He Does not Deserve that Title

Last week in class we learned about Andrew Jackson and how he was involved in the Indian Removal Act by watching videos and reading documents about the Indian Removal. Andrew Jackson was the 17th president of the united states. The Indian Removal act was passed by congress on May 28, 1830, during the time that Andrew Jackson was president. The law authorized the president to negotiate with Indian tribes in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River. The Indians did not want to leave their territory, they were very peaceful people and never bother anyone, but Andrew Jackson was holding a grudge against the Indians because one of his family members was killed in an Indian war so he wanted them gone. The essential question is: Is Andrew Jackson’s long-standing reputation as “the people’s president” deserved? Why? Why not? After learning about the Indian Removal and how horrible Andrew Jackson treated the Indians, Andrew does not deserve the title “the people’s president”. After watching the videos and taking noted on Andrew Jackson we made a video answering the essential question

Here is the video explaining why Andrew Jackson did not deserve the reputation as “the people’s president”:

The Rise of Democracy

The other day in class we learned about what democracy is and how it rose in the early 1800s in the United states. We did this by looking at some documents and answering the two essential questions: How should we define democracy? and How democratic was the United States in the early 1800s? One document was a picture of people gathered to vote and it showed how different voting was then than it is now. There were also two graphs, one showed the property and tax paying requirements to be able to vote and how the number of states with property requirements went down while the number states in union went up over the years; the other graph showed the method of electing presidents and over the year the number of people able to vote instead of legislatures increased. We had two quotes that were both basically saying that democracy means that anyone has the right to vote but the people were not getting what they wanted and the state was not practicing democracy. Finally we had a document about the Dorr War, which was talking about Dorr and how he organized a convention to frame a new constitution and change the voting laws. He tried to capture the state arsenal and then was arrested. To appease popular resentment the governor pardoned Dorr, and Rhode Island adopted a new constitution.

This is the poster we made in class to show everything that we learned about the Rise of Democracy:

We Should Be Treating Everyone Equally

The essential questions for this week are why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless race? And how are the events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this imperative? These questions are important to think about because we can reflects how throughout the years we treated people of different race differently than us and how we can fix those ways today. We studied the impact of race on the Latin American Revolution for independence in class by first making a pie chart showing the race population in Latin America. Then we divided into three groups each with a different revolution and made timelines of all the important events in each revolution. After we mixed the groups and we shared our timelines, tried to find two differences and two similarities between all three revolutions and then tried to answer the essential question.

Here is a picture of the pie chart showing the race as a percent of the population in Latin America:

My group was The Revolution of Gran Colombia; here is a picture of the timeline of important dates:

After all the timelines were shared, we brainstormed a list of two similarities and two differences from all three of the revolutions. Two similarities are that all of the revolutions ended around the same time and they all happened in Latin America. Two differences that we came up with are that they speak different languages and the revolutions were all lead by different people. Race was an issue in all three because there is one social status fighting against another and they are all fighting against the unfair rule and creating social status. People did not like how depending on your race you were treated fairly or unfairly. Being discriminated due to race led to the revolts, fighting on discrimination based on born race and racial equalities.

Judgments are still made based on race in society today. People judge people of a certain race as not being as smart and not being able to get well-paying job, while other people are stereotyped as being really smart. An example of race based judgment is when an officer shot an innocent darker colored skin boy just because he was suspicious looking and the police officer isn’t really getting into as much trouble as he should of, but let’s say if it was a darker colored skin officer shooting a white man, the dark skinned police officer would get into more trouble. I think it is definitely still important to consider the issue of race in our lives today; we should be treating people fairly and equally.

