Was Andrew Jackson Really "The People's President?"

Andrew Jackson
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120817224533/althistory/images/8/8d/Andrew-jackson-1-.jpg

Recently in history class, we have been learning about Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the United States, and whether or not he should be known as "the people's president,"  which was a nickname given to him by the people of the United States.  The essential question for this unit was "Is Andrew Jackson's long-standing reputation as "the people's president" deserved?  Why?  Why not?" To answer this question, my class divided into groups to study three major events of his presidency: the bank war, indian removal, and the spoils system.  After looking at sources and watching videos about our assigned event, the groups made creative projects, which demonstrated the success/ failure of the event.  My group wrote and performed a skit on the bank war, and watched the presentations from the other groups.  By learning about each event through the presentations, we were able to determine that Andrew Jackson tried his best to be "the people's president," but sometimes didn't live up to his expectations.

This is the script for the skit my group presented in class about Andrew Jackson and the Bank War.

The bank war, the spoils system, and indian removal prove that Andrew Jackson tried, but sometimes failed, to be "the people's president."  During the bank war, Andrew Jackson wrote a bank veto message to congress, which stated that he didn't approve of the high amount of rich stockholders in the bank.  Jackson didn't support the high amount of power the banks, especially the Second Bank of America, had, and thought that the banks were not beneficial to the poorer classes.  20 out of 25 of the bank directors at this time were chosen by the rich bank stockholders, and only 5 were chosen by the government.  The bank did not follow the system of checks and balances, and Jackson strongly believed that the middle and lower classes should have more power over the bank.  Andrew Jackson was definitely "the people's president" during the bank war, and he was determined to change the banks.  When Daniel Webster replied to his bank veto message, Webster said that the veto was close to absolute monarchy, and that Jackson was extending his grasp over every branch of government and setting the poor classes over the rich ones.  Despite this, Jackson succeeded and helped the majority of Americans by improving the bank system.

I watched presentations on the other two big events of Andrew Jackson's presidency, and used these presentations, as well as my own, to predict whether or not Jackson was "the people's president."  During the indian removal, Jackson tried to persuade the Indians living in areas such as Florida and Georgia to move out west.  He told the Indians to either move out west, or stay and obey American laws, and Congress declared his Indian Removal Act unconstitutional.  Around 100,000 Indians had to move, and many died on the Trail of Tears.  Jackson did not care for the Native Americans, because he let so many die, but was still "the people's president" because His intention when he made the Indians leave was to make everyone else happier.  In the spoils system, Andrew Jackson promised people good jobs if they voted for him as president.  "Spoiling" his followers was intended to keep himself in office as long as possible, which is a highly selfish act.  By initiating the spoils system, Andrew Jackson was trying to be "the people's president," but failed.  In all three events, Andrew Jackson was trying to live up to his expectations as "the people's president," and he succeeded during the bank war, but failed during the spoils system and indian removal.

The Early Failures of Democracy in the United States

This is my group's Glogster on Democracy in the United States.

This week in my honors history class, we have been studying the rise of democracy in the United States in the early 1800s.  In groups of five or six, we read documents and analyzed primary sources in order to answer the essential questions. My group answered the questions How should we define democracy? and How democratic was the United States in the early 1800s? by creating a Glogster, a type of digital poster.  We discovered that democracy is a type of government in which the entire population participates, and that the United States was not very democratic in the early 1800s and was struggling to run its states through a democratic government.  Our Glogster (link below) presents information on the rise of democracy well, and describes each document and event from this time period with images.

Link to my Glogster:  http://grouplmnop.edu.glogster.com/rise-of-democracy/

All Human Beings Deserve Respect - Latin America Revolutions

The social classes in 1800s Latin America were not equal, with the highest social class making up 1% of the total population.
I made this pie chart with my class in my Evernote account.

It is commonly known that every human should be treated with dignity, regardless of their race, but in the early 1800s, every race was treated differently.  It is important to think about the questions,  Why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless of race? and, How are the events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this social imperative? because they can help anyone appreciate people for being of a different race than themselves.  If everyone knew and understood this information, then groups wouldn't have to revolt for their independence, like the people in Latin America did.  My history class found the answers to these questions by dividing into three groups, one for each of the revolutions of Gran Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil, and analyzing our group's revolution by creating a timeline of events.  Afterwards, we broke apart and shared our revolution timelines with the other groups.  Our exploration of the Revolutions of Gran Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil prove that all human beings deserve dignity and respect, regardless of their race.

This is the timeline of events for the Revolution of Gran Columbia, made by a group in my history class.

