Skyler Eastin

US History

Urban Infrastructure

            1880 through 1920 saw a huge development in the size and population of cities across the country. This development created a huge demand for technology to create better cites. People needed better quality of life in the cities, better transportation within the cities, and more room for people to live and work in cities. Urban electrification, building of bridges, installation of subways systems, and the introduction of skyscrapers were all developed as ways to use newly available resources and technology to create better cities for people to live in.

            Many of the marvels of cities were dependent on the use of electricity to function properly. So it stands to reason that the development of electric plants across the country were vital in creating better quality of life for a cities citizens. Urban electrification was made possible in America by Samuel Insull. Insull was the owner of the Commonwealth-Edison Company that produced electricity in Chicago. When Insull started, very few people were using electricity and there were many suppliers. In Chicago alone, there were approximately 5000 people using electricity provided form 20 different companies. Insull made an important discovery, “…that profits depended not upon load, but upon what came to be known as load factor – not, that is, upon the total amount of energy sold but on the percentage of the time one’s investment plant was in active use.” (Insull: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Utility Tycoon, Forest McDonald) Before, people who used electricity used it primarily in the evening for lighting, whereas, during the day, very few people used electricity at all. Because a plat was designed to supply electricity at peak demand, most of the plant was inactive during the day. Insull, after buying out most of his competitors, encouraged people to use electricity more throughout the day through the sale of other electronic appliances. “In 1894 three fourths of the electricity Chicago Edison sent out was used for lighting; five years later almost half of it was used for small power appliances. (Insull: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Utility Tycoon, Forest McDonald) As a result of Insull’s consolidating of electricity supply under one plant in the city, he was able to sell electricity to the entire city for a cheap rate. This model allowed electricity to be converted from a luxury resource to a common amenity. This change drastically increased quality of life in cities, and enabled other forms of technology to emerge.

            One of the most vital factors of urbanization was the ability for architects to use steel. Previously, wood, brick, and masonry were the only ways to build thing effectively. The introduction of steel as a building material made architectural feats that seemed impossible a reality. One example of this was the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn, being one of the most prosperous ports in the country, and Manhattan, the financial capital of the country, had desired a way to connect themselves for decades. Until this era, a bridge seemed like an impossible solution due to the huge gap between the two burrows. However, John Roebling would be assigned chief engineer of the bridge in 1867 when he presented a design that used his patented steel wire rope as a suspension bridge. The use of the wires meant that the bridge could stand in the wind and still support its weight. The first step in building the bridge was to lay the foundation, which was made much easier by the newly build pneumatic caisson. These were, essentially, boxes that could be lowered in to the water, have any water in the box pumped out with air pressure, and then allow men down to lay foundations and build the towers. After the towers were built, the road was laid across and then supported by hundreds of the steel wire cables. This bridge was at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world and was only possible because of the use of steel.

            With the huge influx of people in cities, streets were getting crowded. Many people walked everywhere, which created huge congestion on streets. Those who could afford not to walk used carriages, which were also not ideal because they often added to traffic and were difficult to drive on the then cobblestone streets. The introduction of cable street cars helped slightly, but was still on the roads which were in many cases dangerous. The solution to street congestion was to move people underground. The implementation of subway systems in America first happened in Boston, followed closely by New York. Neither of these were particularly new because they were both loosely based on systems already in place in London. However, these were different in on very important aspect, they were shallower. London’s subway system was initially 100-200 ft. below ground. Boston’s was only 50. This meant that new subways could be built relatively simply and quickly. First they would dig the trench and brace the excavation site with steel or wooden columns. Then the street would be covered with a scaffolding to allow street traffic to continue. Then the walls were built and waterproofed, a foundation was put in place and the tracks were laid. Lastly steel columns were put in and a roof was attached to them. This process was much simpler and quicker than Europe’s and allowed systems to be built quickly after it was decide where they would be. In 1897 Boston would open 1.5 miles of subway. New York would follow in 7 years with 21 miles. This dramatically reduced street congestion and enabled people to travel throughout the city cheaply and efficiently.

            Skyscrapers were a result of a combination of all the other forms of innovation produced in this era. They required electricity to operate the newly invented elevators (elevators were previously raised and lowered by a hydraulic wheel on the top floor of a building. A wheel like that to lift an elevator as high as a skyscraper would be too large to fit in any of the building. Electrically powered wheels would let designer incorporate elevators into larger buildings.), the required steel as the framework for the structure, and were designed to remove congestion from cities. Before the creation of the skyscraper, it had been decided among architects the 12 stories was as high as any structure could be before the brick gave under their own weight. However, the creation of the steel frame allowed buildings to support their own weight when they went upwards of 12 stories. The first building that supported its own weight with a metal frame was the Home Life Insurance Building. However, later buildings would start to incorporate additional necessities of a skyscraper, like fireproofing, pressurized plumbing, and central heating. As skyscraper began to line the cities’ skylines, they started to be seen as symbols of ingenuity and technology of the Gilded Age.

