Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:26 am Post subject: Due 12/4
Personally, I liked the reading from last night better than the reading from tonight. I found the reading from last night to be easier to follow. The different examples that it provided kept me interested.
A few things on tonight's reading:
1. I think that a few sentences (see below) of the first paragraph nicely summarize the article.
"The country enjoyed abundant natural resources, a growing supply of labor, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment... It enacted high tariffs that protected American industry from foreign competition, granted land to railroad companies to encourage construction and used the army to remove INdians from western lands desired by farmers and mining companies" (pg 593).
2. I found the statistics on the amount of workers who switched from farm work to factory work helpful in picturing just how significant of a change this was. (pg 594)
3. On page 595 it says "The railroads reorganized time itself. In 1883, the major companies divided the nation into the four time zones still in use today." I thought that was really cool- not only that the railroads determined the time zones, but especially so many years ago.
4. The paragraph on Thomas Edison (pg 596) mentions his educational background. It says that wasn't well educated, yet he read about science and was able to be successful from there. This enforces how important it is for slaves to learn to read, as reading is the first step in a long process (read, pray, speak, act- grimke).
Question:
Sherman Act: "The Sherman Act, intended to prevent business mergers that stifled competition, was used by judges primarily to issue injunctions prohibiting strikes on the grounds that they illegally interfered with the freedom of trade" (pg 624)
Can you re-write this in a simpler way? Do you think this was an effective Act?
Here's my attempt at rewriting the Shermy Act in a simpler way.
The Sherman Act, intended to prevent business mergers that stifled competition, was used to prohibit human workers from exercising their free will when many of them at once.
Foner mentioned in passing that in the 1880's there were no personal or corporate income taxes. (im not sure what page it was on but it was under the heading "Captains of Industry) If the government didn't tax anyone, what was its source of income? I mean it didn't pay for any of the social programs that it does today but still...it had to maintain and army and a capitol.
Two other things stuck out to me. One was that "by 1890, the richest 1 percent of americans recieved the same total income as the bottom half of the population and owned more property than the reamaining 99%." That's absolutely ridiculous. I think it would be really interesting to see a chart of the relative wealth of the top 1% of the population compared to the bottom 99% over time. Starting from as far back as possible and ending now.
The other thing was what heather brought up trains. Something about a bunch of rich fat guys in suits sitting at a board meeting for train corporations deciding that they were going to change
time and the population just going "well, uh okay" is terrifying.
I agree with Heather about the railroads and time zones—that was a cool little fact.
And to touch on what Will was saying about the whole wealth distribution thing: in eighth grade we had to do a project on class or something like that. I made a website, and it’s incredibly embarrassing so I can't show it to you, but on it I had a little pyramid and basically what it shows is that the top 1% of the population holds 47% of the entire population’s wealth, and the bottom 80%, the working class, holds only 9% of the wealth.
So an imaginary 100-person America with $100 total:
1 person in top 1% would have $47 to himself.
1 person in bottom 80% would have $0.11. Daaaamn.
That’s pretty current, so I don’t know if it’s that related, but it’s still context.
Thoughts on the reading:
The tone of this book is so drastically different from Zinn’s. On page 599, when Foner is talking about Andrew Carnegie, he keeps referencing his values, and presents him as a humble, generous person. His father “had instilled in his son a commitment to democracy and social equality,” and Carnegie learned from his mother “that life was a ceaseless struggle.” Foner also claims that Carnegie believed “that the rich had a moral obligation to promote the advancement of society.” Foner’s portrayal of Carnegie as a modest, philanthropic Santa Claus who only wanted to spread the wealth is hard to take seriously, as I think it’s pretty well-known that he was a ruthless, autocratic capitalist who actively fought the unionization and well-being of his workers (again, maybe just Doug’s indoctrination). Then again, Foner does briefly touch on Carnegie’s forcing of twelve-hour shifts 364 days of the year and his dictator-ness, so that redeems the reading a bit.
Question:
Foner says the Knights of Labor are the first “all-inclusive” union. Zinn seemed to say that the IWW was the first. Yet neither article mentioned the other. Any thoughts on why?
Compare with Zinn's article, this one includes a lot of details and analysis.
