In 1890, the wealthiest 1% of Americans owned one-fourth of the nation’s assets. The top 10% owned over seventy percent of those assets. By 1900, the richest 10% controlled approximately 90% of the nation’s wealth.
Those are some high numbers! But this will lead to power instability in society since the richest people holds the majority of the country's wealth, meaning they get to make the majority of the decisions, and the voice of the people won't be heard.
Employers took the opportunity to paint the entire labor movement as dangerous and un-American, a force prone to violence and led by foreign-born radicals.
They took advantage of situation and painted a bad image labor movements or movements in general because it would demotivate people from assisting with the movement and cause a rise in the people.
questioned the notion that freedom could exist in a society with extreme economic inequality.
Freedom can't exist or is extreme hard to exist in a society with extreme economic inequality because if there's inequality present in the first place, this means that someone is being restricted from getting or doing something that others can do. That is taking away a person's freedom of expression. Those two ideas, freedom and inequality, polar opposite, they contradict each other so it hard for them to exists together in society and will cause things to become unbalance.
increased economic inequality
Although the Gildred Age had brough growth to the economical advancements but It did not bring economic freedom. People still belief that a nation can't be free if everyone was equal, because if everyone is equal then they would need to get paid the same amount, have the same working environment and have the same opportunities for whatever job them want. But if that occurs, then the government can no longer maintain power and order, and progress may slow down because the working class wouldn't have to work non-stop all the time and almost everyday.
The nation itself could not be free if everyone was equal. There were two alternatives:: “liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest.”
It's a weird concept that they had come up with here. The nation can't be free if everyone is equal, it's contradicting itself. It's sad that the people still thought of freedom this way despite everything that had been done to provide equal protection and rights for all men. It just shows that history likes to repeat itself.
The competition itself—which by definition had “winners” and “losers,” signified societal progress.
So competition for power and authority became a part of the natural order. Those with a lot of influence and money are most likely going to be the winners, leaving those that haven't taken part in the decision making and low are cash is likely to be the losers. It doesn't even give them a fair fighting chance because the people like to allow those with a lot of money to make decisions since they have money to back up whatever they do.
advanced the idea of declaring all vagrancy laws unconstitutional
They are challenging the laws and rules set by society to keep the people safe, the act of sending people to jail and imprisoning them without evidence is a violation of the constitution. They brought vagrancy laws into the light as unconstitutional, but the people of Hobo Union were blacks, and the people didn't see them on even putting.
Many of the laws allowed people to be held in jail without being charged—a system decried as unconstitutional by some middle-class professionals but defended by others.
People are getting desperate on trying to keep jobs open and available to native-born white high or middle-class citizens. In order to do so, they are criminalizing innocent people and keeping them in jail. The majority of the rich are letting it slide because they believe it's more beneficial to have one of their people get the job so that the money would continue to circulate in their bubble.
Vagrancy laws targeted hobos at a time when there were few jobs for them. They responded by forming a union and helping to create Chicago’s Hobo College.
With so many immigrants coming into America, getting a job becomes a competition. Among those the people that didn't get a job were the hobos, they're likely lacking the skills and education to work well-paying jobs. But when jobs are scarce, even those kinds of jobs become important so hobos became "easy" targets of the vagrancy law. As a response, college for hobos was created. That is a very clever way of trying to solve the problem. If the hobos become educated then people can't say that they don't have the intelligence and common sense to do the job. Plus, having a college for hobos might motivate them to get jobs and not become homeless men anymore.
Episode 81
Nate DiMeo explains what would need to be done in order to build a bridge over a large body of water,. For example, building over the East River to connect the island of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but it's going to take men to do the work. The majority of those men were new Americans, the Irishmen, the Italians, and the Germans. They are all competing for work so they took a dangerous job in a harsh climate. But with the completion of the bridge, it brought transportation and easy access to islands, and it brought prosperity to the country. This all was made possible with the lives and hard work of the new Americans and working class.