He May Have Had His Flaws

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes and they are all around us. Leaders are people who lead or command a group, organization, country or even just one person; people can also be considered leaders by having a big influence on someone else or setting the example. A good example of a leader is a parent or guardian because they have to set good examples for their children so that when they grow up they can set good examples for their kids and so that they do not get into any trouble. Another good example of a leader was Toussaint Louverture. Toussaint was born around 1743 and was the leader of the Haitian revolution. Toussaint’s main goal was to free the slaves. This revolution took place on a Caribbean island called Hispaniola, two centuries later the French took control of the western half and named it Saint Domingue which today is called Haiti. Saint Domingue was a very economically valuable colony because there were 8,000 plantations that were producing 40 percent of the world’s sugar and more than half of the world’s coffee. The entire slave population of the United States in 1800 was around one million; the slave population in Saint Domingue was about 500,000. This is important to think about because there is half of the United States slave population in the tiny city of Saint Domingue. The reason why Toussaint fought against the French as a slave rebel leader in 1793, was made commander-in-chief of the French colonial army in Saint Domingue after 1794, and then fought again against the French in 1802 is because he was a young slave himself until he was granted freedom by his owner. Once Toussaint was free he rented a small coffee plantation and had a few slaves of his of his own, he encouraged his slaves to fight for their freedom. Toussaint always wanted to end slavery and finally France fought against slavery, but soon the French decided to bring slavery back which caused Toussaint to fight against them. In 1804 Haiti declared their independence but Toussaint was not able to celebrate this because he was dying from pneumonia in a French jail and he never knew that Haiti actually gained their independence (background essay). Toussaint Louverture should be remembered as a liberator of slaves, the ruler of Saint Domingue, and a military commander. Although Toussaint should be remembered for being a military commander and the ruler of Saint Domingue, the most important reason he should be remembered as is a liberator of slaves because without him the slaves would not have been free and Haiti would have may never have gained their independence.

The most important reason as to why Toussaint Louverture should be remembered as is a liberator of slaves. In 1789 the French revolution begins and the declaration of the rights of man which later triggered the slave revolution of Saint Domingue. At first Toussaint serves as a doctor to the troops and then after a while of being the doctor he became commander of a small detachment of the slave soldiers. Toussaint trained his soldiers in both guerilla tactics and “European style” fighting because the opponents did not know what guerilla tactics were it would be more effective because they would not be ready. Guerilla tactics mean that the soldiers ambush the opponents and surprise them; “European style” means that all the soldiers march at the enemy shoulder to shoulder. In the Timeline of Abolition in Saint Domingue it says that in 1794 Toussaint stopped his revolt against the French colonial troops and now supports the French because the French have now abolished slavery. In 1798 he became ruler of Saint Domingue and then in 1801 he gained control of the Spanish side of the island (document A).  In a letter written by Toussaint Louverture it says, “could men who have once enjoyed the benefits of liberty look calmly while it is taken from them!..." We have known how to confront danger to our liberty and we will know how to confront death to preserve it.” Toussaint is expressing his anger about how slavery was coming back to Saint Domingue. He is saying that once people have been freed it is going to be impossible to go back to the way they were living before as slaves. It also says that they will fight to the death just to keep their freedom (document B). In the Saint Domingue Constitution of 1801 article 3 states “All men are born, live and die free and French.” This is promising that there should be no more slaves and everyone should live and die free. The work that this constitution encourages is farming agriculture because people can only make profits from the farming. According to the constitution the owner has the power to run the plantations, the owners were are also known as the “father” and the formers slaves are considered family and now work for money unlike they did before (document C). If Toussaint was not able to free the slaves there may still be slaves in Haiti today. Toussaint cared more about freeing the slaves than he did about fighting the French.

Another way that Toussaint Louverture should be remembered is as the ruler of Saint Domingue. The Saint Domingue Constitution of 1801 was signed by Toussaint in July of 1801, in part VIII article 28 is says, “The constitution nominate Citizen Toussaint Louverture, chief General of the Army of Saint Domingue and... he is entrusted the direction thereof for the remainder of his glorious life.” This states that Toussaint is the ruler of Saint Domingue until he dies. There are definitely some advantages and disadvantages of having the same ruler until he dies. The advantage is that he is a smart, good leader, but the disadvantage is that if people revolt there is no way to get rid of him except to kill him and if he is captured the people of Saint Domingue will then not have a ruler (document C). In the Proclamation written on November 25, 1801 Toussaint states, “...Tending to incite sedition [actions against authority of the nation] shall be brought before a court martial [military court] and punished in conformity with the law.” Toussaint’s goal throughout this whole Proclamation is to maintain order and to try to prevent any more violence and revolt like before, but especially in this statement Toussaint is saying that anyone who breaks a law is going to go to court and get punished. Some of the consequences that Toussaint sets in place for the people who break the rules are getting arrested or going to court. Mainly Vagabond cultivators who are people who refuse to work get arrested and the manager of a plantation goes to jail is a worker from another plantation takes refuge in their plantation and they know they are not from there but does not report it. There are four months between the signing of the constitution of 1801 and this Proclamation, in those four months there have been many revolts. The Constitution of 1801 was the nice way of writing all the rules for Saint Domingue but that did not seem to be working so the Proclamation was written to maintain authority and show the people of Saint Domingue who is in charge (document D). These documents show that even though Toussaint may have had his flaws he was a good ruler and he just wanted everything to be in good order with no violence.

