Jan. 25, 2016

We'll continue with the discussion we began on Thursday to clean and clear up whatever might be necessary. I would also like to have you do two things:

First, I want you to click on the link marked webliography. Think of this as a hunt for buried treasure. There are 171 websites on the .pdf file that you'll reach when you do. Look the list over. I don't expect you to visit all of them but I'd like to look in two or three which seem to be of special interest to you (I won't complain if you look at four of them). Then browse in those websites for something which draws your attention. Blog about it, and put a links to the pages in your resource folder.

Second

There is always a way to

rise, my boy

Always a way to advance

Yet the road that leads to

Mount Success

Does not pass by the way

of Chance,

But goes through the stations of

Work and Strive,

Through the valley of

Persevere;

And the man that succeeds while

others fail,

Must be willing to pay most dear.

For there's always a way to

fail, my boy,

Always a way to slide,

And the men that you find at

the foot of the hill

All sought for an easy ride.

So on and up, though

the road be rough

And the stones come

Thick and fast,

There is room at the top for

the man that tries,

And victory comes at last.

If you find this inspiring, you might want to read the book from which I extracted it:

Stepping stones to manhood: a book of inspiration for boys and young men

By William Peter Pearce

Andrew Carnegie and Henry George look at the economic machine from widely differing perspectives. Interestingly, both men rose from very humble origins to positions of fame and prominence. In Carnegie's case, one can add wealth to the list of his triumphs. George, on the other hand became a public icon for those who greeted the new economy with suspicion. Alexander Lewis's short poem is the kind of thing which teachers at the turn of the century might encourage their students to memorize. (I won't force that on any of you... but if you have invented an appropriate character you may want to learn this "by heart." How does one become rich? Lewis provides what becomes the standard American answer for a century or more.

Read, in Schlereth:

Chapter 1: Moving pp. 7-31

and, on the Internet

Streetcars of Charlotte, NC

Streetcars of Williamsport, PA (Through “end of an era”)

Streetcars of Detroit

As Schlereth will demonstrate, all sorts of mobility dominated American culture at the turn of the century. It may help to organize thinking about this as a matter of scale of distance, as much as anything else. At the top of the scale would be immigration. At the bottom, the commute from domicile to workplace. In between would be the movement between regions of this country, and from the farms, villages and market towns to the emerging industrial centers. All of these happened more or less simultaneously and more or less continuously, and at an ever accelerating pace.

Today, we’ll look at the bottom of the scale looking at the trolley and the trolley commute. By 1936, Trolleys were considered figures of fun, but in the Gilded Age they were the latest thing in moving people about. The Library of Congress American Memory collection of Thomas Edison's early films has examples of films which demonstrate public fascination with these modern inventions. Here is one of them.

Looking Ahead.

We’ll flip to the top of the distance scale next week as we explore immigration and immigrants.

To do this, we’re going to do some work with historic census figures. I’ll give a demonstration in class today, but you might try playing with the materials yourself. You’ll find them at http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/ You might also want to check historical census data from the Census Bureau itself. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html