Episode 38 (A Stretch)
It's amazing how Bradford Gilbert ended up finding a way to stop his tower from collapsing by simply throwing down a weight tie onto a rope attached to a girder onto the empty floors below. We have some earthquake resistance builds that uses a similar technique. We place an internal damper pendulum at the center of the building. A building in Taiwan called Taipei 101, which is 1,667 ft tall, uses this building structure.
Champagne became a shorthand for significance and majesty at events from wedding banquets to launches of ships and airplanes.
In other words, champagne became a symbol for class, since the working class, those that don't have a lot of money to spare, are less likely to have access to champagne. But it's almost a sign of celebration for successful business deal or special events. Champagne is also more expensive than wine since it takes more time to produce it, which would then show more social class.
managed to sell their sparkling wine as a way to define social standing in an uncertain modern world.
There seems to be a trend in how people did marketing during the 1870s and early 1900s. As long as it's define as "social standing" in the modern world, then people would buy it. It's like how there are shoe brands that are expensive, for example Vans, and there are other factories that produce the same kind of shoes as vans but they are more reasonably priced. However, people would still choose to buy the brand shoes. I just find it funny that still people still do cared that much about their reputation or image as much as they did in the past..
In 1870, life expectancy was 42 years. In 1920, it was 54 years.
After 50 years, the people's life expectancy has increase by 12 years, which is pretty good given the time period. However, for people like us in the modern age, that is still pretty short. Our average today is about 78 or 79 years old.
Displaying objects in your parlor, almost as if in a museum, could signal your wealth and power
During this era, people like to display their wealth through different means because of this we get a chance to see what kind of art there was and we can use them to evaluate the artist handy work.
Is "conspicuous consumption" a 21st century social/cultural issue too?
The idea of conspicuous consumption is to show off wealth by publicly displaying or purchasing goods or services instead of cover basic needs. This is a waste of the resources that could be use to help other people's lives..Although people are allowed to do whatever with their money, but it would be a shitty thing to do if you see that other are suffer while you're going around blowing off their money.
However, the commission could not establish what a “reasonable” rate was on its own—it could only sue railroad companies in court.
The people who own the railroads don't know what reasonable pricing is, since they are the ones who are less likely to have to endure harsh labor to struggle to survive. If there's an issue with the "reasonable rate, it most mean that the price for transporting goods must take a huge chuck on what the merchants would get back from selling the produces.
did the power and wealth of industrial capitalists like Carnegie and Rockefeller ultimately have a negative or positive effect on the American nation as a whole?
Even though the wealth and power of the industrial capitalists are dangerously influential and can be use to control the citizens into working long and harsh hours in factories, it is technologically advancing the nation. New technologies are being built to make life easier and more money is being circulated across America allowing more business, trades and cities to be created.
$112.2 billion
Bernard Arnault's net work had increased from $112.2 billion to $114.5 billion as of this year. Those are some crazy high numbers. Most of the richest people in the world are males, white males for the most part, it just comes to show that those are the people that has the most influence on our economic wealth. This means that most of our money are being held by white males, who are likely to have influence in the government.
This resulted in cutting out all competition and raising profits for those companies.
This will make it extremely hard to find works in the city because if you can't handle work or get a job in one of these companies, then where are you going to work? How are you going to make a living?
Since these companies becomes such a big deal, workers don't get a voice on their working condition or payment.
Railroads
Despite the fact that technology is very important in speeding up processes, people can still make due without them. Railroad however is what get people to places quickly and allow trades to occur. Not only that, moving from place to place, or village to town to cities, is now easier than ever so the people are no longer glue to their place of birth and can seek success elsewhere.
Homestead Act
What was the Homestead Act?
During the time of the Civil War in 1862, any adult citizen, or those who are planning on becoming citizens, that had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. This who allow nearly any man or woman a "fair chance."