The final way as to how Toussaint Louverture should be remembered as is a military commander. In a Biography about Toussaint Louverture it says, “... discontent with Toussaint’s draconian [cruel] labor policy and gathering suspicion of his friendliness with the white planter class.” This is saying the people are starting to fight against Toussaint and disagree with the way he is ruling Saint Domingue. Hyacinthe Moyse, Toussaint Overture’s nephew, distrusted Toussaint and so did all of the former slaves. They were unhappy with his cruel labor policy and they were gathering suspicion about how nice he was to the white planter class. Many of the former slaves object to plantation farming because they did not want to do it again but soon they were forced to work. The former slaves wanted to work in small holdings instead of the large plantations because there would be less people to work around and it would be less crowded. On October 29, 1801 a revolt broke out on the northern plane lead by Moyse, Toussaint reacted by forcing Moyse to watch the soldiers step out of line and one by one shoot themselves. Then Moyse was arrested and later executed. It was not a good idea to execute Moyse because he is his nephew, they are family, and instead he could have just taken him down from power or punished him another way (document E). A Description of Toussaint Louverture written from “The black man” was written in 1863 and is a secondary source. In this document is explains some of Toussaint’s character traits that he possesses that helped him gain his soldiers confidence and respect. Toussaint Louverture was said to have superior knowledge, race, humanity, generosity and courage. According to Toussaint the French were coming to the port city of Samana because Napoleon wanted to take control. Toussaint reacts to this by deciding to burn down Samana because Napoleon wants to reinstate slavery. Toussaint then waited for the French army in the mountain to use the guerilla tactics on them. This would be very effective because the French army would not be prepared because they have never been trained to use this strategy and it would give his soldiers an advantage (document F). These documents show that Toussaint was a good military commander and he really knew what he was doing and he would be able to lead his soldiers to victory.

Although Toussaint Louverture should be remembered for being a military commander and the ruler of Saint Domingue, the most important reason as to why he should be remembered as is a liberator of slaves because without him the slaves would have not been free and Haiti would have may have never gained their independence. Though Toussaint was not always gentle and nice about his methods he really did know what he was doing and he definitely lead Saint Domingue in the right direction. He understood how the slaves felt because he was a slave once himself so he made his point to finally set slaves free. Toussaint was definitely a great revolutionary leader of that time.

They Weren't all Complete Failures

Last week in class we separated into five groups each assigned a different revolution. The different revolutions were: The Decembrist revolt, 1830 France, 1848 France, Frankfurt Assembly and the 1484 Hungary revolt. After we got assigned a revolution we read some primary sources and determine whether it was a success or failure. Then we made a survey monkey, where were would make questions based on our revolt and the class would take the survey. After everyone answered all the questions we were able to see the results and see how many people got the correct answer.The essential question that will be answered throughout this blog post is, were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded?