            The development of urban infrastructure was a vital part of American cities during this time period. It was a combination of new technologies and business innovations enabled cities to support the capacity they did and were a vital foundation of all other aspects of urbanization.

 Caisson used for construction of Brooklyn Bridge

Home Life Insurance Building

Park Street Subway

Samuel Insull

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Brooklyn Bridge

PBS’s page on Samuel Insull
Told be the basics about who Samuel Insull was and what he did.

Insull: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Utility Tycoon

 By Forrest McDonald

A book that gave me a better understanding of why and how Insull did what he did.

PBS’s Timeline of the Brooklyn Bridge Construction

Gave a timeline of how ans when the Brooklyn Bridge was built.

UMass Boston page about the Brooklyn Bridge

Gave me more information about the role of John Roebling in the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Boston Globe story on the building of the subway

gave some historical context on the Boston subway system and how it was built.

Harvard post about subway system development

Gave analysis of the building process of American subway systems.

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway

by Doug Most

A book about the development and building process of the subway systems in Boston and New York

DigitalHistory.edu’s page on skyscrapers
Provided context on what skyscrapers are and how they came to be through technology.

Migration

Today I learned about how human migration has shaped evolution, and as a result, the way humans became different. I learned about migration patterns of the earliest humans and that where they ended up settling had huge impacts on the way they evolved, not just biologically but socially and culturally. We also tried to sort people based on their race. This was much more difficult than I imagined it would be. Today I learned that migration is a much bigger factor in human history than I have previously thought.

Philanthropy

     Philanthropy is a really interesting topic. we discussed in our group what philanthropy is and what counts as philanthropy and what doesn't. We also discussed what we would do if we were philanthropists. It was really interesting to see what everyone else said they would do. Education and diseases were by far the most common answers. This was a really interesting because it took something that I had never really thought about and put it under a really interesting concept.

Thoughts About Sucsess

1. Opportunity
2. Skill
3. Hard Work
4. Luck

     Opportunity is the most important aspect of success because it creates the limitations on someones success. Even if someone has an abundance of the other qualities, they can not succeed unless they have a place to use them to create economic success. Skill is the next most important because it determines how up the ladder of success you can get. Hard work is next because it distinguishes individuals among their peers which could lead to more economic successes. Luck is the least important because it is too unpredictable to be considered an actual factor in success.

Supply Chain Management

       Today I learned that most modern clothing and garment companies' strategy for maintaining a competitive edge is  a concept known as "fast fashion;" a process of continuously creating new articles of clothing in order to maintain variety. This concept was coined and is still the primary business model of Zara, but is also used by H&M to a slightly lesser extent and by many other companies. These two companies alone make billions and billions of dollars annually. However, most of these companies utilize Asian labor in order to reduce production costs. Labor in this part of the world is often done with little to no regard for the safety of the workers, the only thought is the cost, as seen by the collapse of a building that was used for industrial manufacturing of clothes despite the fact it was built very poorly for commercial use. I wonder what if any consequences were faced by these corporations in the aftermath of these types of unjust labor or factory disasters.

Savage

Today we looked at a textbook written in 1887 in America. the text book frequently describes the native Indian population as "savages." Google's definition of savage is "a member of a people regarded as primitive or uncivilized." The book describes them as oppressive and lazy, pointing out that the women did all the work in the village. It also describes their eyes as "snaky." It describes their culture as barbaric by discussing the attitude and reverence of warriors in Indian tribes. It describes them as illiterate by saying that they had no books. Later chapters in the book describe Indian attacks on colonies as very brief encounters with "the savages." The language and tone used by the author of the book gives the reader a dismissive attitude toward Indian people and culture.

https://goo.gl/rlqc4f

Newspaper Journal Entry

     So it turns out, the other day, Congress failed to pass a bill that would allow Indian children to be put under educational contracts as apposed to being enrolled in a government funded public school. Those in favor of the bill made convincing arguments, pointing out that the current government funded public schools are not really providing an education, that the government does not have the funds nor the interest to make these schools more effective, and that the contracts would be almost entirely beneficial to those Indian children who want and need a proper education in both academics and Christianity. I do then wonder what the argument from the opposition was. My newspaper only provided sources form people in favor of the bill, congressmen from the states where the paper was published, and it therefore neglected to provide any information on the thoughts from those apposed to the bill.

The Intermountain Catholic

THINK

"Our use of social media for news is selective and intentional so that we may tend to remain interested only in thing we are already interested in. On the other hand professional news outlets like newspapers expose readers to information on a broad range of topics. This helps me to see what other people are interested in or think is important."

