Lesson Essential Question: How does the census help us understand the immigrant population of Tampa?

Objective: Students will examine census data to understand the growth of Ybor City and West Tampa’s population of different immigrant groups.  Students will interpret their data by creating a graph.

Materials:
• Image of Vicente Martinez Ybor
• Images of Ybor City at the turn of the century
• Cigar City Census Table, Graph worksheet
• Teacher background information on the census

Instructions: 1. Review the definition of the word immigration. Tell about the immigrants who came to Tampa. Use photos and their surroundings to show students what life was like in 1900 in Tampa. Explain that Vincente Ybor led a movement to bring immigrants to a neighborhood named for him. Show the students the image of Ybor.

2. Ask students if they were born in another country. Follow the flow of this conversation with students looking for countries and languages spoken at home.

3. Explain that students will work to determine who lived in Tampa 100 years ago.

4. Explain that before the Ybor City immigrants came to Tampa, 790 people lived in Tampa. Relationship to the size of their school? Explain that the 790 number comes from a census. Simply describe the census process.

5. Have students download the Cigar City Census Table. Using the table, students will create a bar graph on the Graph Worksheet that shows each immigrant group’s population. Explain how graphs can help us to interpret data in a visual way.

6. Discuss with students:
• Who was the largest group of immigrants?
• What language was spoken most often in Ybor City?
• Who will be the largest group of people in the 1910 census?

 

Teacher Background Information: Cigar City Census

Cigar City Census Reference—Teacher Background Reading

1900 Census from www.Ancestry.com/1900census

The 1900 census was begun on June 1, 1900. The enumeration was to be completed within thirty days, or two weeks for communities with populations of more than ten thousand.

Anyone conducting family history research for people alive on June 1, 1900 will find that the 1900 census is among the most valuable of all the U.S. Census ever taken. This is especially true since the destruction of the 1890 census in a fire leaves many genealogists with a 20-year gap during a period of heavy immigration. The U.S. population according to the 1900 census was 76,212,168.

Questions Asked for the 1900 Census

• The 1900 census schedules provide the name of each person in the household
• Address
• Relationship to the head of the household
• Color or race
• Sex
• Month and year of birth
• Age at last birthday
• Marital status; the number of years married
• The total number of children born of the mother
• The number of those children living
• Places of birth of each individual and the parents of each individual
• If the individual was foreign-born
• The year of immigration and the number of years in the United States
• Citizenship status of foreign-born individuals over age twenty-one
• Occupation
• Whether the person could read, write, and speak English
• Whether the home was owned or rented
• Whether the home was on a farm and whether the home was mortgaged

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Vicente Martinez Ybor Photo

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7th Avenue in Ybor City, Florida – 1919

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Cigar Factories, Ybor City – West Tampa, Florida

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Casitas, Ybor City-West Tampa, Florida

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Immigrant Cigar Workers, Ybor City-West Tampa, Florida

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Cigar City Census Table

Cigar City includes the communities of West Tampa and Ybor City

1880–1920:
Cubans, Spaniards, Italians, US Citizens, and Other Immigrants

*This number represents everyone living in Hillsborough County in 1880, including the area that is now Pinellas County.
**This number represents everyone living in Hillsborough County in 1890, including the area that is now Pinellas County.

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Graph Worksheet

Using your Census Table, create a bar graph below that shows each immigrant group’s population. Choose a color to represent each group and create bars for their correct population each census year.

Content courtesy of Florida Department of Transportation, www.fdot.gov

 

 

Lesson Essential Question: How did the development of transportation significantly contribute to the growth of Florida?

Objective: Students will be able to use primary sources and information to examine the causes and effects of different types of transportation throughout Florida’s history.

Materials:• Watch the Facebook Live video on the History of Transportation in Florida by Dr. Brad Massey, Curator of Public History, and Rodney Kite-Powell, Director of the Touchton Map Library.

 

• Background information and images of developments in transportation by aviation, bridges, ports, roads, and rail.
• Multi-Flow map for cause and effect and assignment instructions
• Acrostic example

Instructions:

1. Have the student download and read the background information on the different developments of transportation in Florida. Students can also watch the TBHC Facebook Live Presentation on the History of Transportation in Florida by Dr. Brad Massey, Curator of Public History, and Rodney Kite-Powell, Director of the Touchton Map Library.

2. As they read, have the students construct a Multi-Flow Map to show the causes and effects of the development of different types of transportation (Aviation, Bridges, Rail, etc.) Explain the concept of cause and effect in that the causes are what lead up to the main event, and the effects are the results. Important: make sure they understand that for this lesson, the development of the type of transportation is considered the main event. Students are to map out the causes and effects of 3 different developments in Florida transportation.

3. Students will complete an acrostic summary using the word TRANSPORTATION to demonstrate ways in which transportation has significantly contributed to the growth of Florida.

