Month: March 2011

03/9/11

Hawley-Smoot Tariff


This video is a Yellow Hat Production. They made this for History class and tried to make it as entertaining as possible.
At 1930 the president Hoover passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff which is increasing tax on foreign products in order to help domestic products win the competition. However, this act made the economy getting worse, because other countries also increased tax on American products. As a result, American reduced the international trade and raised the unemployment rate.

03/8/11

Great Depression (1929-1940)

The Great Depression is worst depression in our nation’s history, not ending completely until the United State entered WWII.

During the depression, thousands of the business failed, half a million farmers lost their farms, one-quarter of the banks failed, and millions of people were out of work(picture in the left side). There was no safety net as in today’s economy – no unemployment insurance, retirement benefit, or bank deposit insurance. Private charities were overwhelmed. People went hungry; children suffered from malnutrition.(picture in the right side)

03/8/11

No not my lips!

After the world war, with an increase in drink.  Temperance organizations were formed to dissuade people from intoxication. to there was a period in the 1920’s where the sale manufacturing, and transportation of liquor was prohibited.  This era was call Prohibition.  From 1920-1933, alcohol was blamed for many of societies problems.  From drunk husbands, and murder.
The 18th amendment ratified this, but was repealed by the 21st amendment 13 years later during the great depression.
03/8/11

History teaches us not to repeat our mistakes. I guess Texas BOE failed history class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWcr4bxWtM&feature=player_detailpage

In 1925, there was a trial of a Tennessee public school teacher, John Scopes. Scopes was said to have violated the state’s Butler Act which forbade teaching evolution. Scopes was convicted but later appealed and the judgment was overturned due to a technicality. The trial (also known as the Monkey Trial) was actually a publicity stunt in order to gain Dayton, Tennessee some attention. Scopes even convinced students to testify that he taught evolution in class. Regardless of this back story (which was unknown to me) this trial is a very important part in scientific history as well as that of the United States. It indirectly contributed to the National Defense Education Act as well as struck a blow to fundamental theologians. The video posted above is a collection of pictures and recordings from the actual trial as well as scenes from the 1960s movie, Inherit the Wind. Within the video you see and hear every major player in the trial including, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Bryan.

03/8/11

Step Aside for the Flappers!

In the 1920s, a group, known as “flappers,” emerged into society. Flappers were defined as young, single women who strayed away from the traditional identity and role of women in previous generations. The birth of flappers was the result of the success in attaining women’s suffrage through the 19th Amendment. Granted with political rights, women now have more say and power. Therefore, flappers were a representation of change. Flappers typically had bob haircuts, wore short skirts, and smoke and drank in public venues. This is illustrated in the pictures above. On the left, is a picture of a flapper smoking. On the right, shows a flapper holding guns in both hands. These pictures illustrate how women were radically different in terms of fashion and behavior. If these pictures were taken a decade ago, it would have draw massive criticism and disapproval. This comes to show that times have changed, and the definition of a “woman” is evolving.

03/8/11

The Not-so-great Depression

This is a "town" of shacks in Central Park, called a Hooverville. (From http://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/centralparkhooverv.jpg)

This is a “town” of shacks in Central Park, called a Hooverville. (From http://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/centralparkhooverv.jpg)

During The Great Depression conditions in America were horrible. Now, I know we think we had it bad the past few years, but that does not even compare to how bad it was in the early 20th century. Most people had no work. Now, I am not strictly talking about unskilled workers, but rather many professionals did not have work as well. Everyone was looking for jobs and nobody was able to support their family. In order to even attain some food people would wait on these breadlines. The lines were hundreds, or thousands, of people lined up waiting to get a small portion of food given out for free. This is what a majority of America had to resort too. People couldn’t afford housing either. Some lived in cardboard boxes. and others lived in houses that were not much better. Shown in the picture is a village of tiny, dinky shacks that was set up in New York’s Central Park. While nearly impossible, I hope the two pictures that I posted give you an idea of the poverty present in The Great Depression.

This is a breadline where people can come and get free food. (From http://dailycapitalist.com/2009/06/24/the-great-depression-a-short-history/)

This is a breadline where people can come and get free food. (From http://dailycapitalist.com/2009/06/24/the-great-depression-a-short-history/)

03/8/11

Hollywood Adopts the Hays Code

Morality became a divisive issue during the 1920s in the United States. One focal point of the cultural debate was Hollywood and its movies. Known for promiscuity, gambling and alcohol, Hollywood developed an image as a hotbed of immoral behavior. In the early 1920s the town was rocked by a series of scandals which brought widespread condemnation from civic, religious and political organizations. In 1921, one of America’s most popular movie stars, comic Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, was accused of raping a young actress, Virginia Rappe. After she died of internal injuries, he was indicted for manslaughter. Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, but the public outcry about Hollywood’s lack of morals became deafening.

