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.

Abortion

I am a person who personally believes in pro-choice. I believe this for a number of reasons. One reason being that the women is carrying that child, and she should be the one to determine whether she wants to bear it or not. Going along with that, I believe that the man who had impregnated her should also have a say whether he wants to aboard the baby or not. Just because the women is carrying the child does not mean that the child is more of hers the the man. The child is still 50% his. I am also pro-choice because there is always the scenario that a women gets raped a pregnant. I know if I were in that position I would not be able to look at that child as my child but more of a reminder of the terrible day that I got raped.

Struggle For Equality - A Chronicle of Reform

In class, we have been working with the people in our groups at our table for a project called Struggle fore Equality - A Chronicle of Reform. We each were assigned numbers to do. My first number was number two. I had to gathering recent new clippings involving changing conditions in the work force fore women, and minority women. I found some great articles about how many women are fighting for their right to work and get an equal day's pay. The next number I had was number six we had to find give quotations or cartoons stating key viewpoints that I believe my grandchild should consider regarding the role of women. One cartoon I chose was a cartoon that looked like in was in the late 1800's early 1900's when women were gaining their right to vote. It is a picture of a women going to fight for her rights while she leaves her husband sitting there with two crying babies. One quote I choose was a quote by Clare Boothe Luce; "Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes." They will say, "Women don't have what it takes." This is a strong quote because it is a major stereotype that many people think of women. For the last one, number ten I had to write a personal letter to my grandchild including my assessment of how successful the women's movement has been. I talked a lot about WAVES, WASPS, WAFS, WACS, and SPARS. I also talked a lot about women in the women's rights movements such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott.

Walt Disney

For my National History Day project I am doing Walt Disney. I chose to do Walt Disney because I always knew him growing up, of course for his movies and his theme park. I also always thought it was a good man with good intentions on helping the world. The scope of his legacy is huge and he impacts everyone including children and adults. Going to his theme park is a true family vacation and a complete escape from reality. While this maybe true Walt Disney had some bad intentions and I think his time era really influenced him to believe what he believed. As you can see Walt Disney drew the image of Donald Duck which he appears to be either Hitler or some form of a Nazi. Not to say that Walt Disney was a Nazi himself but he definitely believed in a lot of the things that they did.

Let Freedom Ring

The song we listened to in class, "Let Freedom Ring" was a very inspirational song which means a lot when you really listen to the lyrics. I liked that it had quotes in the song from Martin Luther King Jr. "Let Freedom Ring", "I have a Dream", "This Must Become True", and "So Let Freedom Ring." The fact that they added those quotes from MLK made the song have a lot more meaning. Throughout the song they talked about many inspirational people who really had a motivation to make this country equal such as JFK, MLK, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau who all had a contribution to equality. Going back to a video that we watched in the beginning of the semester called "I Pledge." Something really stuck out to me in the video and that was a black man that said something along the lines of I will see myself as an American instead of an African American. I think this means a lot because saying that he will see himself as an American just shows that we are all equal and when it comes down to it we are all Americans.

Native Americans/Japanese Americans

Learning about the Native Americans and the Japanese Americans really opened my eyes to how poorly they were treated. One of my best friends of whom I have known from little on up has a back round of the Native American culture, and I can not image if we would have lived in the time period when the Native Americans and Japanese Americans were treated poorly because I would have to watch my best friend go through many terrible things just to make her "civilized." I found it very interesting that some Native Americans find it some what of an insult that an Indian is the mascot of some sports for example, the Washington Redskins, The Florida State Seminoles, Clevland Indians, and Alanta Braves. In my personal point of view I would find it honoring that my culture is a mascot of a major sport. At the same time i can see how it could be offending especially the term "Redskins."

Poem making

I really enjoyed making poems from Barak Obama's speech, and Bill Clinton's speech, and combining them together to make our own original poem. I read Barak Obama's speech, and I found some very interesting quotes that he made in his speech. One quote I found very interesting was "What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them." I found this interesting because Barak Obama is thriving on the positive. Instead of saying how our country needs a lot of work and coming down on the people who failed on the face of discrimination he praised the people who have overcome the odds.

Struggle For Equality post 1

Between African Americans and Women it has indeed been a struggle for equality. Especially when it came to the 15th amendment when an un-educated black man could vote before a well-educated woman. I think the Cult of True Womanhood by Barbra Nelter was not fair for women during that time because it describe what the modern women had to be like at that time. Why should the women have to be submissional; with the expectation that women need to be as passive responders submit to her husband for the sake of good order? Why is it just for women to be pure and if purity is lost, consequently could end in even death. Doing our worksheet in class that showed the women in late 1800's/early 1900's, 1920's women, 1950's women, 1960/70's women, and modern women really showed me how much we have evolved throughout the century and showed how hard we've work to earn not only the simple right to vote, but to be an equivalent to men.

I have a Dream Speech in realation to American Belief

Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream Speech is in relation to the American Character and Belief System because I believe the American Character stands up for what they believe in, and has strong beliefs. That's exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. did. He stood up for not just him, but for a race. Toward the end of his speech he said "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I'm free at last." I think that line has a lot of meaning because it shows how much their ancestors been through and that they are free at last. The American Character stands up for what they believe in, and Martin Luther King Jr. is a great example of a person in history who did stand up for they believed in.