The revolution that I was assigned to was the Decembrist Revolt of 1825. The Decembrist Revolt took place in Russia. The goal of this revolt was to assassinate Tsar Alexander, the rule of the Russian empire. Everyone was against Tsar Alexander because he failed to grant  meaningful constitutional change. As said before they planned to assassinate him, but a few days before Tsar Alexander died of natural causes. Now that Tsar Alexander has died the people were able to fight back, They wanted to Constantine (Alexander’s older brother) to become the new Tsar but he refused and then Nicholas (ALexander’s son) found out that he was next in line to become Tsar. In a primary source Nicholas I is speaking about the Decembrists to the French Ambassador he says, “The leaders and the instigators of the conspiracy will be dealt with without pity, without mercy.” He is saying that he is not going to be merciful toward the people and he is trying to teach the rebels a lesson that monarchies will not be overthrown. Tsar Nicholas is trying to stop the revolt and show that he is in power. In another primary source Alexander Pushkin says, “This is the cause of the swift decline of our nobility: the grandfather was rich, the son is needy, the grandson will go begging.” This is showing that Nicholas is not being that good of a ruler because Russia is continuing to decline and nothing is getting better. This war was a complete failure because the people did not get what they want, they wanted Constantine to be the new Tsar instead of Nicholas and as soon as Nicholas became Tsar Russia began to decline and many people became poor.

Here is one of the questions that everyone answered right. This question was a true or false saying, Russian rebels executed Tsar Alexander so that they could have a new king which was false. The people planned to execute Tsar Alexander but he died a few days before it was supposed to happen.

This question was asking if this revolt was a success or failure. Most people said is was a failure, two people said semi failure and then one person said neither success or failure. Like I said before this was definitely a failure because the people did not even come close to what they wanted in the first place. I think a lot of people did learn from this survey monkey because most people got the correct answer when we looked at the results.

In my opinion I don’t think that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were really all failures as many historians have concluded. Out of all the revolutions only one of the revolutions was a complete failure. This revolution was the Decembrist Revolt. All the other revolutions were between semi-failure meaning the people got some things they wanted but not all to success meaning the people got everything that they wanted. For example the 1830 France revolt was a moderate success because they almost got everything they wanted but not quite. Louis XVIII made the effort to compromise satisfied some people. After Louis XVIII died, Charles X took over but many people did not like Charles and people started getting angry and fighting back. Charles was afraid and fled back to angry. With the king gone they wanted to set up a republic, They Louis Philip became king and everyone got along very well with him, they called him the “Citizen King”. Another revolution that was a success was the Frankfurt assembly meaning the people got what they wanted. King Frederick obliged to the constitutions cerastes by the Frankfurt Assembly. Germany was united and King Frederick became a constitutional monarch. Even though some of the revolutions did end up being failures there were many that were actually success’ so I do not think the historians were correct in saying that all the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 are really failures.

They Will Become More Powerful

This week we learned about ideologies and the three different types: Liberal, Conservative and nationalism. Ideology is a system of ideas and ideals especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. This weeks essential question that I will be answering throughout this blog post is: what were the political ideologies of the 19th century and how did the influence social and political actions?

Our project was on the topic of Liberalism, we used chatter pix which shows a picture with a person talking; giving the information we wrote.

http://www.istockphoto.com/vector/boy-talking-22792219

The first picture we had was was boy who just gave the background information about liberalism.

Liberalism are people that are more accepting, they believe in being open to new ideas, willing to sacrifice their interests for the greater good.19th century liberalism was the ideology that asserted that the task of government was to promote individual liberty. Liberals viewed many traditions as impediments to that freedom and, therefore, campaigned for reform. Pointing to the accomplishments of the scientific revolution, 19th century liberals asserted that there were God-given natural rights and laws that men could descend through the use of reason. Accordingly, the supported innovation and reform, arguing that many traditions were simply superstitions. They promoted constitutional monarchy over absolutism, and they campaigned for an end to the traditional privileges of the aristocracy and the church in favor of a meritocracy and middle class participation in government. Supporters of liberalism originally came from the middle class.

http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property

The second picture was a picture of John Locke. John Locke was a British philosopher and  was one of the people who was thought of one of the forefathers of liberalism. In the Second Treatise of Government (1609), John Locke made the argument for the existence of God-given natural rights and asserted that the proper goal of government was to protect and promote individual liberty.

http://livingeconomiesforum.org/Adam-Smith

The final picture is of Adam Smith. Adam Smith was also a British philosopher and was the other person who was thought of as one of the forefathers of liberalism. In Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith made the case for existence of economic laws which guided human behavior like an “Invisible hand.” The invisible hand is basically letting people trade and buy from whom they would like while the government sits back. In the late 18th century and early 19th century thinkers extended and hardened Adam Smith’s ideas.