In 1922, after some risque films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted beacon of rectitude and Presbyterian elder Will H. Hays to rehabilitate Hollywood’s image.

03/7/11

A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER


This video clip is produced by Kmcldukel in 2009. Schenck was a leader of the socialist party and was protesting against the draft.

During the WWI, Schenck was arrested and convicted for publishing and distributing literature that encouraged men to resist the draft. Schenck claimed his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and press had been violated.

The Supreme Court ruled that there are limit to free speech. The court said that free speech should not used to protect someone from causing panic by falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Total free speech could not be allowed in the face of a “clear and present danger.” The decision became a guide by which to measure the limits of free speech.

03/7/11

President Harding and The Teapot Dome Scandal

Warren G. Harding was the 29th President of the United States (1921-1923). A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. His conservativism, affable manner, and ‘make no enemies’ campaign strategy made Harding the compromise choice at the 1920 Republican National Convention.

After Harding won an election, he rewarded friends and political contributors, referred to as the Ohio Gang, with financially powerful positions. Scandals and corruption eventually pervaded his administration.

Polls of historians and scholars have consistently ranked Harding as one of the worst Presidents. His presidency has been recently evaluated in terms of presidential record and accomplishments in addition to the administration scandals. The most recent Presidential rankings have had various low results for President Harding.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/r7p7C6nTNog" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Teapot Dome Scandal

This video clip is produced by Gary Leevnthal in 2009. The 29th President of United States Warren G. Harding and Albert Fall are depicted in the video, as they involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

The most notorious scandal was the Teapot Dome affair. The affair took its name from Teapot Dome, a rock formation in Wyoming that looked like a teapot and, more importantly, stood atop a large government naval oil reserve. Teapot Dome is a simple case of bribery. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, a former senator from New Mexico and a friend of Harding’s, was convicted of taking bribes from oil executives. Oilman Harry Sinclair obtained leases to drill for oil at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Edward Doheny acquired leases for reserves at Elk Hills, California. Fall received in the neighborhood of $400,000 in cash and gifts from Doheny and Sinclair. Like the details of the various Enron accounting maneuvers, the details of the oil leasing were complicated. For the public it was reduced to Fall granting favors to friends who had given him a great deal of money.

03/7/11

The Stock Market Crash of 1929

After World War I, the United States had an extensive economic expansion due to new technologies and enhanced production processes. The Stock Market benefited from the expanding economy. Eventually the Stock Market Crashed on 1929. Many banks tried to collect loans made to stock market investors since their holdings were worth nothing at all. When people found out that the banks’ assets contained uncollectable loans, depositors rushed to withdraw their savings, concerned about the security of their bank. Several thousand banks began to fail due to the panic. In result of the Stock Market Crash, many people lost their entire saving, many companies failed, and peoples’ faith in banks was destroyed. This event triggered the beginning of the Great Depression.

03/7/11

The Emerging Black Culture


During the 1920s, there was a huge surge of black americans moving into northern urban cities from the south. With a huge spike in population, black culture began to emerge and self expression began to expand. New York’s Harlem was recognized as a “capital” for black americans and their expression through the arts. For the first time there were black actors performing on broadway shows. A few of the greatest writers and poets of all time were from Harlem such as Langston Hughes and Claude Mckay. Harlem boomed with new writers, poets, painters, musicians and entertainers that introduced a whole new perspective in all art fields. The Harlem Renaissance gave birth to many talented people and allowed blacks to create and thrive within their own culture and community separate from whites. The video above displayed a number of paintings, poems, pictures, writers, and songs that depicted the period of the Harlem Renaissance.

03/7/11

Expansion and Power

Prior to WWI many new alliances and nations were competing to be the new world power. Power came with additional influence on territories outside of your own. The European influence and stream of expansion began in Asia and Africa long before the war, but this is probably one of the many other ways in which the countries competed for and maintained their status on a world platform. An additional cause may also be militarism. Power is also symbolized through the means of weapons and military strength a nation has. The arms race was one which was long and spread wide influenced competition between countries like Russia and Germany.

Lastly, nationalism always fuels wars. Each nation is fighting for the prestige and individual interest of their nation. The same holds true for WWI. Dominance and power can only be won through maintaining standards that boost of a nation’s capability, Europe fell victim to this epidemic as well.

03/7/11

Assignment due 3/14

Post a visual representation of 2 primary sources (these can be text documents, photographs, cartoons, paintings, or videos) that represent important aspects of the Great Depression.  Include captions that explain the subject of the image and source to the best of your knowledge.  Write 1 paragraph comparing the two documents and the messages they communicate about the Great Depression.