The timeline of the Revolution of Gran Columbia (above) shows how the independence of the Republic of Columbia from Spain provided freedom for its people, and shows that people of different races were able to be freed in Latin American countries.  The Revolutions of Mexico, Gran Columbia, and Brazil have commonalities and differences.  All of the revolutions were seeking independence from a mother country, and their mother countries were getting in the way of their independence.  Also, each of the revolutions were successful.  However, they all took place in different parts of Latin America, and involved different rulers fighting for independence.  Simon Bolivar was the leader from Gran Columbia, while Pedro was the Brazilian leader, and Miguel Hidalgo and Iturbide were the leaders of the Mexican Revolution.  even though independence was achieved in all three revolutions, race influenced the decisions in each of them.  In Brazil, Pedro surrounded himself with Portuguese born ministers because other elites weren't allowed to be part of the government.  During the Gran Columbian Revolution, Bolivar's way of thinking was different from other peoples' because was Venezuelan and came from a family of aristocrats, but was raise by slaves.  In Mexico, under the rule of Iturbide, Mexicans of mixed or pure Indian blood would less rights than the Spaniards or Portuguese.  Even after independence had been achieved in Latin America racial rights were still an issue, and sometimes remain an issue today.

Not as many racial problems exist today as they did in the 1800s, but sometimes people still aren't treated equally because of their race.  It isn't fair that some people are not treated kindly by their government and peers, and sometimes crimes are committed between people of different races.  Occasionally, the government will treat an African American person worse than they treat a caucasian, and this can be fixed.  This problem is still an issue, and everyone should consider the issue of race in their lives.   No one should pay attention to the color of the sin of their peers, because it might affect their opinion on that person.  Being treated in  bad way isn't fun for anyone, so everyone should try to stop racial injustice.  This issue has existed for hundreds of years, like during the Latin American Revolutions, and it is time to bring it to a stop.

The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848: Complete Failures or Not?

This image shows the barricade the French citizens made during the French Revolution of 1848.
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/2-france-revolution-1848-granger.jpg

Link to our Survey Monkey on the French Revolution of 1848: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MJMFW6J

Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded?  To answer this question, my history class split into five groups, and each group analyzed a revolution from that time period.  Next, each group made a survey monkey for their revolution.  A survey monkey is a type of survey you create on an electronic device, which can be taken by anyone else.  After reading documents on the revolutions, we took the surveys.  Finally we ranked each revolution on how good or bad it was.  My classmates learned from my group's Survey Monkey well because most oft the answers were correct, as shown in the images below.  Historians have concluded that these revolutions were all complete failures, but most of them weren't.  I think that the historians were partially wrong, because the revolts were partially successful, and many people that started them got some of the rights they were asking for.

80% of my classmates identified the main idea in our first primary source, after reading  an article on the revolution.

My group studied and created a survey monkey on the French Revolution of 1848.  During this revolution, lower and middle class liberals revolted against the french government because they wanted political, economic, and social reforms.  In the first part of the revolution, February Days, King Louis Philippe created more jobs for the poor, but during the second part, June Days, the upper and middle classes took control and got rid of the working class's jobs.  Louis Philippe gave up his throne and the French people voted for a president.  A primary source written by Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables, describes the barricades made by the french people to defend themselves from the government.  It says, "You saw there, in chaos full of despair, rafters from roofs, patches from garrets with their wall paper, window sashes with all their glass planted in the rubbish, ..." The end results were mixed:  the number of citizens that could vote increased from 200,000 to 9 million, but new president Louis Napoleon declared himself emperor and became too controlling.  Although the economy grew during Louis Napoleon's reign and the number of voters increased, France was still under a monarchy.  Another primary source, written by the National Assembly of France, says that the people of France wanted to become united and not have to live under a monarchy any more: "Citizens: royalty, under whatever form, is abolished; no more legitimism, no more Bonapartism, no regency."  This goal happened because Louis Napoleon became emperor.  The French revolution of 1848 was not a failure as historians have said, because the results were fairly neutral.  

About 70% of my class answered that the middle class liberals wanted moderate political reforms during the French Revolution of 1848.

The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were the Decembrist Revolt, the French Revolution of 1830, the French Revolution of 1848, the Frankfurt Assembly, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and only the first one was a complete failure.  The Decembrist Revolt was a failure because  the peasants of Russia wanted more rights and a new constitution, but didn't receive either of them.  Besides this, all the other revolutions were classified as neutral/failure, neutral, or neutral/success.  For example, during the Frankfurt Assembly, workers wanted national unity for Germany and liberal reforms, and the results were not a complete failure.  The citizens kept trying to get the reforms, and almost succeed, but the king turned them down in the end because he was a conservative.  Also, in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Hungarian nationalists wanted an independent government, the end of serfdom, and a constitution to protect basic rights.  The government agreed to these changes because they were overwhelmed, but they eventually returned to the way they were before.  Although the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 weren't really successes, the revolters received some of their rights.  Historians who believe that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 are total failures are wrong because the revolutions inspired future revolutionists to change the previous revolt techniques, which helped the future revolutions succeeded.  


