Author: rafia anwar

05/24/11

Wanna Be a Flap Dancer? Go back into time in the 1920’s

http://youtu.be/yNAOHtmy4j0

In the 1920’s it was depicted as a time characterized that Americans had prosperity and optimism. One of the times in the 1920’s was the Jazz Age. The Jazz age was  a time period were music and dance emerged. The dance were known to be danced by Flapper women. These women were now entering work force at the end of the first war. This depicted the idea of equality and free sexuality. The created new dances for the jazz age time period.

05/24/11

One of Many WW1 – Nationalism

 

At the settlement of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the principle of nationalism was ignored in favor of preserving the peace. Germany and Italy were left as divided states, but strong nationalist movements and revolutions led to the unification of Italy in 1861 and that of Germany in 1871. Another result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was that France was left seething over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, and Revanche was a major goal of the French. Nationalism posed a problem for Austria-Hungary and the Balkans, areas comprised of many conflicting national groups. The ardent Panslavism of Serbia and Russia’s willingness to support its Slavic brother conflicted with Austria-Hungary’s Pan-Germanism.

05/24/11

David Blight

History is consisted of many different issues throughout the years. One of the many, important events taken place was the civil rights. Although there have been many books, documentaries describing the event, David Blight has his own take on it with his book   Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. What is perceived  in the book, illustrates some of the main and important issues that some people forget to discuss in detail with, such as how the civil war brought equality. What I liked about his book is that David seemed very honest. He went straight to the struggling points during the civil war and explained them in full details.   He also states President Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address when he spoke of the war as bringing a rebirth of the republic in the name of freedom and equality. The reasoning for David to include this statement from President Lincoln is that to show the civil war brought freedom and equality to the society. He manages to tell people that the cause for the civil war event reunited society as a whole.

05/21/11

Something to listen to -Protest Songs… :)

Buffy Sainte-Marie composed this and featured it on her debut album in 1964. The soldier in question represents every warrior throughout history, at different ages, from different religions, political beliefs and countries. The message is that he should take personal responsibility for his actions, instead of automatically responding to orders. If there were no soldiers, doing the leaders’ bidding, the wars would cease. The buck stops here. British singer-songwriter Donovan had a hit with the song in 1965.

http://youtu.be/L5pgrKSwFJE

This song stirred the blood when Phil Ochs performed it at anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights rallies. His song is from the point of view of a soldier as he is called on to fight through America’s history, culminating in the atomic bomb attack on Japan.

05/21/11

Little Rock Nine- Mistreated ..

 

Little rock was a school in Arkansas.

On Monday, September 23, 1957, the nine students set off for the high school. They were the only nine black students attending a all-white school. Knowing that there would be a lot of violence towards them they always use to stay near the rear of the entrance. Racial white mobs were always close together just to beat up these nine black students. In fear of getting hurt these black students will always run towards the back entrance of the school. However to keep peace and safety President Elisenhower sent a 101 airborne division to protect these nine students. Each student was guided and had their own patrol officer with them at all times.  Yet, somehow this did not stop the white students from hurting these nine African American students in the school. They stabbed one of the students, and also sprayed acid into another student’s eye.  In defense some of the, black students would try to protect and stand up for themselves.  One of the students was suspended because she called a white student “white-trash”. It is clearly stated that whites were being in favor here in the school, where as the blacks were being treated unfair.

05/21/11

More Babies !!

During the time of the great depression the marriage rates fell very badly due to the economic conditions. Married couples, did not want to have kids or postpone their thoughts of having kids because they didn’t want to make poor decisions that would affect their lives. Due to these decision making the birthrate have also dropped. However, after world war 2 had ended the hopes and dreams for people got a little better. The American soldiers returned home from the war in 1945. These young American men wanted to start everything new such as families, homes and jobs.

Also with all the positive things that were going on after world war two, the Americans started buying goods that caused corporates to expand and more jobs for people. With growth and expansions of positive things there were estimated millions of marriages in 1946. These marriages created a lot of birth of children, which later increase the amount of babies that were being born in the following year 1947. Creating the title for the  most babies born the timeline stated gave it the name for “babyboom” which lasted until the 1950’s.

05/20/11

We want FDR?

