Manufacturing during the pre-Civil War - Essay Example

PART I 1. “A Marble Monument to Cruelty” by Ray Sprigle is about the lives of Negroes in Georgia told firsthand by a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter. He immersed himself in the Black community and learned the truth behind racial discrimination. He met a rich Negro dentist named Dr. P. W. Hill whose wife and baby died at childbirth because he did not bring them to a nearby hospital for the whites believing they would not be admitted. Two other incidents of vehicular accidents whose victims were blacks were noted: one did not go to the white’s hospital, the other was refused admittance. The writer verified 3 times from the three hospitals, he never received any response. (Undercover: ‘I was a Negro in South for 30 Days’ ). 2. Tulsa Race Riot Panel Recommends Reparations by Renee Ruble recalls “one of the nation's deadliest racial clashes”, a 1921 rampage by a white Tulsa mob that killed as many as 300 people, most of them black. The Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended for reparations to the survivors and victims of the said racial clash. On May 31, 1921, a white lynch mob clashed with blacks who were protecting a black man accused of assaulting a white elevator operator. Over two days, white mobs set fire to homes, businesses and churches in Greenwood, a thriving black business district known at the time as the Black Wall Street of America. When the smoke cleared, the area lay in ruins. (Published on Saturday, February 5, 2000 by the Philadelphia Inquirer ). 3. The People’s Party in 1894 foresaw a decline in the country’s national life. When the country did have a crisis in 1896, it sought to find answers to the problems that arose believing that the crisis could be solved by restoring to the country the constitutional control and exercise of the functions necessary to a people's government. It demanded the establishment of an economic and financial system which would make the people masters of their own affairs and independent of European control. It laid down a set of conditions to be adopted such as the: Declaration of Principles; Transportation; Telegraph; Land; Direct Legislation; and General Propositions. (People's Party Platform. Adopted at St. Louis, July 24, 1896). 4. The White Man's Burden is a famous poem written by Rudyard Kipling, considered Britain's imperial poet. It was said to be a response to the American take over of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. The poem speaks of a great burden to take in foreign captives who may be a threat and a real risk to the white man (Americans) with their different culture coupled with diseases and other hazards. Although the captors may profit from the act by expanding its territory and safeguarding itself from other invaders like China, the fact remains that it may be more costly than profitable. (Modern History Sourcebook: Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden, 1899 ). 5. The Boxer Rebellion is about the Boxers (The Righteous and Harmonious Fists), a religious society that rebelled against the imperial government in Shantung in 1898. They used animistic rituals and spells; they were also passionate and confident, filled with contempt for authority and violent emotions. They believed that the expulsion of foreign devils would renew Chinese society and begin a new golden age but focused only on the economic scarcity of the 1890's. The Boxer rebellion concentrated itself in Beijing. This rebellion resulted to the Boxer Protocol of 1901 where European powers got the right to maintain military forces in the capital. The Protocols suspended the civil service examination, demanded a huge remuneration to be paid to European powers for the losses they had suffered, and required government officials to be prosecuted for their role in the rebellion, and all arms imports were suspended. (The Boxer Rebellion ). 6. The Treaty of Paris is a treaty of peace between the United States and Spain signed on December 10, 1898 to end the Spanish-American War. Composed of 17 articles, its major provisions are Spain’s cessions of claims over Cuba, island of Porto Rico and other islands in the West Indies, Guam in the Marianas or Ladrones, and the Philippine Islands. Both countries also agreed to release all prisoners of war and mutually relinquish all claims for remuneration against the other Government, including all claims for payment for the cost of the war. For ten years from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, admittance of Spanish ships and merchandise to the ports of the Philippine Islands should be on the same terms as ships and merchandise of the United States. (The Treaty of Paris). 