Primary Source Citations:

1848: Hugo's Description of the Barricade Excerpt from Les Miserables, Victor Hugo 1862
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/la/1848barricade.html

Documents of the Revolution of 1848 in France J. H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2: 559-562 Hanover Historical Texts Project

Impacts of the Congress of Vienna

This is an image of Prince Metternich, representative of Austria during the Congress of Vienna.
http://www.desmondseward.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/metternich1.jpg

When we studied the Congress of Vienna in history recently, the essential question was "What should people in power do when their power is threatened?"  The Congress of Vienna in 1813 was the chaotic event in which the leaders of Austria, Prussia, France, Britain, and Russia tried to find a way to recover and reconstruct European countries that had been destroyed during Napoleon's reign.  To discover the answer to the essential question, we divided into groups, and tried to predict the leaders' decisions.  The leader of the Congress of Vienna was Prince Klemens von Metternich from Austria,  was viewed as a selfish and vain person, and was certainly not the ideal person to decide the fate of Europe.  After predicting Metternich's decisions, we found out the real results of the Congress of Vienna, and discovered why the leaders of Europe initiated certain concepts after their power had been threatened by Napoleon.

The concepts created by the leaders of Austria, Prussia, France, Britain, and Russia were Balance of Power, Principle of Legitimacy, Holy Alliance, and Principle of Intervention.  Holy Alliance, initiated by Czar Alexander of Russia, stated that monarchs had the divine right to rule, and that any revolution was treason against God.  Of the five countries represented at the Congress of Vienna, only England did not take part in this concept because it was Anglican, not Catholic.  Holy Alliance was used by European countries after Napoleon's reign because they thought it would help eliminate threats to their country's power and would prevent revolutions from taking place.  This concept worked for a while after the Congress of Vienna, like when the Austrians crushed an Italian uprising during the 1820s.  Holy Alliance, along with the other major concepts, prevented wars between the five powers of Europe until 1853.  In addition to preventing war, the congress also viewed Napoleon as the enemy, not France.  France had to make some reparations to the other allies, and then had to follow the laws initiated during the Congress of Vienna.

The representatives from the Congress of Vienna may not have been the ideal people to make historic decisions, but the ones they make were effective enough to protect their power and prevent wars.  I think that some decisions made during the congress were good, while others weren't as acceptable.  Holy Alliance definitely prevented wars, and was effective through most of Europe.  Also, Balance of Power restored balance between the five major european countries, and Principle of Intervention, which stated that countries could intervene if another country was causing chaos, was a great way to stop uprisings.  On the other hand, Principle of Legitimacy stated that lawful monarchs should be restored.  It would have be more useful to give the people some power, but Metternich was a conservative, and didn't believe in changing around the laws too much.  Although he didn't want to change Europe entirely because of his beliefs, and because he wanted to keep his power, he didn't help the circumstances in other countries.  The situation of Europe was in so much peril that powerful countries could have offered to give away some power, but the leaders at the Congress of Vienna wanted to keep theirs.  Powerful countries should be willing to give away power when needed to help the situations of others, even if their power is threatened.

Ideologies - Liberalism, Conservatism, and Nationalism

Recently in history class, we completed a project in order to help us learn about 19th century ideologies and answer the current essential question.  To answer the question "What were the major political ideologies of the 19th century and how did they influence social and political action?" we first had to figure out what an ideology is.  An ideology is a system of ideas that form the basis of economic and political theory and policy, or in other words, a group of ideas that shape a society. The three most important ideologies of the 19th century were liberalism, conservatism, and nationalism.  My class learned more about each of the ideologies by splitting into six groups, two for each ideology, and reading about the ideology our group was assigned.  Then, we created an imaginative presentation of our ideology and went head to head with the other group of the same ideology.  The class voted on which presentation was both creative and demonstrated our knowledge of the ideology.  I learned about all of the ideologies, including conservatism, for which my group made an educations video.