03/7/11

Assignment due 3/9

1) Read Foner, Chapter 20.
2) Choose one person, place, or event discussed by Foner in Chapter 20 that has not yet been covered on the blog.  Insert an image representing that subject.
3) Write one paragraph explaining basic information about the video: When was the media originally produced?  Who is depicted or heard?  What historical change does it represent and how well is captured?
3b) You may also embed a video from YouTube into your post that represents the subject.  I had hoped to show you how to do this in class Monday.  I will review this when I return.  However, I can give very simple instructions here: simply copy the URL from YouTube and paste it into your post as you compose it.  When you publish, it should automatically appear as a video.  This tends to work best in Firefox or Safari (IE converts the address into a link instead).

03/7/11

Arms race in WWI

The picture on the left indicates variety causes of WWI. Arms Force plays a important role in WWI. Since the alliances was formed after 1871, it led to an armaments race among the powers. The tension was being serious between when Germany passed Navy Laws in 1900.

03/6/11

Stop Sunking pur ships!

Most of us know that The sinking of the Lusitania was one of the factors to the United States entering the Great War, The sinking was due to  the German U-boat campaign, where Germany declared that all Allied and neutral ship were to be sunk on sight.  They wanted to cut off Britain supplies from America.  By March 1917, Germany U-boat seven American vessels.Woodrow Wilson realized that staying neutral and out of the war could not be avoided, and Declared war on Germany.  I honestly believe that staying out of the war so long is what helped the United stated win.  They entered a war that opposing side and the allies were both decreasing in the number of soldier.  The United states lost over 100,000 soldiers, which sad as it may be was only 1 % of the soldiers that were lost in this Great War!

03/6/11

CLASS CANCELLED 3/7 and 3/9

I need to cancel class this week. There will be no class held on 3/7 and 3/9.

I will be in touch by next weekend to update you on the schedule for the following week.

As we have discussed in class, you are responsible for continuing to complete all readings and assignments by the normal class time. If you have questions at any point, please do not hesitate to email me. I may be slower than normal in responding, but I will do everything possible to get back to you with at least a short message.

03/6/11

Causes of World War I

The causes of World War I, which began in central Europe in July 1914, included many intertwined factors, such as the conflicts and hostility of the four decades leading up to the war. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conflict as well. However, the immediate origins of the war lay in the decisions taken by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914, causes belli for which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by Gavrilo Princip, an irredentist Serb.

03/6/11

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

[Telegraphic]

Vienna, July 28, 1914

The Royal Serbian Government not having answered in a satisfactory manner the note of July 23, 1914, presented by the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade, the Imperial and Royal Government are themselves compelled to see to the safeguarding of their rights and interests, and, with this object, to have recourse to force of arms. Austria-Hungary consequently considers herself henceforward in state of war with Serbia.

The above is a telegram send by Count Leopold von Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs to M. N. Pashitch, Serbian Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs on July 28, 1914, 11:10 am.  It was one month to the day after which Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo.  Austria-Hungary felt that a timely response was needed when they presented Serbia with the July Ultimatum. This ultimatum was part of a coercive program meant to weaken the Kingdom of Serbia as a threat to Austria-Hungary’s control of the northern Balkans which had a significant southern Slavic population, including a large Serbian community in Bosnia. This was supposed to be achieved either through diplomacy (the terms of the Ultimatum were made harsh for this purpose) or by a localized war if the Ultimatum were rejected. Confronted with the ultimatum and the lack of support from other European powers, the Serbian Cabinet worked out a compromise where Serbia accepted all of the terms of the ultimatum except for the demand in point #6 that Austrian police be allowed to operate in Serbia.With all of the tension arising between the two countries and for the failure to accept the full terms in the time allotted, Austria Hungary marched and declared war on Serbia, pushing the other alliances into a world war. 

03/6/11

Tightening the Tension

Imperialism played a major role for the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente to go to war against each other among many other factors. Imperialism is a way to show a country’s strength by dominating and acquiring lands in different parts of the world and make its subject follow the mother country’s rules. It is a race to gain territories to show its superiority.  Great Britain had controlled over many lands in five major continents and France took control of majority of the land in Africa. This evoked competition with Germany who started to fight for land in Africa with Great Britain and France which resulted their acquisition of small portion of the land in Africa.

Imperialism not only increased competition among rival countries but it also builds up tension among them. The point of imperialism is to show power and the less land you get can mean the weaker you are. Germany definitly do not want to be in such position and their aggression towards the Triple Entene grew stronger when imperialism continues.