American Studies: The American Industrial Revolution

1. The first railroad that connected east and west coasts was the transcontinental railroad, it was finished by 1869. The transcontinental railroad is now a common name for a railroad that connects the a coast to coast. The railroad that completed the links between eastern and western Canada was The Canadian Pacific Railway. It was completed by November 7th 1885.

2. The timezones that had the greatest number of railroads in 1890 was the central time, they had railroads connecting every state. They had much more than one in every state. They grew in Mountain time, Central time and Eastern time.

3.The daily life of people changed in positive ways: Industry became common. Therefore jobs were easily procurable for people. Another important detail is electric lightning. Up until 1865 electric lightning did not exist indoors, after dark people usually used oil lamps or lit candles. Though after 1865 electricity was easily procurable to about anyone. Also ice was not available to people, though it was usually very expensive. Finally By 1860 long distance communication was faster, about ten days to get to east coast and three weeks to get to the west. However, immigrant living on the frontier would have to wait several months for news from relatives in Europe. Even in technology people made more inventions (typewriter, telephone and phonograph) when they made them they had a license that allowed them to sell them. (1900) People invested a lot in these new inventions, more specifically European and American business leaders. Finally by 1990's America's standard of living was among the highest in the world.

4. Electric power and communication affected life of people and businesses in various ways. Electricity helped to improve the productivity of business world and transform the nature of workplace. For instance things got faster, an example of this improvement of technology is the sewing machine. When the sewing machine became electric (1889) there was a rapid growth of the ready-made clothing industry. Therefore with electricity a worker could make more in less time. This made the prices of each item decrease. These growing industries needed a lot of workers, thus they offered jobs. These jobs were majorly taken by immigrants (children and woman). Even food spoilage didn't happen often, because refrigerators preserved food. Of course not all of the electricity was distributed equally. Rural areas went without electricity for decades. Currently in the world urban areas all have electricity, while rural areas have to fight to have a little electricity. Therefore, things didn't change much after all these years. The negative effects are that people still need electricity, but they can't have it. Positive ones are that production became faster, and preservation of food and other important resources are know possible.

5. Railroads created a national network, they also developed the industrial growth. The railroad would carry goods and passengers. This also helped in the development of countries (development of towns.) The railroad owners looking to expand their businesses and increase profits, began building towns near their railroads on land granted to them by the government. Therefore, economy rose at the same time as industrial growth.

6. Bessemer Process: The Bessemer process was a way to make steel easily. The nation depended on steel therefore they could have steel much more easily. This was positive because they could build skyscrapers. This then brought people to move in urban areas. They then had a new home and they would look for a job. This will eventually make people richer.

7. Technology is important it makes communication easier and quicker. It simplified every day life. People could communicate with people in an effective way. For instance this steel was stronger more easily bended (flexible). Therefore buildings could be built

8. The Bessemer process helps make more steal and stronger steel. This helped Dubai make high quality buildings without any fear of breaking it. The economy got better, and people traveled faster. Steel brought changes, the skyscrapers improved in the Bessemer process. of course

Socratic Seminar

We had a seminar in class, and to be honest it wasn't our best class. Chaos happened and all of us are responsible of our acts. Though I thought a good point that was made in class was a little talk about corruption and money issues. Money is an important thing in life and to have it people do about anything. Selling drugs and stealing are two of the major ways people gain money if they are in need. Though others try to use corruption, such as police officers, to gain even more money. This is an untrustworthy way of gaining money and it gives the nation a really bad reputation. Hanane, Myriam and Shemsi participated in this seminar really well and made really intelligent comments that made me change my point of view on several points. Some people were really participating while others were taking notes, of course everyone had a different point of view concerning this subject. Unfortunately we could not finish the Seminar because of our unacceptable behavior. If I could improve what we did I would have participated more and made more concise comments. I would also like to present everyone's apology to our substitute: Miss Conway ♥ (sorry if I misspelled. )
:)

Hope for Haiti

Last week, January 12th a horrible earthquake struck Haiti. It lasted about 35 seconds and had several aftershocks. Three of them were of magnitude 5. However the major earthquake was of magnitude 7, which is of course a lot. Not only that, but several days ago a second earthquake hit Haiti, this one was of magnitude 6.3. This caused even more chaos. People die, and others were looking for people that are probably dead under stones. Many celebrities are trying to save up money to help these people. They do this because not only their houses are broken but this nation is extremely poor. People fight for their food, they fight to find somewhere decent to sleep in and they fight to find their loved ones. They lost everything, all that they built in these last years is ruined, all their hope is shattered.

Thankfully the UN have tried helping them, and they receive food and some shelter. Unfortunately they still need a lot of help, therefore people's help is needed. All around the world organizations are starting to help them. There is a new slogan that is used: Hope for Haiti. Celebrities collaborated together to create a song: Haiti mon amour. Some of these celebrities in Justin Timberlake and Rihanna. Hopefully this nightmare will be over soon.

Success and failures

Successes
-The union got back together, after years of disagreement a final resolution has been made about this issue.
-Freedom for African Americans that had to work for years before getting free. The civil brought freedom for a lot of them. Though as discussed in the failures, they were not equal.
-Everyone had education, even in the south. Therefor even African Americans could become literates.
Failures
-The failure is that it was hard for black people to get accepted into the community as physically and socially equal as white people. A rule should have been made making everyone equal, black and whites.
-Poverty, especially for African Americans, they had issues getting jobs because they were not treated equally. Of course other white man were poor also because jobs were not very easy to find and the war scavenged a lot of the southerns and norther's industries and land.
-Corruption, it was happening more and more often. Making people who didn't deserve to get richer much more powerful. Hardworking people often had less money than people who used corruption.
-KKK, this clan was powerful, and the Jim Craw Laws, those supported discrimination.
-The taxes got higher.
-Land was redistributed, in this case it was distributed equally for people.