I really like the part when the auther talks about the strategy which Rockerfeller and Carnegie use to create their monopoly. But this part contradict to demands during the Great Depression. People want less competitives between each companies, but it turns out that the Monopoly doesn't work out well. More importantly, later on those top 1% people take control mostly on everything. And the other 99%(minority) were treated as labors. "Liberty and monopoly, cannot live together."
I believe the socialism ideas that are well accepted by most people becasue 99% of the country are labors. And most of them are seeking for a better life in this new world. However, this Utopia idea from Hward Bellamy is still a extreme case. But a lot of people still tried to create their little paradise somewhere in the country which is kind of interesting.
My question is why the labor union excluded the Asian labors??? Because they took away the working opportunities from locals??
So to attempt to answer Annabel's question, Foner says the Knights of Labor are the first “all-inclusive” union. Zinn seemed to say that the IWW was the first. Yet neither article mentioned the other. Any thoughts on why?, I think that this happens for a few reasons.
I think the main reason is that the two separate groups were beneficial to the respective points of Zinn and Foner. Zinn's piece was heavily structured around the IWW and he continued to reference it throughout the whole reading. Maybe nothing that the knights did made enough impact to make Zinn use it. Now why he says that it was the "first" is beyond me.
Foner doesn't use the Knights of labor throughout his whole essay, it only comes in about 3/4 of the way through and everything else in the essay is not revolving around it, unlike Zinn's piece.
Also, I think that Zinn is a more opinionated and biased writer than Foner. That is just the impression I got from having read other Zinn and Foner pieces in the past, its not necessarily right.
My question: So it seemed like Foner's writings were from a textbook which brings me to my question. Going back to Will's point today, why do you think there are only certain things we hear/learn about when it comes to labor issues? Do you think that the reason that Foner didn't use the examples that Zinn gave is because he is writing a textbook instead of a more opinionated piece?
What Allen asked was what I want to talk about. I wrote a paper in USO about Chinese immigrants during the Industrial Revolution, but my answers were just my opinions so they might be wrong.
Mainly, I think Allen’s guess is right. There were many immigrants who came to the US during the Gilded Age because they think they will make fortunes here, and the Chinese were a group of them. A huge number of people were looking for jobs at that time, so employers have many choices. And of course they will hire those who can accept very low wages, which mostly were the Chinese. Chinese picked up the jobs that the Americans or other foreign workers thought were too cheap or too tiring to do, but when more and more people poured in and looked for jobs, those jobs which were once unwanted seemed precious. As a result, the Chinese were accused by stealing jobs from the Americans. Although some other foreign workers like the French and the Mexicans were being discriminated too, the extreme different appearances and cultures between the Americans and Chinese just marked the Chinese as total outsiders.
Little fact: about 13,000 Chinese joined the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, yet no Chinese were seen in the celebration or photos taken at Promontory Point when the railroad was completed.
In the paragraph called middle-class reformers, Foner mentioned a Supreme Court justice feared that the country “was in real danger of another kind of slavery that would result from the aggregation of capital in the hands of a few individuals.” It was very powerful to say the situation was as bad as slavery, as somewhere in the reading women workers describe their lives as a slave’s life.
So in response to Alan's question why Asian immigrants were excluded from the labour unions i wasn't really aware that asian laborers were completely excluded? I was under the impression that the IWW and the knights of labor were all-inclusive. And that "all-inclusive" included immigrants, and further, Asian immigrants. But in the case that they were excluded from unions it would be obvious that it was because they were taking away american jobs (in periods of economic crisis this was probably more prominent).
One thing i noticed was that a lot of the big company owners like Carnegie and Rockerfeller gave a lot of their money away into things that would benefit the entire country, like public libraries. But when the really rich, upper class was described they were depicted as personally-invested and greedy, and spending their money on only superfluous items. Why do you think there was such a disconnect of wealth distribution within the same class (or was there)?
I found out the reading was similar to the Zinn’s reading from the night before that it was about labors and economy in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The interesting quote from the package is “was in real danger of another kind of slavery that would result from the aggregation of capital in the hands of a few individuals.” Although, slavery has been repealed for a long time, labors are not much different from slaves in the past. Some labors were treated even worse by their employers. As a result, socialism became a major political force in Europe as well as in the U.S. Americans continuously fight against the unjust business systems. It is said that the Knights soon declined because of poorly organized structure, otherwise, this group would have made some changes.
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