Howard Zinn’s unique perspective on American history and the beloved American heroes makes for an interesting story. His book, A People's History of the United States, paints history in a whole new light. While most teachers tell the story of the Jacksonian “era of the common man”, the other side is rarely looked at, the side that Zinn shows in the 10th chapter of his book “The Other Civil War”, and the era of the elite using the middle class to push the lower, working classes down. He also uses other like-minded historians like Christman, Miller, Myers, and Horwitz and historical events to support his claims. These claims are that throughout the 1830s and 1860s there was a class struggle going on between the poor workers of the nation and …show more content…
As Henry Christman details in his work Tin Horns and Calico, this movement was against the patroonship system, created in the 1660s when the Dutch ruled New York and that was a place where “a few families, intricately intermarried, controlled the destinies of three hundred thousand people and rules in almost kingly splendor near two million acres of land.” This is impactful, as it shows the …show more content…
Throughout the usual, Civil War, more actions added to the growing injustice. For example, the Homestead Act, and afterwards came more laws passed by Congress to benefit the landowners and merchants, Myers tells of this injustice and especially the case of the growing Astr family fortune from the rents of New York tenements, in his History of the Great American Fortunes, when he stated that “law did not represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of the growing propertied classes.” This directly supports Zinn’s ideas that this society was one where the workers would end up being exploited while the rich benefitted from the labor. During the war however, the psychology of patriotism and the love of adventure created by the politicians worked to lower anger against the rich and
The Civil War. Louis P. Masur’s book, The civil War: a Concise History, Is a book that gives an overview of the civil war from 18 to 1800, Providing multiple causes an consequences that emerged from the war. The book begins by reviewing the origins of the war. Chapter one covers the issues between northern and southern states and the tension over right and slave possession. The tension created a conflict that raised a number of political, social, and military events that then proceeded into a battle to abolish slavery from the colonies.
An uncharacteristic take on rural black politics, Steven Hahn’s A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration transports readers into a world of faith, power, and family across the rural South. Diving into a period that spans nearly one hundred years, Hahn, an author, specialist, and professor, addresses the political culture of newly freed slaves as they maneuvered through challenges of freedom, Jim Crow laws, and religion. Hahn pens, “ [A Nation under Our Feet] is a book about extraordinary people who did extraordinary things under the most difficult…” (1). The author successfully presents such book in this sequential timeline and geographical mapping from Texas to Virginia. Through his synthesis of vast primary literature on slavery, Civil War South, and the Great Migration, Hahn supports his arguments and presents readers with a new look into the past.
The United States Civil War is possible one of the most meaningful, bloodstained and controversial war fought in American history. Northern Americans against Southern Americans fought against one another for a variety of motives. These motives aroused from a wide range of ideologies that stirred around the states. In James M. McPherson’s What they fought for: 1861-1865, he analyzes the Union and Confederate soldier’s morale and ideological components through the letters they wrote to love ones while at war. While, John WhiteClay Chambers and G. Kurt Piehler depict Civil War soldiers through their letters detailing the agonizing battles of war in Major Problems in American Military History.
How do Zinn and Schweikart and Allen portray the 1920s? Was it a decade of increasing prosperity and leisure or a decade of growing inequality and misery? What historical facts do they use to make their specific claim? Zinn portrays the 1920s as a decade of false prosperity, while Schweikart and Zinn characterize the 1920s as a time of growth and improvement.
Module 9 Discussion Assignment Yes LeeAnna Keith believes the failure of Reconstruction was due to racism. Angry whites, seething over blacks finally gaining similar rights and some political power, worked to undermine the efforts of Reconstruction. Keith describes the assault of the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873. According to Keith, the event that took place at the courthouse was a microcosm of the general intolerance and unacceptance of post-slavery black progress by racist whites (403).
A well-known writer, Mark Twain, used the term “Gilded Age” to symbolize the corruption of the American society despite its glittering surface of wealth following the American Civil War. Many industrial leaders following the war were criticized as “Robber Barons” -- the idea of becoming rich through unethical business practices -- or “industrial statesmen” for their economic influence in America. Their tactics of becoming wealthy and prosperous were often criticized as dictating the rich and the poor and destroying competitions, but the philanthropic contributions of these “industrial statesmen” toward the American economy and society are tremendous in creating America as a domination of power. According to many people, these “industrial
Works Cited Civil War Times. Curiosities. June 2003. 42,67. Web.
