Who’s Home on Elfreth’s Alley?

Lesson 1

Each student will receive a different identity card.   Explain that the students will be examining the lives of several residents of Elfreth’s Alley in1880.

Open a discussion with the students about where they might look for information about people from the past.  Some of the answers may include: internet sources or encyclopedias, some may even bring up birth records or death certificates.   Point out that encyclopedias may provide information about famous people, but what about the average person?

Have students look at their identity cards and tell them that this is a real person whom they will be investigating.  Have them record on the Record Sheet all of the information about their person that they already have.  Once this task is completed, give the class 5 -10 minutes to figure out who else is in their household.  They may choose to do this by family name or address.

Stop investigation to note that just because there may be more than one family name at an address, it doesn’t mean that they all didn’t live there.

The students will share their identities with their household mates and begin to speculate about the relationships among the residents in their house.  Additional information gleaned should be recorded on the Record Sheet.  Students should back up their speculations with evidence and/or their reasoning.

As a whole class, discuss:
How many households are we seeing?
Are their similarities among the households?
Are their differences among the households?
What are the age spans of the residents?
How big do we think these houses are?


Once this initial exercise is completed, introduce the census records for Elfreth’s Alley.  Copies for each group is necessary.  Before beginning the next section, have the students examine the manuscipt census records.  Are they able to read it?  Do they think the person who took the information from the original document had any better ability to read it?  What about spelling?

Have students find their person’s address on the census records.

Ask students to discover, if possible, the following information:
Is everyone in the household already represented in the classroom cards?
If not, why not?
What occupations do these residents have?
Who do you think the “head of household is?”
What kind of job does he/ she have?
Do you think that is a “skilled” or craftsman job?
What job does the mother or female head of household have?
What jobs do the grown children have?
Are they skilled labor?
How many people live at this address?
Were they all born in Philadelphia?

Lesson 2

An expansion of the previous lesson
NOTE:
http://content.ancestry.com/Browse/View.aspx?dbid=6742&path=Pennsylvania...
Ancestry.com is a private subscription website. However, at National Archives and Records Administration facilities, access to Ancestry and the online scans of many census records is free of charge.
The scanned manuscript records attached to this lesson are only from the 1880 US Federal Census.

Using the 1870 and 1880 census records, compare the listing of families at the same four addresses (114, 117, 126, 130) The 1870 census is not provided.

• Do the same names appear?
• If not, are they similar? (Torby, Torpey)
• Could they be the same people?
• Do you think the age listings are accurate? Why or why not?
• What does the head of household do for a living? Is it skilled labor?
• Are there people living in the house who seem to be unrelated to the other people living there? Who might they be? Why are they living there?
• Look at the family and given names of the people in these four houses. What can you guess about the Elfreth's Alley neighborhood from these names?
• Who has written down this information? Can you trust its accuracy?