Newspaper

1. Printed media distributed weekly or daily in folded paper. (businessdictionary.com)
2. Relation aller Furnenumen und gedenckwurdigue histoien was printed in 1605
3. Americas first newspaper was the Boston News-Letter" printed 4-24-1704
4. Newspapers today discuss political points and sports. (nytimes.com)
5. A newspaper that is used by the government to distribute public notices. The first newspaper of record was New York Times. The Washington Post is considered a newspaper of record today.
6. Modern day social media being used a source of news has created a much more obvious bias among the different sources of information. In the newspapers that they read and printed in 1862 had a much more strait fact approach to news, and what little opinion that was there was hidden and non obvious. Modern day, the social media can be written by anyone, and therefore are more opinionated. In a system where news is coming out 24 hours a day, the media must be more opinionated in order to attract viewers and fill time. In the olden days newspapers only came out once or twice a day in, so the information was less opinionated.
7. 

Q1 Reflections

Q1 Reflections

            This quarter I learned briefly about the US pre-Civil War, the views of slavery and racism in both the North and the South during and leading to the Civil War, the Reconstruction, Black Codes, Jim Crow, modern impact in the South of the loss of the Civil War, and Western expansion after the Civil War. I have learned to view the topics we study with empathy, that is, trying to understand a decision of event by thinking about it through the mind of someone present at that time in history. This has been the most significant part of the curriculum this year. I have found that viewing history not as a list of facts and dates, but as the lives of real people who had to make decisions that shaped the world gives a more important reason and value to history class. It makes history more relevant and personal.

           

            Moving forward I need to work on being a better reader and making sure to fully understand the material rather than just reading it once and then hoping I get it. I also need to be more focused in class in order to get more out of the time I have in class and therefore have less to do outside of class. I look forward to studying WWII and seeing how the US specifically influenced the conflict. The Cold War will also be interesting because it is a part of history I know very little about. 

Native American Research Paragraph

Native American Research Paragraph

            Since the late 1800’s the Anglo Americans have been trying to dominate Native Americans via cultural assimilation. Starting in 1860, Anglo Americans have started to create boarding schools to send Native American children. At these schools, the children were taught math, science, and history, but most controversially English and Christianity. This was widely protested by the parents of the Native American children argued that these schools deprived their children of their own spiritual practices. This caused many clashes whit authorities. There were instances of villages that refused in bulk to resist sending their kids to school, resulting in police forcibly take the children from their homes and bring them to the schools. There is no doubt that these schools were an attempt to break the fundamental culture of the Native American culture by attempting to remove the influence of the parents.

http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_boardingschools

Film Essay

            The movies Glory and 12 Years a Slave are both feature length films that tell a story about slavery and racism in the United States during the 1850-1860’s. While both movies tell very different stories in very different ways they both have received a combination of praise and scorn for their historical accuracy or lack thereof. However, these movies are modern day primary source for History class. These movies present information, previously only shown through book, in a new, interesting, and useful way which should be both appropriate but encouraged to be used as a classroom tool for furthering a student’s education on the era in American History.

            12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen, has won 30 awards from various sources, for cinematography, acting, and writing. It is an adapted screenplay of a book written by Solomon Northup, the protagonist of both the book and film, who was a free man living in New York when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Some critics have argued that there are discrepancies between the film and the book, such minor things like the fact that Solomon had three children in the book and in real life, however only two children were present in the film, or major things like that the film was harsher on slave life than in reality and ignored slaves smaller acts of liberty like families or religion, which were present in the book, which detract from the films historical accuracy. Other critics disagree, saying that the film merely chose to focus on the more vicious aspects of slavery, and in a unique way. Robert Toplin of the American Historical Association said “Northup’s book presents a more complex picture of slave life than does the movie, which concentrates sharply on themes of oppression and victimization.” While the Film is not a flawless historical documentary, it is a piece of work which demonstrates the darker side of slavery in a way that books cannot always accomplish. By choosing to focus on harsher elements of slavery the film is able to generate empathetic and sympathetic connections of this part of history, and is a conversation starter for a part of history which is often overlooked or not studied to the depth it deservers because making those connections is often either too difficult or too uncomfortable for people to fully understand.