Link to my group's presentation:
https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/conservatism-project/25421356/?ref=link&s=gX4L2P

Conservatism is a traditional ideology that argued that time-tested traditions were the only solutions to social and political problems.  Conservatives believed that monarchy and church power were the best forms of government because they had worked for generations without fail.  Reforms and constitutionalism resulted in violence multiple times in history, like during the French Revolution,  so conservatives used this as proof that these systems did not work.  They only believed in using old, stable systems of government, and never tried new ones.  British writer and statesman Edmund Burke and French writer Joseph de Maistre were conservatives, and predicted the chaos that resulted from the resolutions in the 19th century.  In the 1800s, conservatives avoided having revolutions, and tried to maintain monarchies.  

After watching the other groups' presentations, I was able to decide how the other ideologies worked. Liberalism is the opposite of conservatism, and is based off of freedom and rights.  All middle/upper class men were allowed to contribute to government, and although they weren't given complete freedom, they had more freedom than people from other ideologies had.  Liberalists liked creating new laws and new ways to live their lives, and were in favor of meritocracy.  British philosophers John Locke and Adam Smith argued for individual liberty, and were considered the forefathers of liberalism.  Nationalism is the result of the process when people with similar cultural practices, languages, beliefs, or traditions unite as a whole.  These people then work together to take down a common enemy, and come together as a country.  Germany and Italy used nationalism in the 19th century to become whole countries.  German writers Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel helped their country become a whole, after it had been separated during Napoleon's rule.  Conservatism, liberalism, and nationalism were all ideologies, created by philosophers and writers, that helped shape life in 19th century Europe.

Did Napoleon Benefit or Harm the World During his Reign?

This portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte shows how he was the most powerful ruler in all of Europe.
http://psi.historicusinc.com/media/export/im_12281_screen.jpg

Napoleon Bonaparte was an influential military leader from France who conquered almost all of Europe during his lifetime.  Between the time of his death and now, Napoleon has developed several reputations from various countries.  In class, we explored different primary and secondary sources to discover whether or not his reputation should be good or bad.  From this activity, I learned that he actually helped France a lot during his reign, and although he took unfair control of most of Europe, the countries mostly benefitted from his rule over them.  Although all the countries he conquered despised Napoleon for ruling them for so forcefully, his impact on the social, political, and economical systems in Europe was mostly positive.

The first primary source we looked at in class was from Madame de Stael, a member of the king's court, whose power was wrecked when Napoleon became emperor.  Madame de Stael thought of Napoleon as a powerful ruler who intruded on the independence of France and Europe, and who persuaded countries with force and cunning.  She thought that Napoleon was ruining people's lives everywhere by controlling their countries in a forceful way.  Next, we looked at a source from Marshal Michel Ney,  one of Napoleon's soldiers, who thought highly of his commander.  He believed that Napoleon had the right to rule over France, and that he would help France's government move forward.  He thought Napoleon was the best person to rule Europe and that he was a wonderful leader.  Madame de Stael and Marshal Michel Ney had contrasting views of Napoleon that were influenced by their relation to him, and show how varied Napoleon's impact was between different people.  Looking at a secondary source is a better representation of his impact because the authors didn't personally know Napoleon.

The article The Lost Voices of Napoleonic Historians (link below) is a collection of views on Napoleon written by various historians.  Most of these historians have a positive view of Napolean, and believe that he primarily helped France and Europe.  These people say that Napoleon was a military genius and a skilled leader, who was given the opportunity to display his skills when he became ruler of France. These historians believe that Napoleon had enlightening views of government that he shared with the countries under his reign, and was definitely devoted to his rule, but as smart as he was, he eventually became too dominant and his power began to exhaust.  Although he was defeated after many years, Napoleon was a genius who was able to manage almost all the countries in Europe under one empire and improve their social, political, and economical systems.

After looking at these sources, I came to the conclusion that Napoleon's impact was mostly positive.  He balanced France's budget, established the bank of France, abolished serfdom, nobility, and people's titles, allowed freedom of religion, gave more citizens access to education, and gave people property rights.  During  his rule, he accomplished a lot and solved many problems in the political, social, and economical systems in every country he touched.  Except when his power became exhausted towards the end of his life, Napoleon made a great impact on the world and should have a better reputation than he currently does.  Napoleon Bonaparte improved the social, political, and economical systems in Europe, and made a good impact during his reign.

