Lesson: From Ideas to Realities: Enlightenment Influences in Philadelphia

Source: Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit

Created by: Margaret Smith, Friends Select School

Subjects: European History, World History

Grade Levels: 9-12

View or download this Lesson Plan.

Overview: The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century intellectual movement that began in Europe and led to cultural, and political consequences around the globe. One such commonly cited consequence is the American Revolution. The ideas of Enlightenment writers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, John Locke, and others can easily be found in the Declaration of Independence. But the influence of the Enlightenment in Philadelphia extends far beyond the revolution. Numerous events and institutes from late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Philadelphia can be studied to understand how ideas from one part of the world can become realities in other places around the globe.  After studying the Enlightenment and the writings of specific Enlightenment authors, students will identify a late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century event or institute in Philadelphia that can be considered an extension of the Enlightenment project. Students will research their event or institute in order to make an argument for how it demonstrates the transformation of intellectual ideas from Europe into political and cultural realities in Philadelphia.

Objectives: Students will demonstrate their understanding of specific Enlightenment ideas and values, while also exploring how intellectual movements in one part of the world can shape culture and politics in other regions of the globe by identifying and analyzing Philadelphia events and institutes that reflected the values and goals of the Enlightenment.  Students have the opportunity to practice a number of research, reading, analysis, writing, and presentation skills. Students will synthesize information from various eighteenth-century European primary sources then apply and test their understanding in a novel context, that of independently researched events and institutes in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit

This lesson is one of 29 lessons (K-12, all subjects) in the Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit. The goal of the Tool Kit is to help educators and their students develop a transnational analysis in their classrooms by using complex themes of world heritage as a framework to understand global regions across disciplines. These themes include shared architectural, cultural, economic, environmental, political, recreational, religious, and social heritage features.  Real teachers created these lessons and based their work on “best practices” that reflect student collaboration and the broad goals of young people in ways that support care and understanding of others who may be very different in background and history.