 

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The Development of Aviation:

The World’s First Commercial Aircraft! – January 1, 1914

This is the first flight of the world’s first commercial aircraft, a Benoist Type XIV, Model No. 43, in Tampa-St. Petersburg on January 1, 1914. Thomas Wesley Benoist, who once manufactured more planes than the Wright brothers, was the first to keep and record costs per “air-ton-mile” as early as 1912.

The history of flight in Florida began with Lincoln Beachey, the first man to fly from Florida soil. In 1911, Beachey made the first night-flight in the history of the world over Tampa. As aviation progressed, companies pioneered the scheduled transport of passengers by air. On January 1, 1914, the Benoist Company scheduled passenger service from Tampa to St. Petersburg with a five dollar fare. The Benoist “Air Boat” made its first flight over Tampa Bay (25 miles at 60 mph) on January 12.

 

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The Development of Bridges:

The Gandy Bridge 1930

The Gandy Bridge, the first to cross Tampa Bay, was a dream of former Philadelphia industrialist George S. “Dad” Gandy 10 years before it was a reality. After two years of construction, Dad Gandy made the dedication speech on November 20, 1924 with a four-word one liner, “The bridge is built!” It cost $3 million to build at that time and was one of the longest bridges in the world. The 2 1/2 mile concrete bridge with 3 1/2 miles of causeways cut the driving distance between St. Petersburg and Tampa from 43 miles to 19 miles.

Major accomplishments in bridge-building in Florida include the Gandy Bridge across Old Tampa Bay, which, when completed in 1924, reduced the travel time from St. Petersburg to Tampa by half. With more than a thousand miles of coastline, many scenic rivers and navigable waterways, and countless lakes dotting its interior, Florida has historically challenged those who would build highways and bridges. Up until the Civil War, bridges in Florida were mainly primitive and temporary. With the advent of rail in the late 19th century, however, specifically Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Line, it was evident that stronger structures were needed to carry heavy loads across wide spans of water and uneven terrain.

 

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The Development of Ports:

Port of Tampa early 1900s

“The Neptune,” seen here docked at the Port of Tampa with some of its crew, was built in Palatka in 1902. Historically a port for cruises, ship repair, and bulk cargo such as phosphate and refined fuel, the Port of Tampa now imports and exports nearly 50 million tons of cargo annually and ranks as the nation’s third largest in terms of domestic tonnage.

In 1896, wealthy businessman and railroad pioneer, Henry Flagler, extended his East Coast Railroad to Miami. Shortly thereafter, he funded construction of the Port of Miami and began collecting dockage fees. The Port of Miami welcomed its first passenger ship on scheduled sailings to Baltimore in 1920, and in 1924 inaugurated service to New York. In the 1930s, regular cruises between Miami and Havana, Cuba became popular. Currently the port has 750 acres dedicated to rolling stock, container yards, refrigerated warehouse space, gantry crane facilitates, 12 modern cruise terminals, and administration offices. Today, four of Florida’s 14 seaports rank in the top 25 in the nation in the volume of merchandise traded.

 

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The Development of Roads:

Taking the Bus Between Tampa and Lakeland October 1919

The U.S. Tire Company had this picture taken in an effort to promote travel by motor vehicle. The road improvements between Tampa and Lakeland encouraged people to travel by bus between the two communities. The photo was taken on Twigg Street in Tampa, just outside the Federal Building.

There has been a fundamental change in America’s transportation needs. Just a hundred years ago, most people lived on farms or in thousands of small rural communities. They lived close to where their food supply was grown and most people were either directly or indirectly involved in growing their food. Now, that is all changed. With the automobile as the preferred mode of transportation since the 1920s, most people now live in cities – urban centers far from the farm, meaning their food and other needs must be transported to them. Florida roads received a healthy boost in 1931 when the gas tax was increased to six cents per gallon, with three cents going to the department for construction and maintenance and another three cents going to the counties to repay existing debts. The 1940s was the most important decade for transportation in Florida. Not only did federal funds become available for municipal roads, but World War II placed priority on several Florida projects. The most notable of these was the construction of the Overseas Highway – a system of roads, bridges and ferries linking the Florida mainland with Key West. The 1950s saw the construction of Florida’s Turnpike. Once administered by the Old Sunshine State Parkway Authority, Florida’s Turnpike is now part of the Department of Transportation.

 

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Cause and effect of transportation in Florida

Assignment:

1. Read the background information on the different developments of transportation in Florida.

2. Use a Multi-Flow Map like this one to show the causes and effects of the development of different types of transportation (Aviation, Bridges, Rail, etc.) The causes are what lead up to the development of the type of transportation (the main event) and the effects are the results. Map out the causes and effects of 3 three different developments in Florida transportation.

3. Write an acrostic summary that explains the significance that transportation development had on contributing to Florida’s growth.

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Acrostic Summary

Using each of the letters in the word below, start a sentence that describes an example of how different developments in transportation contributed to the growth of Florida.

T

R

A

S

N

P

O

R

T

A

T

I

O

N