There were two other ideologies as well; conservatism and nationalism. Conservatives are people with more of a narrow mind, they are much more interested in protecting those close to them making sure that their individual rights are sacred. Conservatives like to keep the old ways/tradition and not change the monarchies. They fear if it is changed it will cause war. They think change from tradition is a bad idea and the past shows that monarchy is the best route. The other ideology is nationalism, nationalists are people that take pride in their nation. The promote unification of similar culture, race, nationalities and they do not want foreigners. Italy and Germany were not unified under one rule so foreigners can take over small countries easier. They should combine all the small countries to make them stronger because of unification.

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He was Admired by Many

This week in class we reviewed Napoleon and what his impact on social, economic and political systems of Europe. In this blog post I will explain these impacts.

When Napoleon was young he was considered an outsider and spent most of his time in his studies. Napoleon’s career started at the age of nine, he became Brigadier General during the french revolution. Napoleon conquered most of Europe, Italy, Austria, Rhineland, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Venice, Berlin, Moscow, and Egypt.

http://nicolequinnnarrates.blogspot.com/2012/10/map-of-europe-in-1812.html

This shows the main area of where Napoleon conquered and the places that wanted to be allies with Napoleon, so that they would be protected.

He was a great military strategist and  a motivational speaker. Napoleon was admired by many for other reasons such as, he built massive armies, he was a very good leader and he conquered many countries. To restore economic prosperity Napoleon controlled prices, encouraged new industry and built roads and canals.

Napoleon had a Positive impact on the political system because he conquered many places and was rewarded with a lot of land and money, to be able to expand the empire and be able to buy more things. He had both a negative impact and a positive impact on the economic system. It was a positive impact because he created new industries, roads and many other things to strengthen the economy and make it so that the poor and get a job and make money. It was a negative impact for the other countries because he made the economy even better by stealing high trade from the countries he took control of. Finally, there was also a positive impact impact on the social system because of how he established a meritocracy, which is a government selected on the basis of their ability, in all the places he conquered, this would allow people to be rewarded on the work they put in.

Soon after there were arguments in favor of resuming monarchies and there were arguments in favor of redesigning the government. The advantages of resuming monarchies is that the monarchies like being in power, it would restore social order, there is only one person in charge and it keeps things from getting complicated. The advantages of redesigning governments is that it gives power to all, it was more fair, it gave them freedom to design whatever kind of government they think the country needs and people get more of a say.

http://www.glogster.com/teoirisarri/napoleon-bonaparte-leadership-style/g-6kudjp682m7kj98b04ei3a0

This picture shows Napoleon leading an army into battle, prepared to win, just like said above he was a very leader and a great military strategist.

They Just Wanted to Help the Poor

This week in class we did an activity to learn about capitalism, socialism and communism. We each got three hershey kisses except for two people who got ten. Then we had to play rock paper scissors shoot with other people in the class, for every game you lost you had to give the other person one of your hershey kisses. Everyone had to keep playing until you ran out of hershey kissed and it did not matter if you wanted to keep playing or not. It was very frustrating for me because I started with only three hershey kisses and I only played three games before I had to sit down because I had no more hershey kisses. Also while everyone was still playing, you just had to sit there and watch other people play rock paper scissors shoot. After the games were done, the teacher collected all of the hershey kisses back and redistributed them evenly. The people who had a lot of hershey kisses were angry and protested. Once we got three more hershey kisses we had the choice to play rock paper scissors shoot again. If you choose to play you would have to keep playing and you could lose all of your hershey kisses again not get anymore or you could become richer; if you choose to not play then you just keep your three hershey kisses and there is no way you can lose any but you will not be able to get anymore hershey kisses. The purpose of this activity was to show how Marxism was created through the processes of capitalism, socialism and communism.