Link to The Lost Voices of Napoleonic Historians:
http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/biographies/c_historians.html

Chocunism - Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism

Karl Marx

http://spartacus-educational.com/00marx.jpg

Learning about capitalism, socialism, and communism in history was the most entertaining experience I have had in school this year.  My class experienced each of these forms of government by playing "rock paper scissors" and exchanging chocolates.  For capitalism, all members of my class received two pieces of candy, while two people received eight pieces.  Everyone then had to play "rock paper scissors" and exchange candy with other students.  If you won, you got a piece of your partner's candy, but if you lost, you had to hand over a piece.  If you ran out of candy, you had to sit down.  The teacher had to supervise everyone because people would cheat to try and return into the game, and after about 20 minutes, only seven people remained in the game.  Everyone else had lost their chocolate, and we were divided into "classes." This shows how unfair capitalism was, and how the government needed to supervise the peasants to keep order.  For socialism, my teacher collected the candy and redistributed it equally so that everyone had two pieces.  We did not play anyone, and everyone had equal amounts of "money."  This shows how socialism was a classless society and there was economic equality.  Last, to represent communism, my teacher said that we could choose to play again, or we could keep what we have.  Almost everyone in my class decided not to play because we would rather have two pieces than no candy at all.  Because of this, my teacher did not need to supervise the candy distribution because everyone was being fair.  This represents how no government was needed in communism and the society contained no classes.  This game was a fun way to learn about Marx's theory of communism, and I hope we do something similar later in the year.

The "chocunism" game taught us about Karl Marx and his theory of communism, and later in the class period, we learned about Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand.  Both of these men wanted to help the poor, but they had different methods of doing this.  Karl Marx believed that a government run by capitalism could turn into socialism, and eventually communism, by itself.  He said that the majority of the population would not tolerate the divisions between social classes and would use any means necessary to create communism.  Adam Smith believed that the poor would be helped by the "invisible hand."  He thought that if the government leaves the economy alone, buisness owners will all compete to see who can create the best quality products at the most reasonable prices.  If this works out, then no one will be poor and everyone will have some money.  This would definitely help the poor because they would be able to afford the good quality products, when they wouldn't have been able to in a system of capitalism.  Both of these men had different opinions of how the poor could gain more money, but which theory would work out more effectively in reality?

This video is an animated explanation of Smith's invisible hand theory, also described above.

Personally, I think Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand is better than Karl Marx's theory of communism. Both are well thought out, but Smith's is more effective in real life.  Marx's theory of communism was used in Russia, North Korea, China, and Cuba, but these governments all forced their population into becoming communists.  This is different from the theory Marx had proposed because Marx said that the people would choose communism if given the option, but these people did not choose it because their governments were using force.  The theory was not effective in these countries, but Smith's theory was effective when tried out in reality.  More people subscribed to Smith's invisible hand because it left the businesses to compete amongst each other, and after a few months, the best businesses would be able to sell high quality products at reasonable or low prices.  Businesses would make more money because they would have the choice to expand their store and change their products to gain more customers.  Also, the people on the bottom would increase their wealth because they would be able to afford products at the most popular stores.  This theory is effective, and the only other option is capitalism.  The rich would choose this system because they would still be on the top of the social ladder, but it would not be fair for the poor, so it is not a good system.  Karl Marx and Adam Smith helped changed how people look at "rich versus poor," and the fun activity we did in class helped me decide which theory was more effective.

The Lowell Experiment: Did Lowell Mill Girls Actually Enjoy Working?

A view of the Lowell Mills during the Industrial Revolution.
http://abudiphotography.com/pa/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/lowellmills-21.jpg

Many young girls in the United States made the same bold decision during the Industrial Revolution - to leave their families and to begin work at the Lowell Mills.  This choice was influenced by men who came to family farms just to recruit the girls to their mills. These men made the mills sound like the perfect place to grow up, and convinced most families to let their children go.  One of these children, Lucy Hall, was featured in a documentary I watched in class (link below).  The men who ran the mills were motivated to recruit girls as workers because they were obedient because of their young age, and were a cheap labor force. They chose girls over boys because boys were needed on farms to help their parents run them.  Many families let their girls go to Lowell for work because they knew the girls would care for the money they earned and would send it home to help them, and knew it was a good opportunity for the girls to be independent and earn money to buy things like clothes for themselves.  This decision to work in Lowell had some benefits and some costs, but the girls enjoyed working there most of the time.

