Progress through Activism

Shelton Stromquist and Maureen Flanagan wrote separate articles giving two different leaders in the Progressive movement in the early 1900’s.  On one side, you have Stromquist who believes immigrant labor workers pushed the Municipality to reform through activism.  While Flanagan believes women, such as the Women’s City Club of Chicago, were vital to the Progressive movement with their interest in the overall well-being of the city, before the fiscal responsibilities.  However, both were right as without both the activism would have not made the impact that is still felt today.

Stromquist, details the “agents in the construction of a new urban politics of reform,”¹ or simply the labor class forcing politics through violence and labor strikes.  Stromquist believed the actions of the immigrant workers upset the balance of the establishment, forcing everyday middle class workers to feel sympathy and a connection to their plight.  These actions led to reform in Cleveland Municipal reform.² But not directly, as stated in the Stromquist article, the strikes caused "class conflict and mass protest created conditions that invited reform but did not wholly dictate the outcomes."³

Flanagan’s article examines the role of women over the men in Chicago.  The City Club of Chicago was an organization which was built upon the upper blue collar men and women of the area.⁴ Flanagan stated men and women of the City Club of Chicago examined the issues of garbage collect, education, and police power through different eyes.  Men viewed the needs of the city by dollars and cents, while women viewed the cities needs by what needs to be cleaned up and what was best for the city as a whole.  Flanagan referred to the women’s views as “municipal housekeeping.”⁵ But just as the immigrant workers and their strikes, the women needed others to make their voices into reality as the Women did not have the right to vote until 1920.

Both of these viewpoints are correct, to include the men’s lenience to the economy woes and improvement.  The immigrant laborers ability to gain sympathy with the everyday middle class with protests and activism changed the opinion of Americans towards their political affiliation and views.  While the Active Women of the middle class pushed for a brighter, better tomorrow, that would afford a happier and safer place for their family.  There common goal of municipality standards and support through police assistance, garbage collection, and school systems were points that both strived for but needed the support of another to make happen.

     1. Stromquist, Shelton . "The Crucible of Class: Cleveland Politics and the Origins of Municipal Reform in the Progressive Era." Journal of Urban History, 23rd ser. (1997): 192-220. JSTOR. , 213.

     2. Ibid, 204.

     3. Ibid, 195.

     4. Flanagan, Maureen A. "Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman's City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era." The American Historical Review 95, no. 4 (October 1990): 1032-1050. JSTOR. , 1034.

     5. Ibid, 1046.

Nast and the Chinese Problem

     In the comic "Every Dog (No Distinction of Color) Has His Day," Thomas Nast shows John Chinaman and an American Indian reviewing the bulletin board.  The posters show Indians being forced to go West by the trains and the Chinese chasing the trains heading East.  Besides the large poster there are several smaller posters with racial tension beginning at the very bottom, and moving upward, revealing the bigotry over the ages.

     The lowest poster is a Know-nothings poster for Protestants against Catholics Immigrants, specifically the Irish and Dutch during the 1850's.    This is followed by what appears to be German anti-Semitism, and then the large "Chinese Problem" which was a major discussion point in 1879, leading up to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.1  Above this are the small Klu Klux Klan Poster and "The Chinese Must Go" from Dennis Kearney and the Workingman's Party.  The lower caption reads, Red Gentleman to Yellow Gentleman. "Pale face 'fraid you crowd him out, as he did me."  And the far left has what appears to be an African American whose bubble reads "My Day is coming."

      Nast, who created this work in 1879, was relating the removal of American Indians to the pending Chinese Exclusion Act.  Nast also jabs at Dennis Kearney who he refers to as a "Real American," but was actually born in Ireland, and was once subject to similar persecution in America.  Nast's cartoon identifies the ever changing anti-Semitism in early America which began with the American Indians, followed by the Catholics, German, Chinese, and soon Africans.

1.   Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford, 1992), 20.

2.   William Wei, The Chinese-American Experience: An Introduction, http://immigrants.harpweek.com/ChineseAmericans/1Introduction/BillWeiIntro.htm, February 14, 2012.

Natural Law

    Inalienable rights for mankind have been the recipe for revolution for hundreds of years.  These rights have been the battle cry when deposing tyrants and monarchy across the globe.  But even with the great and noble reasons for change, these revolutions were only a sliver of the true equal rights for all mankind.  Equal rights for all humans is a daily struggle, even in today’s world climate, human beings do not share the same privileges as one another.  Dennis Diderot’s definition of the Natural Law states, “that laws should be made for everyone, and not for one person”.¹ 

    In the 18^th Century mankind opened their eyes to civil rights, in the 19^th Century it was political rights, and finally in the 20th and 21st Centuries, social rights were brought to the forefront.²  I was given the lesson in World History of, “we freed the poor and the slaves, then the women, and finally we allowed them to move out of the shadows.”  As sad and embarrassing as it might be viewed, it was the truth.  The revolutions which broke the stereotypes had to be first accepted by the masses which put them in their social places.  The monarchy had to accept the poor’s right to freedom, as well as the freedom of all human beings.  Men had to accept that woman were not the weaker gender.  And finally the masses had to accept the equality of all races of mankind.  