Both Karl Marx and Adam Smith wanted to help the poor, but they both had different approaches as to how to do this. Marx theory of communism starts with capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of industry, freedom of competition and the results of unequal economic classes. After capitalism came socialism, this is where government had ownership of industries. The goal was to bring economic equality and Marx aimed for a classless society where no one individual is better than another. Finally after socialism was communism, this is where the goal of a classless society was achieved and no government was needed. The circumstances that lead to the development of Marx’s theory was that people were starving and were very poor so he had to find a way to even out the playing field and achieve equality. Marx’s theory continued to influence people in Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and around the world.

This is a picture of Karl Marx:

http://probaway.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/philosophers-squared-karl-marx/

Adam Smith is the other person who wanted to help the poor. Smith’s main idea was the invisible hand. The invisible hand was meant so the that the government would leave people alone to buy and sell freely with whomever they wanted and the economy would regulate itself so that people could do what interests them. What motivated Smith was the idea of free trade and migration and also allowing people to do what they want, there would be more options for the poor and they will be able to eventually be able to pay for things like everyone else.

This is a picture of Adam Smith:

http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/adam-smith-nicholas-phillipson

Here is a link to a video that talks more about the invisible hand: The Invisible Hand

In my opinion i think that the invisible hand is a better idea because it gives the people freedom to do what they want and trade and sell to whomever they want to with. Also this can give the poor a chance to get a job and be able to make money to pay for food and clothing. Even though both of these ideas are good there could also be a good third alternative. The alternative could be a system that more jobs are created and that people who make the most money do not have to be stripped away from them for the other people in the community like in Marx’s theory where everything should be equal.

Some Mills aren't as Bad as You Think

Last week in class we learned about the different working conditions between the United States and Great Britain. This blog post is all about what motivated women to work in the Lowell mills and the benefits of working in the Lowell mills.

Women wanted to work at the Lowell mills for many different reasons. There was something called “The Lowell Experiment” which was an industrial project that tried to avoid the negative aspects of industrialization in England. It was also a way to try to convince parents to let their daughters come and work at the mills by telling their parents that the girls will maintain mortality and dignity of temporary workers. The mill owners also said that they have something called a ‘Paternal System’, this is basically saying that the girls will be protected which was a big concern from the parents. There was both a mother and father figure at the Lowell mills. The father figure was the corporation and the person who sets the rules such as, church on Sunday, curfew at ten, mill hours and code for behavior. The mother figure was the boarding house keeper, she regulates behavior outside mill hours and maintain ‘home’ environment. We watched a video called “Daughters of Free Men” which also showed many of the benefits/motivations to work at the Lowell mills. Some of the benefits to the girls were that they got to earn their own money, buy their own clothes and their own independence, the girls family would also get money that the girls would send home

This picture is from an article we read in class called “Lowell- The Factory in the Garden”. This picture is from a book cover with many journal entries from girls working in the mills about their experience. This makes it look like the factories are very nice places to work, it also show the girl holding a book which could mean that the girls were educated and had free time to do other things which may make girl want to work at the Lowell mills.

The “Lowell Experiment” and the mill girls era ended around the same time of the civil war. The “Lowell Experiment” increased immigration, provided a cheap labor with cheap labor and living and working conditions deteriorated in the city. The mill girls left their impacts by changing the awareness of women working outside their homes, living away from their parents, being educated and writing for the public. Many mill girls would go become women’s activists or outspoken abolitionists when they leave the mills.

Would You Let Your Child Work in the Factories?

We did a lot to prepare for the MOSI Live Google Hangout chat. One day we watched a video of Jamie giving us a brief tour of the factory and  explaining some of the tools they used back then. During the video we made a list words that he used that we have never heard of before. After the video, we looked up all the words so that that when we would actually do the live chat we would know what he was talking about. Then the next day, in our groups we thought of some questions that we would want to ask him when we had the choice.

I learned a lot from the live chat with Jamie. I learned a lot about the hand loom and how it was used. It was used to weave cloth and it was operated by using petals which was very hard physical work. Since you would do this constantly all day many people ended up developing arthritis. Most children would comb fiber strands and get all the dirt out, since it did not require a lot of experience. The children would try to find the longest strands of fiber because they are better for spinning, the short fibers were called trash. The hand looms would be passed down from father to son and it is very valuable in the families. I also learned that Arkwright did not actually invent the water frame, he just improved it but he was the one who made the money. The water frame thins out fibers, then twists the fibers and puts it on a bobbin.