However, just because the people are give free land, it doesn't mean that the farmers will be successful. Plus, they were only given a little bit of land. So on the outside, the government looks like they're taking care of their people but in reality, they're cheap steak .
almost 11 million Americans moved from farms to cities
This might be the start of the Industrial Revolution. What is surprising is the amount of people that moved to the cities to work. Cities must have been over populated, which mean there will be competition for work, and workers becomes expendable since there's plenty of people that could replace them. Because of this, working conditions for these workers will be terrible.
little by little, they will become a happy and contented people
That is a mess up reasoning for killing Navajos. All of their decedents will continue to hold murderous grudge against them, and the violence will never end.
four young Dakota men murdered five white settlers
The never end loop of violence. These deaths could have been prevented if the two group sat down and had a peaceful negotiation with each other or if the the whites had more human compassion to the other races or communities.
most of the Dakota were starving. Since their payments were late, many traders cut off credit to Dakota families
People back then lack comparison for one another. Many of the people in Dakota were starving but traders won't let them pay them back with more interest, instead they told them to eat grass. That's cruel, especially to the children who are starving.
Western homesteading was attractive because the overwhelming majority of Blacks could not own land in the South—sharecropping and tenant farming trapped families in cycles of debt.
The western homestreading seem to be a new start for African Americans who didn't have money to buy land, this is a chance for their family to be free from the ever going loop of poverty and slavery.
The law did discriminate against married women
Now the era to discriminate against African American is not longer "hot," they have move onto discriminating against married woman by not allowing them to take land in their own name unless they were the head of their household, which is going to be difficult because in a household there is probably at one son that was born, and they'll be the head of the household if anything happens to the father.
construction of a transcontinental railroad.
The start of quicker transportation of large units (people and goods) and connection between distance places, bring along it's industries and culture.
Elaborate on your answer in the annotations or comments!
By the end of the Reconstruction, the north would have the most potential for economic opportunities for ordinary citizen because in the north there is land the normal citizen could acquired and they are free states.
They and their lawyers argued that the 14th amendment’s “equal protection” applied to citizens and non-citizens alike
It's weird how laws and amendments are there to help and protect the people but the immigrants don't count as those people? So non-citizen don't receive equal protect. How would the laws be consider fair in the eyes of the people?
But then pressure against Chinese laborers and businesses led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first of a series of federal laws restricting Chinese immigration.
Now the slaver and discrimination against African Americans had die down, Americans move onto attacking the Indians and the Chinese. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is one of many federal laws restricting Chinese immigration. White American tend to restrict the people who takes away from their profit, like when the African American became free and started taking normal jobs, nor plantation jobs, which give the African American more money and the whites are loses money. So the whites are trying that from happening with the Chinese.
Only the victims have changed
It's weird how it's normally the victim of an issue is the changes. So unless something were to happen to a "real American," they won't be able to look at things from another perspective and change.
No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act, or confession in open Court
This is going to help the people that are target for treason, African Americans and the poor, from being sent to jail or executed right off the bat without evidence. However, you can always buy off witnesses or "create" witnesses for a crime as long as you had money.
no soldier shall, in timeof peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner
To prevent the soldiers from invading the privacy of citizen homes, the Constitution included this in. You would think that in this time period, it's common knowledge to not invade other people's homes but people like to take advantages of their status.
The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be guaranteed in this State; and no person shall be rendered incompetent to be a witness or juror on account of his opinions on matters of religious belief
Everyone is allow to practice their belief. So they are no longer forced to convert to Christianity?
Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people, and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it.
This allow the people, us citizens, to have a voice in the government, and also keep them in check.
All men are by nature
Wow, the constitution is really sexist. Only men are allow those rights, what about the women?
Elaborate on your answer in the annotations or comments!
At the end of the Reconstruction, the U.S. no longer have to worry too much other slavery and the chaos of violence that occurs, and work on trades and the country's economic. The best places to start building up the country is by the ocean and open land in the west.
Groups of nightriders operated under the cover of darkness and wore disguises, harassing and killing Black candidates and office holders and frightening voters away from the polls.