    And although we as a species have kept moving the needle towards a perfect exsistence, the freedom of religion still evades us as a whole.  Entire countries still do not believe in rights of minority believers.  The debate for freedom of religion can be seen in Africa, and parts of the Middle East.

1. Dennis Diderot, Natural Law (1755), in French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, ed. Lynn Hunt (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1996), 37.

2.  T.H. Marshall & Bottomore, T. B. Citizenship and Social Class. (London: Concord, Mass/ Pluto Press. 1992), cited by Wright, J.K. ASU Lecture Notes: Unit 4, Module 4. (Arizona State University, 2011). Electronic. 9 February 2012.

Equiano

  Bryccan Carey’s website, which breaks down the facts to the argument of Olaudah Equiano’s birthplace, is all circumstantial, but gives the reader enough evidence to believe either side.  The attempt to describe his birthplace and abduction with specific details makes me believe Equiano was not trying to deceive the reader, but attempting to capture memories from a troubled and terrifying early childhood.  The inaccurate rumination of his past can be seen in his discussion of perfumes used by the Igbo and the possible accuracy of the lands scent.¹  When reviewing the facts of his childhood, one must also understand that he did not learn to read and write till the age of 16, when he ultimately could take notes on the chronicles his life.²  Remembering specific details without the assistance of reference material would explain the inaccuracies in dates and location.

  As for Equiano’s insistence of a South Carolina heritage when he was baptized, he may have not understood the question and believed the clergy were asking where he was from in the New World.  Considering that Equiano was a child when he was baptized he may not have had sufficient command of the English language to realize he was asking where Equiano was specifically born.  As a young man on the Arctic expedition, Equiano may have, as Carey suggests, have considered the error unimportant, or more likely, as Dr. Barnes suggests in the fifth lecture, seen the advantage in being considered a Creole, born in the New World over having been born in Africa.  And when Equiano joined Constantine Phipp’s Artic Expedition he again listed his birthplace as South Carolina, but as Dr. Barnes stated in his fifth lecture, Equiano may have only wanted to be labeled at the time as a Creole.

1.      Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, ed. Robert J.

Allison, Second ed. (Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2007), 47.

2.      Ibid, 83.

Columbus Blog

Atleast I could input this....


Although the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, 1492-1493, was meant purely as an enterprise to gain land and wealth, the second voyage begun to add the ability of bringing Christendom to the inhabitants of the new found lands.  The intent of adding the need to move inhabitants to Christianity was based on gaining favor from Rome and the pope.  This change of demeanor from enterprise to faith teaching could be seen through Alexander VI’s Papal Bull “Piis Fidelium” of 1493 which directed the voyaging Franciscan monk Bernado Buil and his charges to begin converting the local inhabitants to Christianity.

 …so that you might preach and sow the word of God there by yourself and through other secular or religious priests suited to the purpose and to be deputed by you, and that you should lead the natives and inhabitants of the said islands and lands, who do not have a knowledge of our faith, to that faith and the Christian religion, and that you should teach and instruct them to walk in the mandates of the Lord. ¹

  The following third and fourth voyages brought religion to the forefront as a primary reason for the voyage as seen in the instructions from the Spanish Crown to Columbus, 1497, for his third voyage.

When, God willing, you are in the Indies you shall endeavor with all diligence to encourage and lead natives of the Indies to serve us and remain benignly under our sovereignty and subjection in peace and order, and especially to convert them to our holy Catholic faith. ²

  King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised before the first voyage, that if Christopher Columbus succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He would also be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the new lands and the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.  This was promise was documented in “Capitulations of Santa Fe.” ³

End Notes

    1.      Alexander VI Papal Bull "Piis Fidelium", Rome, June 25, 1493, in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, Document 24, Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan. (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005), 145.

    2.      Instructions of Frenando and Isabel to Columbus for Colonization of the Indies, Burgos, April 23, 1497,  in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, Document 17, Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan. (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005), 102-103.

    3.      Fernando and Isabel to Columbus "Santa Fe Capitulations", Santa Fe, April 17, 1492,  in Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents, Document 10, Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan. (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005), 60-62.

Greetings

Greetings to all.  My name is Dean Baker and I am a Junior at ASU.  I live in Arizona, but not close enough to attend class in Tempe.  I retired for the military three years ago and have been using my G.I. Bill every since. 

My time at ASU has been about taking as many History classes as possible.  Matter of fact, besides 300 and 498, I'm almost to the point of being forced to take something other than History because I've met all my requirements and used all of my electives.