This is a picture of what the bobbins look like from the live video chat with Jamie:

I learned that there were also there were many risks and dangers to working in these factories. The working conditions were horrible, it was very unsanitary, there were many diseases spreading and you would breathe in a lot of the cotton fibers. People were working in the factories for 12 hours eventually your lungs would just stop working because of all the cotton fibers you would inhale and soon you would die, most people did not live past 30. The machines were also very dangerous. The oils they used were also very dangerous, it caused mouth, throat and lung cancer. Your clothing could get caught in the machines, they could damage your hearing because they were so loud. Children had to clean the machines while they were running, their hair would get caught and be ripped out.

Children would have to clean this machine above while it was running. Children’s hands would have to in between them while they are spinning very fast, many hands would get caught in these machines. If someone was injured they would be put on the street with whatever money they had and they got no support. Children would mainly clean machines because they were small enough to fit under them and it didn’t require any skills. Many orphans were sold to work in the factories instead of children with parents because the parents would not let them work there.

I think I did learn more from a discussion with and outside export because you can actually see the real machines that the factory workers used. I thought it was cool how we were talking with someone who lives on the other side of the world in a different country and it actually worked. I would do this again with different experts on different topics throughout the year.

What Can the Viewer Take Away?

This week in class we played the roles of museum curators and we built our own exhibits from a time in the Industrial Revolution.

The first thing that we had to do as museum curators is analyze your specific documents and pictures. This is important because you have to make sure that the sources are reliable and try to figure out what the author of either a document or picture wants the viewer to take away from it. My group's exhibit was all about child labour and the harsh working and living conditions. We had two different documents, one was "Bobbin Girls, 1794" and the other one was "The Factory Act, 1833." The "Bobbin Girls,1794" document is all about how the author doesn't think it is right to send their girls away at such a young age, but their parents have no choice but to send them away because they don't have enough money. "The Factory Act" lists many strict rules for the young children who work in the mills by restricting who can work there and for how long. We also had many pictures depicting the harsh treatment at the factories. One pictures is a picture of children in a coal mine in 1853, this picture shows the harsh conditions in the coal mines/factories and what the children have to do. Another picture is a picture of a child crawling through the mines dragging a cart filled with rocks, at the bottom of the picture it says, “Children had leather belts slung around them with a chain attached so that they could pull loads.” There was also a chart that shows the age distribution from 1818-1819 to the present, it shows how most kids started working at the age of 10 back then but now most people start working at the age of 21. The last picture we have its a pictures of young kids working at the Georgia textile mills in 1909, it shows how the kids are so small and can’t reach the top so they have to stand on top of the machines which can be potentially dangerous. The title of the exhibit is “Is the Pain worth the Gain?”, this is saying that is harming young children really worth getting the work done. I hope that when people see our exhibit they realize how bad child labour really was and how common it was.

Here is a picture of our exhibit:

There were also many other very good exhibits. One of the exhibits was called Making Money, Destroying Neighborhoods, this title is very intriguing and it made me wonder why people were destroying neighborhoods. This exhibit was mainly about the new machines that were being built and how it was effecting the environment, what shocked me the most was a picture of buildings on both sides of a river with a lot of smoke coming out of it; the water looked very dirty and polluted, I’m surprised that the people didn’t realize what they were doing to the earth.

