THE GEORGE MEANY MEMORIAL ARCHIVES

Teacher's Guides
Turkey Work Factory

This guide is based on "A Mennonite Woman in 'Thanksgiving Town': Edith Swartzendruber Nisly's Work Experience 1935-1941," an article by Hope Nisly in Labor's Heritage, January 1991, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 25-39. It not only offers a glimpse of work and life in the past, but also introduces students to some of the ways that history is transmitted. This article about Edith and her work during the years 1935 to 1941 may be approached through any or all of the strategies suggested in this guide, depending on class ability and interest and the amount of time the teacher wishes to give to them. They are meant to engage students' curiosity about decisions people make during their lives and the short-term and long-term effects. At the same time, they are designed to help students seek clues to societal issues by looking at the world of work. Students may also come to see that the economic gain and cultural acceptance of working are often accompanied by conflict and stress.

The strategies may be used in any order as they are designed to be used independently of each other; however, each strategy requires students to read the article at least once. There is also certain straightforward information that students may be expected to gather from the article.

After the lesson(s), students will be able to:

• describe the working conditions in a pre-World War II poultry factory
• compare working conditions in various industries and at different times in our history
• conduct an oral history research project
• gather information from a historical narrative

If you are teaching any of the following topics in your social studies classrooms, you will find this article and teacher's guide to be of value:

• women
• career education
• industrial revolution
• religious minorities
• reform movements
• multicultural education
• the Great Depression
• interest groups
• values and ethics
• economics
• communities
• culture and society
• labor/management
• local history

Holding a Class Discussion

Begin with a brief preliminary discussion of the following questions. These will serve as a conceptual warm-up for the students' reading of the article. The same questions may be pursued at greater length after the class has read the article.

• Why do people work?
• What determines the kind of work people choose?
• What would you consider a decent job? Why?
• Why would a person continue doing unpleasant work in his or her job?
• Do you think people change after they begin working? If so, what causes the change?
• If you looked or dressed differently than other workers in the same workplace, how do you think you would be treated? If you were treated badly, how do you think you would react?
• Do you think factory working conditions have changed much in the last fifty years? How?
• How have the lives of women changed over the last fifty years? What role has work played in the change?
• What kind of pressure might you be under if you lived in a tightly-knit community of people and you went to work outside the community?
• What rights do you think factory workers should have?
• Do you think employers have an obligation to accommodate religious practices of workers?

At this point, distribute copies of Hope Nisly's article and allow sufficient time for students to read it.

Ask students to use context clues to explain or define the following words found in the article:

• acquiesce
• orientation
• ordained
• facets
• vernacular
• lax
• rough
• reprieve
• tallying
• effect
• embraced
• antagonistic
• cloak room
• foreman
• conformity
• rarity
• a cappella
• generation
• drudgery
• chore
• sibling
• compensation

Ask students to choose their favorite part of Edith Nisly's story. Why did they like it? Which part of the story helped to give the reader a feeling of the period? Which part(s) helped students understand the type of community in which Edith lived? Can the students figure out why Edith's life was never quite the same after she left the farm to work in the outside community. Ask them what part of the story they would use to make a point to somebody.

As a follow-up, reword the preliminary discussion questions so that they now apply to Edith and her story. For example: Why did Edith go to work? What determined Edith's choice of work? How was the work in the turkey factory unpleasant? Why did Edith continue to work there? (Add the other questions.) To reinforce this material and explore it further, relate the preliminary discussion questions to student choices in their current or future work. [TOP]

Teaching Students How to Collect Oral History

In order to write the article that appeared in Labor's Heritage, Hope Nisly interviewed her mother, Edith Swartzendruber Nisly, about working in a turkey processing factory. Have students interview a family member or friend to find out about his or her work experiences and then have them write an account based on the information obtained.

Begin by explaining to students that the technique of gathering eyewitness accounts with written notes, tape recorder or camcorder is called oral history. Oral history projects can be divided into three main types. A biographical oral history collects as much information as possible about the life of an individual. A historical event oral history centers on one particular time period or major event. A third type is an oral history project that delves into a particular topic, such as women in war or civil rights leaders. Discuss these three types in class and ask the class to explain why Hope Nisly's article is a biographical oral history.

The advantage of obtaining historical information through an interview is that the interviewee is often the chief, or perhaps only, source of information on the subject. On the other hand, a weakness of this type of research is that a person's memory is usually imperfect, often resulting in the incorrect recall of factual material.