            Glory is very common in high schools around the country. Despite winning only 6 awards from various sources when it was released in 1989, its legacy continues to this day because of its prevalence in American history classrooms. However, there is no question that the film often takes historical events and tweaks them to fit into a more coherent and entertaining script. Some critics will argue that any manipulation of historical events is wrong and is in fact damaging to the films overall quality. Kevin Levin wrote an essay in which he said ”Consider the pay crisis scene which is quite powerful and even historically accurate. But it did not take place until September 1863 – roughly two months after the failed assault on Battery Wagner and after Shaw’s death. With its inaccurate chronology, the movie loses an opportunity to emphasize how even the sacrifice of so many black soldiers in the battle proved insufficient to overcome the most blatant forms of institutional racism by the very government for whom they fought and died.” While this type of criticism is true, and should be mention when watching the film as to not present false information, this is simply not enough to warrant the movie not being shown in the classroom. The other, largest criticism with the film is that none of the black soldiers have any grounds in historical accuracy; all of the black soldiers are fictionalized while all the white soldiers have primary sources supporting them. This is an inaccuracy in the film but still does not degrade the films quality to an extent that it should not be shown in the classroom. The Black characters are written in a way as to represent the different types of people who would have been present in the 54^th. Richard Bernstein of the NY Times argues that by fictionalizing certain aspects of the historical events the film creates “a truth truer than the literal truth.” The fictionalization makes it easier for modern students to make empathetic and sympathetic connections with this aspect of America’s past. While it is not perfect, the movie presents a perspective on these events which are often forgotten in American history class. Richard Bernstein continues in his article “While the movie is entirely clear about its focus, it is not the vehicle for a full account of the obstacle placed in their path, which, if anything, were more difficult even than Glory shows.”

            Both of these films are historical representations of the American views of race and slavery in the 1850’s and 1860’s. Both of these films, in some instances, intentionally sacrifices small amounts of historical accuracy in order generate empathetic and sympathetic connections with the audience as well as entertain the viewer. So long as the student is made aware of these inaccuracies, there is no reason these films cannot be shown as a learning tool in an American History classroom.

An Escape From Slavery, Now a Movie, Has Long Intrigued Historians

MICHAEL CIEPLY

12 Years a Slave Examines the Old South’s Heart of Darkness

Robert Brent Toplin

Teaching Civil War Mobilization With Film

Kevin Levin

History and the Movies: The Patriot and Glory

Mackubin T. Owens

Can Movies Teach History?

By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

Box Office Mojo: 12 Years a Slave

Box Office Mojo: Glory

Heroes of 'Glory' Fought Bigotry Before All Else

By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

  

Sympathy vs. Empathy

I learned that the definition of empathy is the intellectual identification or vicarious experience of the feelings or thought or attitudes of another person, or the experience of understanding another person's condition from their perspective. I also learned that the definition of sympathy is the feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune. This is an important distinction because this shows that empathy does not require someone ti have been in the situation of someone else, or even agree with someone else.  For example, if someone kills someone else to get revenge. Empathy can be used to understand the reason the the person killed someone, even though you've never killed anyone and you don't agree that the person should have killed anyone. You don't feel bad, or have sympathy, for the killer but you understand their motive. However, empathy and sympathy are not mutually exclusive. For example, the family of the victim. You can pity or feel bad for the family, which is sympathy, and also put yourself in their shoes, in order to really understand what they are going through, which is empathy. Here is a photo showing empathy.

Quotation

Glory is widely regarded of one of the most accurate Civil War era movies ever. The film critic James Berardinelli noted that the historical accuracy has made the film "one of the most frequently shown motion pictures in high schools."

Through this blogging process I learned the difference between paraphrasing and quoting, when to use which of them, and practiced doing examples of both of them. This will be helpful in the future for me to know how to avoid committing plagiarism. 

This is what Mrs. Lawson wanted me to learn today:

• Only use a quote when it adds power and style to my writing.
• Always make it clear, from context, that I understand the full meaning of the quote.
• Whether I quote or paraphrase, always be transparent about the source and how I'm using it. 
• If I use another's authors' presentation of facts or ideas, but put their ideas in my own words, I better have a good reason for doing that, and I MUST give credit. 
• Hyperlinking is so easy, there is no excuse for not being transparent about my sources. 

I really understand these things. 

Paraphrase

"The historical backdrop against which Glory transpires is mostly historically accurate. In fact, a great deal of effort went into getting the details correct. The main events shown in the film happened much as they are depicted, some of the key characters (Shaw, Frederick Douglas, etc.) existed, and the outcome was as Zwick presents it. Many of the secondary characters are either partially or entirely fictionalized, but they are intended to represent a broad cross-section of the types of men who joined the Massachusetts 54th." This is an excerpt from a review by James Berardinelli.

The movie Glory goes through a huge amount of effort to create an accurate historical setting. All of the important events happened in reality in much the same way as in the movie, some of the main characters, like Shaw or Fredrick Douglas, actually existed, and the director presents an accurate outcome of the events. The secondary characters are fictionalized, at least to a partial extent, however they were written to represent the different kinds of people who enlisted in the 54th.