February 7: Culture and Life in the early 20th century 

·         Foner, Give Me Liberty 675-690 Please see assignment for Thursday Feb 9, so that you can use these readings to prepare for that debate as well  In-Class  comments

·     Working for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company   another version in case you can’t access it

·     Testimony before Congress by a Machinist on Taylor’s system

·     “The Poisonous Occupations in Illinois”-- “Dangerous Trades” at the Turn of the Century  another version in case you can’t access the website

·     “Oh God, For One More Breath”: Early 20th century Tennessee Coal Miners’ Last Words  another version in case you can’t access the website

·     A woman recounts her 12 abortions in turn of the century New York  another version in case you can’t access that one

·     Voices of Freedom, 68-71, 82-85

 

Questions for focus:

1) Americans often equate consumption with freedom. After reading the material for today, what do you think of this idea?

2)  Be able to discuss what might have been the varying perspectives and experiences of people depending on their race, class or gender during this era, and using the documents above whenever appropriate to explain and justify your perspective.

2) The Progressive era has been defined in part by the code words of efficiency and scientific method.  Do you see any lasting effects of this impulse in your own life? How have any of your jobs been effectived by Taylor’s scientific management, for instance?

3) What factors affected women’s position in society? What role did class position and race play in this?

 

 

Recommended:

·         Sweatshops, then and now:

·         Child Labor in America

·         “The Poisonous Occupations in Illinois”-- “Dangerous Trades” at the Turn of the Century

·        Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Exhibit

·        Triangle Shirtwaist Trial-documents links included

·         Working for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company

·         Lament for Lives Lost: Rose Schneiderman and the Triangle Fire

·         No Way Out: Two New York City Firemen Testify about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

·         Excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (packinghouses in Chicago)

·         Mind Your Own Business: One woman’s account of reformers

·         “A Less Reliable Form of Birth Control”: Miriam Allen deFord  Describes Her Introduction to Contraception in 1914

·         Jack London looks at the simplified language of reformers

·         “A Modern School”: Abraham Flexner Outlines Progressive Education

·         “No Gods, No Masters”: Margaret Sanger on Birth Control”

·          Sex Talk to Young Girls, 1914

·         More Work for Mother: Scientific Management in the home

·         Inventing Homosexuality: Chicago Vice Squad Confront Definition of Sexual Perversion, 1911

·          Havelock Ellis on Gay Life in the early 20th century   

·          Burned into Memory: An African American Recalls Mob Violence in Early Twentieth Century Florida

·         Defending Home and Hearth: Walter White Recalls the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot

·         We Are Literally Slaves”: An Early Twentieth-Century Black Nanny Sets the Record Straight

·         “Drug Him Through the Street”: Hughsey Childes Describes Turn-of-the-Century Sharecropping

·              “Still Livin’ Under the Bonds of Slavery”: Minnie Whitney Describes Sharecropping at the Turn-of-the-Century

·         A Chinese Immigrant Makes His Home in Turn-of-the-Century America

·         Polish Immigrants Letters Back Home in early 20th century

·         “We Ran Silent Movies For Years”: An Italian Immigrant Goes Into Show Business in the Early Twentieth Century

·         Inside Westinghouse Factory, 1904 http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westhome.html

·         “It Was Considered Low Music”: Pianist Eubie Blake on the Birth of Ragtime at the Turn of the Century

·         Dancing After Dark: A Rural Woman recalls Farm life in Early 20th century  

·         Dissatisfaction of Farm Women, 1913