Boom And Bust

I really enjoyed learning about Boom and Bust. I never really knew much about this time period other then the Great Depression, so i really enjoyed learning each thing in detail. I learned how hard times were during this time, and how hard it must have been. I also did not know much about the stock market crashing, and many people who had invested in the stock market suffered terribly. Overall I really loved this lesson, and it will stay with me for a long time.

A Day in the Great Depression

Life is getting harder and harder as each day goes by. Slowly we are running out of more money. Since I am of age my mother likes that I wake up early every morning and go into town to see if there is anything my brothers and I can do. We do not have much food, we do have more then others, and at times we will often find hungry people at our door asking us to share our fortune. We welcome them into our home because my mother always says that if we were in that situation we would want people to do the same for us. When my mother is done cooking with the coal she will rummage through to see if there is any pieces that did not get severely burnt. If they are not severely burnt she will use them again the next time she cooks. I go to bed every night hungry as well as many other people I know. Before I go to bed I always ask for change and each day I waiting up to see if my prayers were answered, and usually they are not, so I continue to go through to motions of each day and ask again at night.

Teddy Roosevelt Entry

Dear Journal,

I have come to the decision to conserve thousands of acres of national forest. I have decided to do this because I believe that they are an extremely useful resource and they are getting knocked down by the dozen because of our selfish needs. We need these national forests because they provide a home for many habitats in the wild and by destroying the trees; we are destroying their homes as well. We are also destroying the natural things that make this country beautiful, and I think we should all start appreciating them.

-Teddy

Young Factory Worker

This statement is very unfair. If the company and property look out for me and my follow workers, nobody will be able to get what they want. I will not be able to complain to the labor agitators about terrible working conditions, and unfair hours because they are not going to have a care in the world about what changes I need or want in my work place to make things much more comfortable to work in.

Sweat Shop Worker

If I were a sweatshop worker in Mexico making t-shirts, life would be very unfair. A typical day would be that I would get up in the early hours of the morning, probably before dawn, still tired from the hours I work the night before. I would then go to the sweatshop, making t-shirt after t-shirt for people I know will never have to experience what I am going through now. I am hungry but I must keep working harder. When I finally do get to eat it is very little food, I try to share with others who cannot afford much food, but even my food is scarce. Again I work, t-shirt after t-shirt for many hours. I do not get home until 2 o’clock in the morning so if I am lucky I will be able to have three hours of sleep.

invention - the light bulb

An amazing invention that is something we use and see every single day was invented in the late 19th century which was the light bulb. Thomas Edison spent hours on getting every detail of the light bulb perfect, and obviously we can see that he exceeded his expectations. The light bulb is extremely important because it gives us light in any type of room. If we did not have the light bulb our eye sight would be extremely poor, and many things that we do today that we take for granted such as doing a simple homework assignment would not be able to be achieved without the light bulb.

West Chester Field Trip

I was one person who really took the field trip to West Chester in and will forever remember it. I feel very special, and privileged to be able to meet with a Holocaust Survivor and actually be able to ask them questions and have some what of a one on one conversation. I had the privilege to be able to talk to a 73 year old man named Arnold. He was in hiding for three years with a family that his mother had just dropped him off with. From then on he posed as their nephew. Luckily his mother had dropped his sister off with another family, and his grandmother was living with another family also. After the war they all met up together. Unfortunately both of Arnold's parents died in Auschwitz in 1944. I really enjoyed my speaker because he made in very interesting by bringing things in from his experience and letting the small group pass those things around. I will forever tell Arnold's story even when he is long gone. I think it is very important to know what these people have been through and we are all very lucky to be able to encounter people like Arnold.