 Minutes)

  • Explain that Focus: Understanding Economics in U.S. History identifies explicit problems in U.S. history and then uses the economic way of thinking as illustrated by the six principles in the Guide to Economic Reasoning as a way to solve the problem or, at least, to better understand people’s choices. Show the PowerPoint slides from the file titled: Introduction to the Economic Thinking. Solve the mystery of why the American colonists fought a revolution when they were safe, prosperous and free.

4. Demonstration of Lesson 5, Why Sell Yourself into Bondage? (30 minutes)

  • Demonstrating Lesson 5 is an easy way to show the participants the power of applying economic thinking to historical problems. Many workers in colonial North America were indentured servants—people who signed contracts stating they would work for up to seven years in exchange for passage to North America. Some historians have likened indentured servitude to slavery. But for a period of time from about 1650 to 1780 young men and women from England eagerly committed themselves to terms of indentured servitude for work to be performed in the North American colonies. Why would people accept difficult jobs that they could not quit? Why would they sell themselves into bondage?
  • Show the PowerPoint slides 1 to 4 from the file titled: Indentured Servants.
  • Distribute and discuss Activity 5.1 A Contract for an Indentured Servant.
  • Distribute and discuss Activity 5.2. This is a primary source document of an indentured servant contract.
  • Distribute Activity 5.3. This is series of case studies of individualswho signed indentured servant contracts. Divide the participants into groups. Assign each group one case study. Ask them to discuss the costs and benefits that faced each individual. Ask each group to explain their analysis. You may wish to display PowerPoint slides 5 and 6 in Indentured Servants to guide the discussion.

5. Break (15 minutes)

6. Demonstration of Lesson 3, Why Do Economies Grow? (50 minutes)

  • Lesson 3 introduces the basic characteristics of a market economy. Show the PowerPoint slides 1 to 15 from the file titled: Why Do Economies Grow? These slides contain expanded versions of Visuals 1 and 2 in Lesson 3. Explain that it would be easy to suppose that rich nations are rich because they possess natural resources, and that poor nations are poor because they lack natural resources. But many nations holding vast stores of natural resources are poor, and other nations lacking in natural resources are wealthy. Economists place little emphasis on natural resources in explaining economic growth. Instead, they stress the role of economic systems and institutions. Spanish and English colonial history provides a lesson on the importance of economic systems and institutions.
  • Distribute Activity 3.1 and Display PowerPoint slides 16 to18 in Why Do Economies Grow? These slides explain the relationship between certain economic institutions and economic growth including private property rights, physical capital, human capital, investment, and infrastructure.
  • Tell the participants that they have been appointed to a panel to make recommendations on how people living on another planet should develop their economy. Distribute Activity 3.2 and ask participants to read the information and respond to the questions for discussion. You may wish to show PowerPoint slides 19 to 24in Why Do Economies Grow? to guide the activity.

7. Constitutional Period: Demonstration of Lessons 8 and 9 (45 minutes)

  • Explain that Americans faced severe problems after the Revolutionary War. Urgent economic questions remained to be addressed. Show PowerPoint slides 1 to 9 in the filed titled Economics of the Constitution. These slides illustrate the issues that emerged under the Articles of Confederation. They were adapted from Lesson 8 Problems under the Articles of Confederation.
  • To address the economic issues under the Articles of Confederation, the founders convened the Constitutional Convention. From May until September 1787, 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia for “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.” Instead, they decided to write a new Constitution.
  • Show PowerPoint slides 10 and 11 from the file titled: Economics of the Constitution. Explain that many nations have adopted written constitutions but have failed nonetheless to grow economically. How is it that the U.S. Constitution became an effective force in promoting economic growth within a market system?
  • Show PowerPoint slides 12 to 15 from Economics of the Constitution. Explain that the founders were familiar with the scholarly writing of the period. Constitution they wrote embodied important ideals of economic freedom, as envisioned by Adam Smith in The Wealth the Nations, and created the possibility for the United States to emerge as a strong, dynamic market economy.
  • Distribute Activity 9.1 The Constitution: Rules for the Economy to the participants. Divide the participants into groups and assign each group one clause from the Constitution as presented in Activity 9.1. They should formulate an answer to the situation presented. After the groups have had a few minutes of discussion, show PowerPoint slides 15 to 20 to guide the whole-group discussion to their responses to the situations in Activity 9.1.

11. Wrap Up (15 Minutes)

  • Review the key features of the workshop.
  • Distribute the evaluation from and allow time for the participants to complete it.
  • Few history teachers have had the good fortune to have taken an economic history course while in college. Some teachers may be unaware that standard textbooks and other sources exist. Show PowerPoint slides 1 to 5 from the file titled Key References and discuss these standard sources.
  • Discuss any follow-up programs you may have planned.