The girls liked working in Lowell, even though there were an equal amount of costs and benefits for the situation.  Some costs were health problems, injuries, being away from family, pollution, and unfair treatment from overseers and mill owners.  Most girls in the factories became ill at least once  during their time in Lowell, because diseases spread quickly with so may children there to pass them on.  Also, girls received terrible injuries from machinery, and certain physical deformities were common amongst workers.  Children got "knock knees," when their knees gave way and turned inwards, they had weakness in joints they used often such as their wrists, and the arches in their feet would give out.  Girls also missed their families while working in Lowell, and became ill from the pollution in the city.  When overseers thought that they weren't working to their best ability, then the children, especially young ones, were beaten hard until they appeared hurt, or even dead.  Some benefits of the Lowell Experiment were independence, food and boarding, a good way to get money for families and girls, education, and the idea of family figures.  In Lowell, girls were able to rely on themselves more and be independent.  They received food and boarding for working there and met friends, who lived in the boarding houses with them.  After they payed for things they needed, girls would send extra money to their families to help them.  If the girls had money left over after that, they would get products that they wanted for themselves.  It was law in Lowell for girls to be educated at least three months per year, so mill girls became smarter than they had been back home.  The figures in the mill became like a second family to the children.  Girls were like siblings to one another, and the overseers and mill owners were like parents, who enforced the rules.  The mills were both a fun and dangerous place to live, and many girls liked it there.

The opportunities for women and restrictions on their working lives changed many people's attitudes towards women during the 19th century.  Before the Industrial Revolution, people thought that women were supposed to stay home, do the cooking and cleaning, and raise their children.  The Lowell Experiment ended around the beginning of the Civil War,  and around this time people's opinions of women were changed.  The factories ended before the Civil War because there was an increase in immigration, which provided a cheap labor force, so living and working conditions deteriorated in Lowell.  Although the mills became inactive, the mill girls changed people's opinions on women because they lived away from their home and parents, were educated, wrote about their experience to the public, and participated in labor reform.  This new opinion on women is still effective today, and many mill girls went on to become outspoken abolitionists and women's rights activists.  The Lowell mill girls had a unique experience while working in the factories, and changed the opinion of women for good.


Link to the website of the documentary we watched in class : "Daughters of Free Men"
http://ashp.cuny.edu/ashp-documentaries/daughters-of-free-men/

A Google Chat with a Professional

As soon as my history teacher announced that my class would be having a google chat with a textile factory historian, I knew I was in for an interesting class. As exciting as it is learning history from a museum worker in England, it required a lot of preparation.  To start our investigation, we searched the museum website and read the most important articles in order to find out the general background of the textile industry and the MOSI Museum of Science and Industry.  Afterwards, my class watched a video in which Jamie (the professional we had the chat with) explained the general process of turning a piece of cotton into clothing.  We then used our recently learned google search skills to find definitions for the machine terminology Jamie used, so that we would understand when he used those words to talk to us on the video chat.  In groups of five or six, we thought of a bunch of questions about textiles to ask Jamie when we saw him the next day.  The prep work lasted a whole day, but if we hadn't done any of these steps, we would have been unprepared for the chat.

The next day we spent a whole class period on google chat with Jamie. We learned a ton about the textile industry and the lives of people who worked in factories in England during the Industrial Revolution.  I learned that the cottage industry and factory industry were very different from each other.  In the cottage industry, whole families would work together in their homes and use a machine called the hand loom to make clothes.  The women and children would prepare the cotton fibers by brushing them, while the men would do the actual weaving.   Most often, the looms were located in the attic of the house, where the most light could be found.  In contrast, the factory industry was noisy, unpleasant, and dangerous.  Children were hired to do the hard work, and since health and safety procedures didn't exist, many were injured.  They would move away from their safe family homes and work with machines like the water frame and spinning machine, on which they had to be careful not to chop their fingers off on the rollers used to stretch out cotton fibers.  The machines were dangerous enough, but children also had to worry about becoming ill from the terrible working conditions.  As the factory industry grew, industrialization began to progress really quickly, so houses were built fast.  Each house had small living quarters, and there were many families per building.  These appalling conditions, as well as the state of the factories, led many people to get diseases.  Families didn't want to send their kids to the factories, which led factory owners to force orphans to do the work instead.  In addition to learning this fascinating information, my class got to ask the questions we and prepared in class.  The video chat was one of the most interesting activities I have done in history class to date.

This image shows the process of making cloth from cotton, and is from the MOSI Museum of Science and Industry in England, the museum we had the google chat with.
http://www.mosi.org.uk/usercontrols/mosicontrols/thumbnail.aspx?mi=35091601&fn=copy%20of%20img_9306.jpg&w=180&h=198&f=auto-1571&o=1

I truly enjoyed the google chat and definitely hope we do it again with other experts during this school year.  It was amazing that I got to speak face to face with a professional from a textile gallery, and I feel that the information I learned is more genuine than information I have learned in the past.  I learned that history seems a lot more real if someone talks to you about it than if you just read about it out of a textbook.  I don't think I learned more from the chat than I would have otherwise, but I do feel like it was a lot more engaging this way.  I do wish that we had had the chance to go up close to the screen and take pictures of the machinery, because I wasn't able to take any from my position in the room.  Overall though, I really did enjoy the google chat with Jamie and would like to do it again.  Google chatting with an expert is a fun way to learn about history, and was a new experience for me.