Next, have students follow these steps in the classroom oral history project:

1. Decide who you are going to interview -- grandparent, parent, uncle, brother, sister, or friend. Tell the person about the purpose of the interview and set up a time to hold it. It is important that the interview be a one-on-one situation, free of distractions from other people, phone calls, and other interruptions.

2. Prepare for the interview with solid research. Read about the time period and accumulate information about dates, times, places, and events that will help you understand what the interviewee is talking about. Being prepared communicates to the interviewee that you are serious about the topic. It also helps with establishing rapport with the interviewee and avoids wasting time during the interview clarifying information.

3. Prepare the interview questions. The best interview questions are open-ended and require more than one or two word answers. Sometimes you can reword yes or no questions so that they elict explanations, opinions, or anecdotes, such as the responses Hope Nisly got from her mother. Before you get to the interview, think of as many questions as you can and write them down. After completing your research, review your list of questions and eliminate unnecessary ones, rewrite unclear ones, and add new ones.

4. During the interview listen carefully and be flexible. A response to one question may answer another, therefore rendering the second unnecessary. You might find that the interviewee also provides you with more information than expected. Unless he or she is rambling, you might scrap some of your original questions and formulate new ones following this new avenue of information. Do not interrupt unless absolutely necessary and conclude before your interviewee becomes fatigued. Thank the person when the interview is finished.

5. After the interview is completed, review the tape or your notes. If using tape, make notes and write down exact quotes you think are important from the interview. You might have to play the tape two or three times to get the information you need correctly recorded on paper. Making an outline or index of the contents will help you see the general areas of information that you have collected and how they relate to your main topic of work experience. Transcribing everything is a very time consuming process and probably beyond the scope of the project.

6. Use the information from your oral history. Besides the traditional essay format, there are other possibilities. If everyone interviews family workers, the class might produce a project, such as a program on the topic of work for an assembly or Career Day, a play or skit, a slide/tape presentation, or a videotape. These more elaborate projects integrate the oral history with the other documents and resources that students have collected into an interpretive study of work. [TOP]

Teaching with Local History Sources

Reading about a young Amish Mennonite woman's experiences in a turkey factory informs students about a job that made this woman's life more exciting -- and more complicated. Hope Nisly's article raises interesting questions about the job opportunities of many years ago, the factory working conditions in the past, and the changes brought about by women working outside the home.

1. Turning on students to local history resources. Introduce the idea of using local history sources by having students read Hope Nisly's article. As they study the account, have students keep a record of the kinds of local resources that the author might have used in collecting information for this article or one of a similar nature. Also include research material that students infer might have been collected but not used in the final article. Have students list at least three local history sources and then work as a group to compile a class list. Among the resources students might list would be manuscript and printed material such as phone directories, census records, journals, letters, diaries, and newspapers. The location of such material would include the city or county department of public records, the morgue of a local newspaper, the state and federal departments of labor, a nearby central labor council, union locals, the chamber of commerce, a local historical society, and the public library. Persons who might have information would include family members, neighbors, members of a senior citizens association, and workers at a factory or other places of employment.

2. Investigate the local community. Next, tell students that as author Hope Nisly found, they too, if they look carefully at their local area, will find a wealth of fascinating people with important stories to tell. Each town or city has landmarks and events that bear exploring. Hold a class discussion about how students can use the many resources in the local community to make their research reports or projects more lively and interesting. Divide the class into groups and have students select one of the following broad topics to investigate about their community's past: the workplace, education, crime, taxes, employment, the environment, health, and law. Next, have students narrow the topic down to a manageable size and yet retain a subject that will provide enough material. Examples of more manageable topics might be: your town's role in helping people manage during the depression, the roles of women in the town's workplaces, epidemics in the town, or the impact technology has had on town growth. Further expanding or restricting the subject would be necessary depending on the available information.

3. Doing the research. Next, each group should break its topic into research tasks for group members. If the chosen topic is the roles of women in the town's workplaces, for example, one student might interview and tape record retired female workers and another student could survey women currently working in the town. One might look at the collections on labor and women workers in the local historical society, and another might visit the newspaper office. Others might search for information in the library, look for diaries, journals, and pictures in their homes, and so on until all group members are engaged in the research.

