Learning Resources on Emigration

Context

In West Sussex during the early 19^th century most men, women and even older children in rural parishes were employed on the land as agricultural labourers, and life was tough. The population was growing rapidly and because there were so many people looking for work, employers paid the lowest wages possible.

In addition, mechanisation was increasingly putting people out of work – what would once take four men all day to complete now took a machine operated by one trained man only a few hours.

As more people became unemployed, parishes struggled to meet the ever-rising cost of poor relief and many looked for other solutions to decrease the number of families who depended on them for support.

Emigration to the USA became an attractive solution to the growing problems.

Below are a series of learning resources created from documents held at the West Sussex Record Office. Each source has suggested age groups and a range of activities from a variety of curriculum subjects.

Key Question: How much can original records tell us about emigration to the USA from West Sussex in the early 19^th century?

Key Learning Objectives

• To inspire curiosity to know more about the past
• To develop the ability to read primary resource material with discrimination
• To ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence and draw conclusions based on the evidence found

Learning Outcomes

Students will have:

• Examined several primary sources relating to Emigration to the USA focusing on families from Aldingbourne and West Grinstead
• Understood some reasons why people emigrated to the USA from West Sussex in the early 19^th century
• Developed an understanding of how emigration was funded, by whom, what was covered in the funding and relate this to values today
• Investigated two families who emigrated, learnt about their lives before and after emigration and understood something of their journey to the USA