Museum Exhibits...Hung up in a High School?

Last week,  I spent most of my time in history class creating a "museum exhibit" about the Industrial Revolution.  To be a museum curator and create interesting exhibits, you must go through many different steps.  I learned that there are multiple steps needed to make an appealing poster.  To start off, my group had to analyze six different sources for our topic: the effect the Industrial Revolution had on the environment.  Next, we created a design for our poster exhibit that tied in to the theme, and printed out our sources and source descriptions.  After we glued the information onto our poster and wrote down a creative title, the exhibit was hung up in the school hallway.  Each of the five exhibits from my class was unique and talked about different contributions to the Industrial Revolution.

This is an image of the exhibit my group made in class.  It featured information on the environmental impact of the Industrial Revolution.

My poster was about the environment impact of the Industrial Revolution, but each other exhibit featured a different consequence from the same time period.  The first one I looked at was about child labor and was titled "Comdemning the Innocent."  The title helped me realize that child labor was a harmful consequence of the revolution, and that it was extremely unfair.  I learned that child labor was a big problem because the children were put to work at young ages, the the factory conditions were terrible.  It is depressing that the governments made children work like this, and 49.9% of them started before they were 10.  Lots of children got hurt during work, and some smaller ones had to dangerously crawl around mines.  The thought of child labor makes me sad, and I hope the government never invents a system this bad again.

The next poster, called "Spinning into Slavery," was about another unfair part of the revolution - slavery in the American South.  The title showed me that slaves were needed more frequently throughout the Industrial Revolution, and I learned that as the world became more industrialized, more slaves were required to complete the work needed to produce goods.  It is very sad that instead of having normal people do this work, they had slaves do all of it instead, but it is great that this problem has been fixed since then.  Different sources on this poster show that new machines, like the cotton manufacturer, were built, and the number of textile mills increased steadily during this time period.  The number of slaves went up because they were needed to operate these new machines.  Slavery and child labor were both faults of the revolution, but there were some pluses too.

The title of the exhibit "Spinning a City" told me that spinning was used all over the cities to make everyday things during this revolution.  I learned from the poster that many new inventions were created to increase the production of clothing, and the clothing industry grew rapidly as a result of this.  It is interesting how the populations of many cities, London especially, skyrocketed because of the increase in clothing.  The invention of the spinning loom was the most important invention because  it made the process of making clothing so much faster.  I learned that clothing is very important to a society, and because there were new and productive machines to increase clothing, there was also an increase in population.

The last poster from my history class was titled "Steam Powered Transportation: Now We're Getting Somewhere."  This told me that steam powered vehicles made everything move a lot faster from one place to another during the Industrial Revolution.  Traveling with steam power, especially by train, made everyone more productive in everything they did because they could move around faster instead of traveling by horse and carriage.  It it very interesting that the invention of steam power increased movement of people and helped them travel to less populated areas in America with ease.  For the exhibit, I learned that many people enjoyed traveling faster, and even more productive methods of traveling have bee invented since then.  During the early 1800s the production of the Erie Canal enabled citizens to travel over 363 miles faster.  These canals always connected cities, which wee the most common travel destinations.  Each aspect of the the Industrial Revolution was unique, and each were explained well on the posters we made in class.

The Industrial Revolution: The Key to our Modern Lives

The Industrial Revolution was one of the most important revolutions in the history of Great Britain, and it gradually spread all over the world.  During this time period, many parts of the world became industrialized; life for everyone as they knew it changed, and became more modern and efficient.  Last week, I discovered why life changed so much for people during the Industrial Revolution.  New technology, changes for people, their jobs, and the way they farmed, different resources, and more efficient transportation methods all contributed in making the Industrial revolution 'revolutionary.'  Of those four ingredients to industrialization, the most important two are the changes in people and technology.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/ind_rev/images/IR36GR21x1.jpg

During the Industrial Revolution, citizens everywhere witnessed a change in how they could farm their land and get jobs.  Many factors contributed to the increase in the quantity and quality in food production, such as newly built dikes, which protected the farm land and crops from the pollution of ocean water. People also found why their crops previously weren't able to grow as well - they needed to use fertilizer.  Starting with the Industrial Revolution, farmers used fertilizer from their livestock to renew the soil, and mixed different types of soil to improve crop growth even more.  Crop rotation, which helps the soil renew nutrients, and the seed drill, which lets seeds be grown in rows rather than scattered randomly, were invented.  Also, wool production increased like food production because more pastures for sheep were built.  Along with all of these improvements, there were also some flaws.  Some people began to take over and control land formerly used by peasant farmers, which forced them to move into growing cities start their lives over there.  This was called the enclosure movement.  These peasants found new jobs working machines in factories in the cities they moved to.  Farming for people improved overall during the Industrial Revolution, and so did technology.