4. Presenting the research. The last step is to present the research information to others outside the group. The ways to do this are numerous. The presentation could be in the form of a panel discussion, oral report, display board, memorabilia display, skit, play, or musical. Other ways to show the results of research are a museum display, a story to be printed in the newspaper, dioramas, a written report, or a combination of several of these methods. [TOP]

Student Projects

Interested students might research the following subjects and report their findings or complete these activities:

• Poultry processing today. What changes have occurred in the processing procedures over the years since Edith's workdays? What is similar in the industry? What are the dangers to poultry plant workers?
• How was Wellman, Iowa, different from other small towns in the United States during the darkest years of the depression? Find out what life was like in other small towns in the years 1935-1941.
• Read other articles, books, or interviews about women who were "pioneers" in other times and other workplaces. How did the work experience of each woman change her life? What conflicts did each deal with? What unpleasantries were involved in her job? How do these voices from the past help you learn about the roles of women?
• Investigate the beliefs of the Amish Mennonite communities. How has modern life impacted on their traditional beliefs and folkways? How have these communities resisted change and assimilation? What jobs and types of work are still acceptable as "outside" work for their young people?
• Take a broad topic, such as "Women in the American Economy." Narrow the topic down, over and over again, until you get it down to a manageable topic for investigation and presentation. Then try to find a diary or journal from which you can take sections to make a report. One source of such is Laura Arksey, Nancy Pries, and Marcia Reed, eds., American Diaries, 2 vols. (Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1983 and 1986).
• What experiences have you had with discrimination? Although she did not complain, Edith was a victim of mild discrimination as an Amish Mennonite worker in a turkey factory. If you have been a victim of discrimination, how do your experiences compare with Edith's?
• Assume the role of either a member of a present day minority group or isolated religious sect and write a story that tells about educational opportunities and job possibilities. Your story should be a narrative told in the first person through the eyes of your character. You might wish to conclude your story with a look at the future.
• Take charge of assembling a panel of people living in your community. Invite a total of six people, each of whom represents a decade starting with the 1930s and going through the 1970s. Ask them to be prepared to discuss life in their decade with regard to education, jobs, the economy, status of women, status of minorities, status of unions, working conditions, and quality of life. After the panel discussion is over, you and your classmates should compare changes in American life and changes in the American workplace. Decide which panel member you felt most compatible with. Why? What did you learn that surprised you? Would you like to be living or working in another era? [TOP]

Answering Hypothetical What Ifs...?

The questions that follow help generate ideas and thoughts. Have students imagine they are investigative reporters and choose one question that interests them, conduct an investigation, and write a story.

What if students had a chance to go to work for the summer in a turkey or chicken factory? Would the pay be worth it? What might the workday be like? What kinds of things might they expect to see? How might the work impact on their bodies? How might the workers be treated? How might the workers view themselves?

What if robots were used in poultry factories? Find out the steps a chicken or turkey goes through from farm to table. Consider these steps and decide what jobs robots could do just as well as or better than humans. What jobs would humans still do best? Would robots threaten employment for humans in poultry factories? Could they save lives or improve the health of poultry workers? How? Would it be better if some factory work now were done by robots? Why? Compare the cost of buying and maintaining a poultry factory robot against the cost of employing a full-time worker to do the job.

What if Edith Nisly was able to work in a modern turkey processing factory? What would she see that was similar? What would be different? Would she still "stand out" because she dressed differently? Why or why not? What training or health safety problems did she have then that workers have today? Were these problems worse then or worse now? Why? What conclusions do you make about the prevalence of problems in poultry factories? What might be Edith's and your recommendations for future poultry factory workers?

What if all the problems in the poultry industry could be solved by technology? What would students like to see solved first? What could be created? Students should predict what they think will happen as a result of their suggestions being implemented. List other industries that have solved some of their biggest problems by technology. What negative aspects accompany the positive aspects of these technological changes?

What if the whole world was without electricity for twenty-four hours? What would happen? Strict Amish people do not use electricity even today. How is their world different from yours? How did young people spend their leisure time 100 years ago? In the 1930s? Today? How will they spend their leisure time in the future? How important is technology to work and leisure time activities today? What kind of technology will it be necessary to have in the future? What technology might people have? [TOP]

NOTE: This guide is to be used in conjunction with Hope Nisly's "A Mennonite Woman in 'Thanksgiving Town': Edith Swartzendruber Nisly's Work Experience 1935-1941," in the January 1991, Vol. III, No. 1 issue of Labor's Heritage. For a list of resources related to this guide, click here.