Man that is scary. I won't be surprise if the majority of the African American would hide inside their homes all the time and only leave unless it was necessary, when they were going to targets of assassinations. No wonder there were so few black office holders and candidates for government.
one vote short of the two thirds necessary to remove him
That sucks. What would happen to the U.S. if Johnson was removed then and there?
they were denied the right to testify against whites, to serve on juries, to serve in state militias, and to vote
In other words, African American can get married and have some properties but they can't defy the whites rules or harm them in any way or have influence in their government. That is still not a fair trade, a little better than what they had before but not enough for it to be called a good start to the Reconstruction. And if the African American break this rule, they will become slaves again. We're basically back to square one because you know the whites are doing to cause the African American problems to make them break those rules so that they can have cheap labor again.
ordered that nearly all land in federal hands was to be returned to its former owners
Immediately after Lincoln was no longer president, President Andrew Johnson look back the African American's land and gave it back to the landowner showing that he favors slavery. Not only that, this also shows that although African American can be freedpeople, their properties can still be taken away by the whites.
The Bureau faced strong opposition from segments of the Southern white population
Where the Bureau being seen as traitors to the whites for helping the African American with receiving education, medical treatment and solving their dispute with the whites?
Where they being treated like the freedpeople for helping or do the whites not have the guts to treat their own kind that way in public?
why you would have chosen your answer in the annotations and/or comments
If I was a freedperson during that time period, I would choose having citizenship over property. Even though having land means that you have power and money, having a citizenship give you the right to protect your land from getting "stolen" by the whites if they ever come at you asking why would you have possession of this land or how are you being able to afford it? You then can answer with "Because I am a citizen and I have the right to protect my own property." Having a citizenship is like a long term investment, you never know when things will get better. Having a property means you'll be targeted by other whites for crimes you didn't make because they want to take your land for a cheap price and they are will to do anything to get it. You won't have anything to defend yourself with because if you hurt them, they'll pay you back with something worst.
after the war, we hear of more complaints from planters who argued that Black women weren’t working the same way as they used too—many black women preferred to devote more time to their families than had been possible under slavery
This reveals that the African American are starting to take charge of their lives by first taking care of their family member and searching for lost ones. But this will also mean that the whites are slowing losing control over their slaves since they're start to become "freedpeople", and the whites won't like that and would start causing trouble for those who were free.
Children were often hired out to different households or geographically separated from their parents to discourage escape attempts.
This is a brutal way to maintain order, especially for the women during that time period. The men are the ones that are least likely to care about where their children are being sent to because it means that they have one less mouth to feed and the child is still alive. The women had to become quick thinkers in order to figure out a way to stay close to their children or to regain custody of their children. This only occurred to the enslaved African American families, so the white citizens had no idea what kind of emotional pain the African American parents are going through.
emancipation
What is emancipation?
Today, emancipation is use to end the legal authority that parent has to take care of a child under the age of 18. After emancipation, your parent will not longer have to take care of you or pay for the things that you need.
Reconstruction gave space for the transformation of slaves into citizens
It's amazing how slow the process was to even get African American men to become citizen let alone women. Now the next big step is to be able to vote or have a voice in the government.
Was it necessary for the Reconstruction to occur or is there another event in history could have taken it's place and have more impact?
Lynchings of African Americans in Memphis and New Orleans, and the slaughter of at least 71 blacks in Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, were not discussed by most Americans
It's weird how when it comes to the things that are shameful or can ruin a person reputation, people don't talk about it, the violence that took place during the Reconstruction, but they still did the deed.
Horrible things had happen to numerous African Americans but it's not problematic enough to grab people attention so that they would stop for a moment to think about whether what's going is right.
it is a symbol of failure — failure to teach well, failure to test well, and failure to have any influence at all on the intellectual lives of students
Grading or having a standards-based also takes a toll on the professors or the people who are keeping these students in line to meet such standards. Failing to do so, such as having a couple of students fail a class for similar reasons, such as getting too stress out over the materials so they gave up on the work, can make it seem as if it's the teachers fault that they didn't "meet standards" when it might be in fact the education system fault for setting values on students' education and the teachers' teaching.