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Standard: Analyze the origins of Progressive leaders and summarize the major accomplishments of Progressive Era

**Guiding Question:** What are some obstacles that faced Immigrants as they came to America?

Title: George Scigliano Boston's Progressive﻿ Leader

Boston was home to many immigrant groups that found employment in the factories and the docks in and around town. The workforce was made of Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants. This lesson is to introduce you to George A. Scigliano. Scigliano is a second generation Italian immigrant who was educated in the Boston. Scigliano was one of the firsts Italian immigrants to hold public office at the city and state level. The Irish had been the first to arrive and call the North End home. They lived in the tenements from basement to top floors looking for jobs to support their families. As the years passed, Italians had taken over the North End tenements as Irish moved to Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. The Italians also found work on the docks as well as establishing themselves in the trades and as merchants. Italians established the North Bennett Street School which still educates countless students looking to enter the trades. Italian immigrants did not take to the idea of citizenship like the Irish. Italians faced discrimination and scorn for their lack of interest in becoming citizens. Italians were looking for seasonal work planning to return to Italy with the idea of returning if necessary.
 * Introduction**:

This lesson will focus on how Italian immigrants lived as workers, politicians, and assimilated citizens of the United States.


 * Task:** To identify progressive legislation and/or actions that helped Immigrants overcome obstacles to find work, citizenship and assimilation into American society. Each student will be involved within a group to analyze a primary source document and report back to the class the findings of their document. The final task will require students to write an article as a newspaper reporter analyzing the effect of how the documents helped immigrants overcome obstacles in assimilating to the United States.

Day 1. - Elections Determine from election statistics, the number of Italians who were registered as voters. Read a passage from the book "Boston Italians"(page 14) to identify the percentage of Italians who immigrated to the USA and became citizens. Answer questions of how Italians were elected to office using prior knowledge of "Political Machines" based on election and voting stats.
 * Lesson Process: **

Election Results (type in Scigliano may want to increase size) for book 2 scroll down to page 1 and 3 and look at the total registered voters and male voters for ward 6 then turn to page11 then page 124 and note the total of votes that are cast fort Scigliano and all candidates in this election. If you have trouble finding voting results,click on the voting chart to see statistics on voters in 1905. media type="custom" key="8144034" media type="custom" key="8170618"



The Boston Italians
Read pages 13 and 14. media type="custom" key="8144444"

After reading pages 13 and 14 and taking into consideration the totals for voters and numbers of male residents, What possible connections can you make about the total of males and the number of registered voters?


 * How does this connect to what you know about elections held in cities that were full of immigrants? **

Divide into small groups to explore newspaper articles documenting George Scigliano's political life. Scigliano is responsible for a number of legislative bills that were meant to aid Italian immigrants. In your small groups, analyze your assigned primary source document and answer the questions below. Write bullet points from your research on a piece of large chart paper. Your group will have 3 minutes to present your findings to the class.
 * Day 2 Documents**

Chart Paper Presentation (small groups)
What do students have to write on the large chart paper? Students will be divided into groups to mark-up document and report back to group the class the answers to questions. When marking-up the documents students should be looking for the following How do these articles show progressive ideas? How do these documents explain obstacles that immigrants overcame to assimilate into USA? How do these documents explain what you know about politics of the era?

After marking up the document, students need to answer the following questions on the large chart paper and place it on the cork board in the back of the room.

When all documents and chart paper have been marked-up and questions answered, each group will present their findings to the class.

Students will be asked to take notes on each presentation and be allowed to ask questions about the findings.

Document 1
What is the relationship between John Fitzgerald and George Scigliano? What is Fitzgerald asking of Scigliano? What did Scigliano ask of Fitzgerald? Is the favor granted? Why or Why not.

Explain why this could be an example of progressivism.

Document 2
What is an immigrant bank and why would Scigliano want to file legislation because of them? Why would immigrants be targets for these types of banks? What is the solution to protect Immigrants from these bankers? Explain why this could be an example of progressivism.

Document 3
What is the Padrone System? Why would Scigliano want to file legislation against it? Why is it so hard for the workers to fight the system in the courts? Why would immigrants be targets for Padrone and not average American citizens? If you were to write the legislation, what kinds of measures could be taken to protect Immigrants? Explain why this could be an example of Progressivism.

Document 4
Define : Conscription, bread Riots, Triple Alliance What are some reasons why Italians immigrate to the USA? How would you describe the economic,political and social conditions in Italy? Why would immigrants think they would have a better life in the USA? What reforms could be made to keep Italians from leaving for the USA?

After your group has analyzed the assigned primary source document, answer the following question?
 * What does this say about the state of politics in the Progressive Era in Boston? **

** Students will summarize findings answering the following **: What obstacles did Immigrants overcome as they tried to assimilate into the USA? What reasons did Italians give for not becoming U.S. citizens? Why could George Scigliano be considered a Progressive Reformer?

The documents and elections results are the product of Political Machine politics that became the norm in the big cities of America. Politicians were buying votes and extending contracts to gain power and wealth. The Progressive leaders of the time worked to end the corrupt practices and expose the leaders to give the immigrant and working class the chance for advancement. While Fitzgerald could be linked to machine politics, George Scigliano could be linked to progressive reform. Scigliano died at the age of 39, Scigliano challenged organized crime and had his name on a hit list with other prominent Boston politicians, and some believed his organ failure was due to poisoning. In the days after his death, his funeral was noted in the papers as attended by any and all whom he represented. Many in the crowd did not know Scigliano personally, but they benefited from his time in office.
 * Conclusion:**

Your task is to write a newspaper article reporting on George Scigliano as a progressive reformer. When writing the article, you should have the point of view as a writer for one of Boston's major newspapers of the time. Your article should include facts from the class presentations to show evidence of progressive reforms. Your article should be free of personal opinion, but may include quotations from the articles.
 * Assessment:**
 * // STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO… // || // STRONG // || // GOOD // || // ADEQUATE // || // INADEQUATE // || // WEIGHTING // ||
 * Identify why Italian immigrants were apathetic in getting citizenship || Demonstrate the ability to obtain information from documents while working with group to presents findings || Demonstrate the ability to obtain information from dicuments with help from the group to present findings || Demonstrate the ability to obtain the main idea of the information and understand material to help present findings || Almost having the ability to gather main idea and information from material to present findings ||  ||
 * Identify problems Italian immigrants had in assimilating to USA || Completly id the problems of immigrants and explains how they were easy prey || Can see some of the problems that immigrants and has some idea of how they are prey || Can id basic problems with assimilations and may be able to see that they are easy prey || Can not id problems of assimilations and dosen't see how they are easy prey ||  ||
 * Identify problems Italian immigrants faced getting jobs in USA || Understands the problems of getting jobs and id the fact that many jobs were not avialable were low paying low skill || Understands that getting jobs are tough and that they have little skill to get good jobs || May understand that is difficult to get jobs and that they are low paying || Understand that godd jobs need good skills ||  ||
 * identify the contribution George Scigliano in getting Italian immigrants assimilated to the USA || Passed Bank and Padrone bills to help all immigrants from fraud || Was son of 1st generation Italian immigrant to get education and become elected member of government at city and state level || Was part of Italian benevolent societies that helped immigrants with education, housing and jobs || Elected to state legislature and wrote articles in local newspapers ||  ||


 * Resources:**
 * Boston Post March 6 1904**
 * Boston Traveler Nov 15, 1905**
 * Boston Post Feb 18,1904**
 * One Newspaper not Identified Nov 15, 1905**

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