Final Blog: Course Overview

A Look Back Down Memory Lane

This class has been an eye-opening experience because so many hidden gems in history have gotten little exposure; for example, the book Accounting for Slavery by Catlin Rosenthal exposed the precise records that enslavers kept to ensure profits. The business end of slavery was not as dramatic as the image of wealthy southern planters living the plush life while suffering enslaved people was more real and dangerous in many ways us because it took the human factor out of it.  So if you had to beat an enslaved person to get more production out of him so be it. It did not matter because they were to equivalent the same as livestock.

The article Wealth and Power in the Early let us know that the ideals of the American Revolutionary war were not always put into practice when it came to our own people. This looks at post-war America in1776 and its effort to form a government.  It highlights the glaring differences in policy-making between the rich and poor. For example, the only person that should be able to vote or hold office were the property owners.  This alone stinks of class supremacy. There were special deals on land and loans only for the rich. The typical person argued and protested against it.  One of the most noted was Shay’s rebellion, but it did not change anything.

The Entrepreneur and the Wage Earner this chapter was another class battle and, t pitted the manufacturing business against the working man. Manufacturing grew in the 1860s. The railroad, telegraph, and steamships are products of that growth. Of course, slavery in the south eliminated any labor issues in that region. However, a good bulk of manufacturing was happening in the north in textile mills and manufacturing factories.  The manufacturers were large companies that expanded nationwide. They exploited workers for profit. The wage-earners hated the low pay and long working hours. The morale was so intense that they compared themselves to southern enslaved people. This, in my opinion, was an exaggeration.

What amazed about the Great Depression was how great the roaring twenties were.  America felt invincible. , Having bottom drop out showed how ill-prepared the country was under this economic disaster. President Wilson’s hands-off policy did not solve the problem. It did not help quick enough to soothe the masses. When President Roosevelt got elected, he promised action, and the country got it in the form of the New Deal.  New Deal was extraordinary because the federal government went to work for the people.  Many New Deal programs remain today. Even as popular as it was, it had a lot of resistance. These feelings gave way to the conservative movement. These values are still etched in our political fabric. Roosevelt was so frustrated he considered stacking the Supreme Court. Even today the President has had that suggestion dropped at his feet.

In closing, slavery helped jump-start America back in 1619 and helped when cotton was king in the 1860s. When the south lost its mind to thinking that prosperity could be based on human bondage and seceded from the union, let us not forget that the south was not the only region that profited from slavery. Cotton from the south kept the textile mills humming in the North and Great Britain.  America has always had class issues. This course exposed a great deal of information glossed over in the history books. This is crucial when the conservative states claim that telling the truth will make children ashamed of their heritage. History is for learning about the past, so we don’t repeat the same mistakes. It enriches our knowledge of ourselves and gives directions for the future. Taking this History class has accomplished this goal.