7. The Granger Movement was an agrarian movement in the United States with the aim of improving the social, economic, and political status of farmers. The movement started in the unrest among farmers in many areas of the U.S. in the latter part of the 19th century. Among the causes of the unrest were the declining prices of farm products, the growing indebtedness of farmers to merchants and banks, the discriminatory freight rates imposed on farmers by the railroads, and the acquisition by the railroads of public lands that formerly had served pioneer farmers as a source of new farmland. It began in 1867 with the formation of the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry to solve common problems and the passage of laws regulating railroad rates and practices, and the antitrust laws and measures establishing postal savings banks (1910) and parcel post (1912). (The Granger Movement ). PART II. B. Manufacturing during the pre-Civil War era was dominated by self-employed, owner-operator producers like a series of locally-centered “island economies” which was almost self-sufficient. Goods were either hand-produced or traded from local artisans such as blacksmiths, millers, tanners or shoemakers. Owners controlled the pace and rhythm of work and were bound only by their own level of energy and by local custom. They also controlled the price of their products supported by local custom. However, with the advent of the government-sponsored railroad building the island economies of small-town America were connected to the national marketplace. The national marketplace was a contrast to the island economies in many ways. Big industrial owners gained power over manufacturing. Machines replaced manual labor and goods produced by these industrialists were cheaper and more readily available. Resistance began to build up and produced labor unions to regain a portion of their lost power and control. The two major organizing models were “industrial unions” and “trade unions.” Trade unions were more exclusive of a certain group of types of workers while industrial unions disallowed discrimination. The American Federation of Labor (1886-) was a trade union that avoided politics and focused narrowly and pragmatically on only three issues: higher wages, safer conditions and shorter hours. The Knights of Labor (1869-1890s) was an industrial union that sought a “cooperative commonwealth” where corporations would be owned by the workers themselves. D. Emulating the worldwide trend the 19th century Americans sought to broaden its frontiers. According to University of Wisconsin historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his "frontier thesis" in 1893: "the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history." The crises faced by the government during that time were the pouring in of immigrants from various origins, class conflict and labor strife. Along with this was Americans’ tendency towards "cultural imperialism" following after the European powers. In addition, American military advocates and policy-makers claimed that America must grow or die; that large countries existed in only one of two states of being: they were expanding or they were dying. This means that national survival and national security depends on expansion. Thus ensued the Spanish-American War of 1898. It began with Cuba, then the Philippines. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1898 to end the war. It was agreed that Cuba would remain under Spain while Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico were to be added to America's newly created offshore empire. Previously McKinley and the Congress had already annexed Hawaii and Wake Island. Business-wise, the expansion was a frustration to win China as a prospective market of American goods. China remained aloof and it continued to oppose foreign relations with America. Part III. 1. Season of Hope 2. lynchings 3. Booker T. Washington; W.E.B. Du Bois 4. island economies 5. worker 6. Great Strike of 1877 7. American Federation of Labor; Knights of Labor; International Workers of the World 8. monopsony 9. deflation 10. People’s Party 11. bimetallic 12. Alfred Thayer Mahan 13. China 14. William Randolph Hearst; Joseph Pulitzer 15. Philippines 16. Cuba 17. Guam; Philippines; Puerto Rico 18. Knights of Labor 19. Lampasas County, Texas 20. Democratic Party Part IV. 1. industrial 2. members; white supremacy 3. Great Strike 4. Jack Wilson/Wovoka; Paiute 5. Indian discrimination 6. South 7. Samuel Gompers 8. railroad 9. about half 11. centrist 12. off shore 13. Andres Bonifacio 14.Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire 15. investigative 16. reconstruction 17. Liquor Abolition 18. union 19. Women's Suffrage 20."New Freedom" Works Cited:  Modern History Sourcebook: Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden, 1899 . People's Party Platform. Adopted at St. Louis, July 24, 1896. The Boxer Rebellion . The Granger Movement . The Treaty of Paris. Tulsa Race Riot Panel Recommends Reparations. Published on Saturday, February 5, 2000 by the Philadelphia Inquirer . Undercover: ‘I was a Negro in South for 30 Days’ . Read More