04/26/11

The Femine Mystique

Even though woman had the right to vote, it did little to increase political and economic freedom for women. According to Foner, Women were still treated as subordinates to men in the early 1960s, where their rights were second class compared to men and job opportunities limited to low wage clerical positions. Foner asserts that Betty Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” published in 1963 revived the feminine consciousness and exposed the third class treatment women received. She even compared the Suburban home to a “comfortable concentration camp.”

I think the feminist movement of the 60’s had its root in the 1950’s since it was an Era when the Nation took a break from War and was able to concentrate on domestic issues. The economic prosperity of the 1950’s and technological innovation lended women more time to create woman’s groups and think about dealing with their rights. I have also posted pictures of Protests by 20,000 women on August 9, 1956 which eventually became known as National Women’s Day. Even though they were not protesting for women’s rights, it showed how organized women were and their willingness to fight for rights.

 

 

 

 

04/3/11

Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

This act restated the right of workers to bargain collectively for improved working conditions. However, its major thrust was to limit some of the extreme practices of unions. The act prohibited union form engaging in certain types of strikes, charging excessive initiation fees, and engaging in secondary boycotts.

03/15/11

New Deal- The Trojan Horse

Throughout the history of United States, reforms and new policies have always encountered as invasion of rights by certain skeptics. Due to the political culture of America, politicians are very reserved about letting the federal government to become more powerful. This has remain true even during the Great Depression. Although the entire nation was desperate for solutions to their economics disparity, many citizens were still conscious of their political rights and freedom despite of their poverty.

The political cartoon above has demonstrated this idea perfectly. When Franklin Roosevelt proposed his New Deal as the solution to the Great Depression to the Congress, certain politicians have viewed the reform as an invasion to the Congress. The cartoonist believed that the New Deal was making an attempt to obtain more power than it should by taking advantage of the economic disaster. The cartoon is referring to the policies that expands the power of the federal government, such as the establishment of Civilian Conservation Corps (CVC) and Public-Works Projects (PWA). Those two policies have hired many civilians for the constructions of parks, roads, bridges, and other public buildings, and critics complained that these policies are gaining control of the citizens by creating employment opportunities. Certain critics also considered such policies as a step toward socialism and communism. They believed that such economic policies are Trojan horses that would transform our capitalistic nation to socialistic/communistic country.

02/13/11

Citizenship for All

This text is a primary document because it is the original text of the 14th amendment. It was added to the constitution at July 9 1868. It established the citizenship clause, due process clause, and the equal protection clause. Each clause was meant to give African American’s equal rights after the civil war. This text was important because it was one of the first step to let the African Americans to taste what freedom is about.

When the 14 th Amendment that was ratified during the Reconstruction Era, the main portion of the amendment was that it indicates that a person will become citizen when they are natural born in the United States. Naturalized citizens will have the same rights as American citizens. They will be protected under laws. African Americans who were born after the ratification of this amendment have gained such freedom and they will be given the rights just like an American citizen. Many African Americans have the rights to own property, to go to school, and so on. They were also gaining political powers by having the chance to work in the congress. They also had the opportunity to set up their own community for gathering and socialization.

02/11/11

The Fourteenth Amendment – 1868

According to “Give Me Liberty!”, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9th, 1868. It is the principle of citizenship for all persons born in the United States, and which empowered the federal government to protect the rights of all Americans. This includes the former slaves that were recently freed. It also forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 1 states that all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state can make or enforce any law that will abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

Section 2 states that representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.

Section 3 states that no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elctor of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state.

Sources:
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/fourteenth-amendment.html
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=43#

02/2/11

History and Transparency

Are we in a world of too much transparency, or too little has always been the question people have argued and debated. It seems like people like to pick and choose what they would like to know more about and what they would not like to get public. Many individuals preach privacy and the right to privacy as something which should be upheld and maintained for the sake of citizens, but why do we still seek transparency in issues where national security is involved? These issues time and time again are questioned and debated and there never seems to be a solution or one set decision on what should be done. Reading these two articles “Archiving Tweets” and “WikiLeaks and the Historical Community,” made this opinion of mine even stronger?

When it comes to our personal lives, we prefer and expect to have our privacy, but if we as individuals are comfortable enough to update every breathing second of our lives on social websites like twitter-we should not be concerned about the decison of Library of Congress’s to digitally archive public tweets. In today’s date, most individuals are machine driven, or technology driven. We always have access to the internet and social networking websited like twitter and facebook on our laptops, desktops and even cell phones!  We are constantly seen walking down streets balancing our walk and our typing speed on blackberry phone keypads. If this is the case, then it may certainly be a wise decision to record the behavior of humans and how they maintain a craze to have their voice heard and get noticed via these meduims of socialization. Historians may in fact come across a lot of jergen and incomprehensible tweets, but I would certainly agree with one of the commentators on the “Archiving Tweets” article, somewhere or another historians will find what they are looking for.

History is not something which remains constant and neither are the means in the way history is both taught and studied and read. If this is the case then technology has already started making the process for both historians and students different. We have more means of doing research and collecting data then we may have ever had before, in addition the ability to archive public human activity on the net, could help conclude on many other things concerning perhaphs human activity, performance, sociology and politics. The wikileaks incident dumped many government classified documents out in the public, whether this should be a national security concern within itself is very important to realize. Where do we find the balance between openness and secretcy? Who makes these decisions? Well I wish there was an easier way to find the answers to questions like these, however, incidents like these which happen once in a while do nothing to aid in answering these questions. I would have to agree with the author, K.C. Johnson, document dumps like this one only complicate the situation even more.