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The political cartoons, illustrates how people  wanted to re-elect president FDR. due to what positive changes he brought to the United States from his new deal. Such things were his famous “First Hundred Days” of his presidency. FDR pushed through legislation that reformed the banking and financial sectors which later cured the American agriculture, and attempting it to resuscitate the American industry. FDR also provided direct cash relief for all the poor and job programs. This help the  crisis of starvation and the dire needs of the nation’s unemployed.

05/20/11

I am “Depressed” – I need a job

These two pictures above discussed the time of the great depression when everyone was being laid off and unemployment was high.

The Great Depression timeline is a dramatic turn in our history and unfortunate events that took place in American economic history. The starting point was when there was a crash in the stock market in 1929. Three years after the stock market crashed in the New York stock exchange, the stock prices continued to decline till about the latter half of 1932. Later on the Industrial Revolution also played a big role in the development of this economic fall in parts of the  great depression timeline. More machines were invited and there were smaller groups of workers. These smaller group of workers, didn’t help the machines and the economy from producing because their was less products being reproduced to make money. At this point, a lot of machines were being used as well as equipment leading a lot of lay off for people.

 

05/20/11

New Technology “Out with the old and IN with the new”

New Technology in World War 1

World War 1 brought in new technologies such as modern guns, modern artillery and airplanes to the battlefield. In 1914 the guns have improved remarkably, such as  that these guns  were gas-driven and had water-cooled machined. With such improvement in technology creating these guns , a double team of two men could fire hundreds of rounds of bullets per minute. Before the technology of these guns, the old guns use to fire few bullets and then stop them to reload them. These new guns could command the entire front of a trench line, to attack the other people at war. Clearly, improvements of guns, were a great contribution for the wars because machine guns ruled the battlefields.

 

 

05/20/11

Progressive Era = Progress ?

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was the 28th President of the United States.

President Wilson, argued towards a stronger central government. He also was fighting for anti-legislation and labor rights for all workers. One of his first and many accomplishments was him singing  the underwood tariff. The underwood Tariff provided substantial reduction rates on imported goods and was further moved into reduction of cost of living.

 

 

 

05/20/11

Immigrants find homes in USA…

The first picture is Ellis Island,Between the years of 1892 to 1954, over 12 million immigrants entered the United States though Ellis Island, which is a small island in the NewYork Harbor. The immigrants were mostly European. In search for a better life, these immigrants came to the United States in hopes for finding jobs and making money.

The second picture shows these immigrants workings. These immigrants took on jobs of people in the United States, who did not want to work for less pay. Such job labor was including working for steel mills, textile mills and coal mines.  Only ten cents an hour working 55 hours a week were the cost of their pay. Even young children were working on these jobs. Between the years of 1890 – 1900 about 35,000 were killed on these jobs due to child labor.

The comparison between these pictures depicts that these immigrants traveled to Ellis Island to get into the United states just to form better life for themselves and their families. However, getting hard labor jobs for fraction of the pay of only ten cents an hour, and poor child labor cost these immigrants their lives.


05/19/11

Strikes on Railroads??

 

The railroad strike in 1877 were during the gilded ages.  The strike took place in West Virgina. The reason behind the strike , was due to the cut in wages for the second time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. In order to help, these railroads to proceed in running, the state military tried their best to restore the train services. However this was not possible because the military soldiers did not want to work against the people who were already on strike.

This led to a negative fall back of the strike, the strike slowly moved towards Baltimore which caused serious violent street battles between the strikers and the Military of Maryland. Moving along the states the strike spread out to the Midwest. Here , in the state of St. Louis, the violence was in control for a week by the St.Louis Military. Certain issues depicted fights between strikers and the police.  By the time the strike was over with, nearly a 100,00o people had been dead. In the end there was very little gains, due to the fact that there was a enforcement on the iron rule on the workers and it made it very difficult to organize.

 

 

05/19/11

womens finally get to vote!

Womens suffrage was one of the many important events that took place  in our history. It portrayed  negative and unequal rights toward women. In search for equality, Susan B. Anthony was the forming leader who brought women their rights in the United States. She “dedicated her life to “the cause,” the woman suffrage movement.” He accomplishments during the time help form the Nineteenth Amendment, which was in the year 1920 .   Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.