Technology changed a great deal during this time period in our history.  Before the Industrial Revolution, things always had to be made at a slow pace, because they were powered by humans and animals.  Thankfully, this changed, and technology became powered with windmills and water mills.  Starting in the early 1700s, energy began to be harvested from coal, which provided the power for Thomas Newcomen to develop the steam engine, that pumped water out of mines.  Later in the century, engineer James Watt improved the steam engine, and this invention became one of the most beneficial in Great Britain.  Iron was needed for the construction of lots of machines, and coal was used as the fuel that produced iron.  In 1709, Abraham Darby discovered the process of smelting iron, or separating it from its ore.  He also found out how to remove the impurities from the coal that damaged iron.  Over time, iron became used more and more often in the construction of different types of machines, and became increasingly common after railroads were used more widely.  New technology, such as using coal and iron to build machines, came to be more widespread during the Industrial Revolution.  Technology and changes in farming and jobs, as well as resources and transportation, played a vital part in industrializing Britain, and helped make society the modern one it is today.

How to Use the Internet With Schoolwork

In my history class, we performed two different activites that were designed to help us find appropriate sources online and find the correct answer to any question by just using Google.  Using the internet responsibly is very important when completing research papers in history because using unreliable or inaccurate sources can lead to false information.  Being able to obtain true information in real life is a vital technique to have, and these two activities can teach anyone how to do it.

http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/companies/google_200x200.jpg

In the first of these activities, my class went to Google.com and searched for A Google A Day, a site run by Google that teaches people how to search effectively and get the right information at the same time (http://www.agoogleaday.com/#game=started).  We were all given a question, and we had to work in groups to find the answer.  Each question contained multiple parts and required many different searches to find the answer to the big question.  Although it was fun finding out the answers to interesting questions, it was very difficult to do so and became frustrating if you couldn't find the correct answer.  By completing this activity, I learned that sometimes it takes multiple searches to find the information you are looking for, and that the information is sometimes not on the first site that pops up.

The second activity was meant to teach us about authentic, accurate, and reliable sources.  To complete this activity, first we defined the words accuracy, authenticity, and reliability.  Accuracy is the state of being correct or precise, and authenticity is when something is real, genuine, not copied, and is what it claims to be.  Reliability is when someone or something can be trusted to provide what is needed.  It is important for the sources you use to be authentic, reliable, and accurate because your information should be true, up-to-date, and trustable.  An example of a website that should never be used as a source for any paper is the website of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/).  This website is not authentic, accurate, or reliable because there is no such thing as a Tree Octopus, so all of the information on the website is fake.  Using the right information and the correct techniques to find information is very important to your work in school.  

Opinions and Goals for the New School Year

Hello, my name is Angela and I am currently a sophomore in high school.  I created this blog for the 2014-2015 school year to write posts for my history class and share my opinions on material from some of our lessons.  In this first post, I will write about my hopes for the incoming school year and what teachers can do to help me learn best.

School-books-laptop
http://iteachwithipads.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/school-books-laptop.jpg

After watching a youtube video featuring John Green (below) in history class last week, I thought more about my education and what I can do to make it better.  I realized that I have always learnt better with some teachers than with others.  In my opinion, teachers are "great" if they allow their students to take notes a lot, give study guides for exams, and listen to their students' feedback on their teaching style.  My favorite teachers from past years did all of those things as well as allowing for extra help when students were struggling before tests.  This year, I would like my teachers to fit my description of "great" and offer help to me if I am having trouble with lessons.  I will definitely have a better learning experience if my teachers have teaching styles that I prefer and they listen to their students.   

In the video I watched, John Green mentions that he supports students in school because they will grow up and eventually benefit their community.  The world needs smart people in it, and those people become who they are through their schools.  I think that if all the students in the world used their education to become great, smart people, then the world would be a better place to live in.  My goals for this school year are to get good grades in my classes and to balance my schoolwork with my activities successfully.  To achieve these goals, I will try not to procrastinate and pay attention to all instructions in my classes.  Any student can have a better school year by getting help from their teachers and following their goals, and they should try to use their education well.