This is the picture that shows the buildings on each side of the river polluting the river and air:

The second exhibit that I saw was one about the steam engine, the title of this exhibit is “America Runs on Steam Engine”; this is another intriguing title, it made me want learn more about the steam engine. Something interesting I learned from this exhibit is that the major product that were produced from the steam engine are coal, metal goods and woolen cloth and how these navigation routes helped other countries trade with each other. Another exhibit that I looked at was mainly about slavery, the title of this exhibit is called “Prosperity at the Cost of People”, when I saw this title instantly I thought of slavery because slave owners payed to have a slave. Something that I thought was really interesting how it says that in the past 90 years the amount of slaves has increased drastically and how there was a higher demand of slaves than there was cotton, because I know how important cotton.  The last exhibit that I looked at was all about the spinning machines and how it effected life during the Industrial Revolution, the title of this exhibit it “Just Keep Spinning”, this is based off of Dory from finding Nemo when she says “just keep swimming, which I think is a really good word play and it made me want to read more about the spinning machines. Something interesting that I learned was that children at the age of five could run the wheel to the machine, it was a good job for them because it was constant and it kept the children standing straight up so it won’t affect their growth.

What Makes the Industrial Revolution?

This week we got into groups and each had different ingredients that were a big part of the industrialization. In this blog post I am going to explain two of the ingredients in more depth.

One of the ingredients in the industrial revolution are the people. One of the things that the people did of this era was improve farming. Roy Townsend urged farmers to grow turnips which restored exhausted soil. Jethro Tull also helped with improving farming, he invented a new material device, the seed drill to be able to help the farmers plant seeds more quickly. The agriculture revolution decrease the risk of famines, because they were well fed women were healthier and that led to healthier and stronger babies which also decreased death rates. Rich landowners pushed ahead with enclosure, which is the process of taking over and fencing of land formerly shared by peasant farmers. The landowners pushed the peasants out which forced them to work in factories.

http://www.3benefitsof.com/3-benefits-of-farming-in-australia/

Another ingredient that was important in the industrial revolution are the resources. Iron as made better by Abraham Darby who was the founding father of iron, he found impurities in the iron from coal, so he found a way to take the impurities out. This was a big part in leading to the railroad industry. Coal was an important source of fuel for the production of iron, it was used to make the steam engine. Cotton was another very important because people can now make better clothing with the mills and the steam engine, this also includes the shuttle which made the making of clothes much faster. People made large business investments off of the industrial revolution.  

http://blog.world-mysteries.com/modern-world/without-knowledge-of-the-past-there-is-no-future/

Search Key Terms Not Questions

Last week in class we learned about a Google a Day and how to search more effectively by typing in key terms instead of a whole question. This blog post is going to explain what a Google a Day is and how to determine if a site is reliable or not.

A Google a Day is a game from google where google asks you questions that you have to search for. Google limits what you can search so you have to search for specific keywords to find the answer. A Google a Day was very frustrating because you would find a word that seems like it would be the right answer to the question but it would be wrong. Also since you were limited to what you could search it was hard to find the key words in the question and it won’t give you the full page from the particular website you were trying to look for the answer on. I learned how to search for the answers to questions in a more efficient way.

Here is a link to a Google a Day: http://www.agoogleaday.com/#game=started

Accuracy means that the document is correct, Authenticity means that it is real and genuine, and Reliability means that the document is is trustworthy and there is some way to prove that it is real. In class we looked at a website site called the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. This website is all about saving the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and many different facts about this animal. This website could not be used in school as a source because it is not accurate, there is no such thing as a Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Also it is not reliable because the university that is supposedly sponsoring this website doesn’t even exist.

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Here is a link to the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

It's My Choice to do Good in School

Hi! My name is Angela and this is my first blog post of the year.  I am a sophmore at Reading Memorial High School. The purpose of this blog is to show what is going on in Honors History 10 and what we are learning.

http://www.clipartbest.com/teacher-and-student-clip-art

I think what makes a great teacher is that they have to be kind and be understanding helping with subjects that may be hard for them. They should make sure that everyone understands what we are leaning and make room for questions. When I think back to my favorite teachers some of the qualities that really stuck out to me is that they were kind, but they were also funny. Another quality that sticks out is that they were easy to talk to, I can just rant on about pointless things and they would actually listen.

I agree with John Green about it being my duty to use my education to do great things. Its my choice if I want to do good in school go to college to actually do something that I like; I would not want to be spending everyday of my life doing a job that I do not like. One of my academic goals is to get a B+ or B in Chemistry. I am not going to procrastinate on my studying and not just study the night before and maybe even make flashcards so that I will be able to test myself.

John Green Video