1)In Howard Zinn’s “A people’s History of the United Stated,” he puts more attention on the event of how Columbus invaded the new continent and impacted native Americans through opinions how Columbus and others people like victims and follower thought about Columbus’s behavior. First of all, Zinn describes Arawak Indians and their similarities to other indigenous people of the continent, and he then explained invaders’ explorations into historical, political, and economic fields. Zinn emphasizes the relative hospitality and peacefulness of Indians and the cruelty Europeans exercise in their quest for gold. Furthermore, Zinn states how the number of Indians’ population dropped down rapidly because of enslavement, violence, and disease.
The Civil War is one of the most important events in United States history. The nation was no longer united, but instead divided between the North and the South. The country was exposed to horrific events that changed the lives of many Americans. The war was also a period of significant political and social change. The Civil War could be considered a “Second American Revolution" because of the abolition of slavery, and Abraham Lincolns radical ideas, which significantly changed the concept of government.
The Civil War was a very influential turning point in the history of the United States. The war not only strengthened the connection of the states, specifically between states in the north and south, but it also resulted in the end of the old way of life in the south, known as the old south. The way of life style in the Old South was loved by many, Rhett from Gone With the Wind being one of them. Rhett and his future wife, but current friend Scarlett were fleeing Atlanta after an attack from the north when Rhett told Scarlett that she was witnessing the end of the Old South. Rhett is truly speaking the truth in this scene.
The books that are being compared and contrasted are both about The Civil War and what these soldiers went through. Each book has a few differences that separate them. The books are based on the same time period so they are going to have a lot in common. The books describe what both characters had to go through during the war. The differences in the book will show you how each soldier went through the war differently and the similarity’s will show you how it was for most of the soldiers in the Civil War.
Forced Founder’s, written by Woody Holton, sheds new light on one of the best-known events in American History. Holton challenges the traditional narrative of the great land-owning elite leading the revolutionary war. He does not believe it was one single factor but in fact, a web of influences that pushed Virginia into the war of independence. Holton’s main argument consists of the idea that the Indians, merchants, slaves, and debtors helped propel free Virginians into the independence movement. Virginia’s gentry were joining their peers in declaring independence from Britain in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.
The time period between 1861-1865 is called one of the bloodiest times of American history. Approximately 620,000 men lost their lives during those four years, which was around 2% of the population of The United States at the time. The Civil War didn’t start as a war over slavery, but eventually progressed into one that would decide the future of four million people: the slaves living in the United States at the time. The stories told about the Civil War mostly focus on the men on the front, people in the North who supported President Lincoln, and slaves who were freed after the Emancipation Proclamation and the events that followed the Civil War. The story of Gone With The Wind, written as a book by Margaret Mitchell, and produced into film by David Selznick, is all about the women, the people who stayed home, the people on the losing side of the war.
In chapter 15, “Self-Help in Hard Times”, Zinn’s overarching point is that unity among workers was not simple to achieve, and that white supremacy was a powerful, deadly force after the war. To support and further discuss these concepts, Zinn points out how relations between the American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World were often tense, how city life often changed drastically during times of strike, and how immigration laws during the twenties began to favor Anglo-Saxons. One such way Zinn showcases these ideas is by describing how drastically life changed for cities when workers went on strike, hoping for an increase in their wages. As the strike continued on throughout February of 1919, Zinn recalls how all services, except for those that were consider essential to daily life, ceased.
Howard Zinn’s unique perspective on American history and the beloved American heroes makes for an interesting story. His book, A People's History of the United States, paints history in a whole new light. The ninth chapter of his book, “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation without Freedom” discusses the abolition of slavery in America and its effect and ulterior motives; it benefitted the elite, while not strictly freeing the slaves. He uses other like-minded historians, key people, and key events to prove his claims. His claims that the government’s support of slavery was due to practicality, and by ending it there was a safe and profitable reconstruction, rather than a radical one.