Fact and Fiction?

So I was just in a discussion with some adults about Hollywood and History.  To illustrate my argument I went back to the "Lost Cause" discussion we had in USHAP.  The key idea was how if a storyline is compelling enough and supported by enough people it becomes the reality even when people who were present at the described events claim falsehood.  As soon as those people become discouraged then the storyline becomes the reality.  This brings to mind the interesting but absurd storyline "World War I was started by a sandwich."

Back to the point we were discussing the film "Remember the Titans."  If you have seen the movie you might be interested in the many discourses to profit, to debunk, to affirm or the just understand the plain old truth of the events behind the movie.

In general most historical movies suffer from the desire to emphasize certain story lines over actual reality.  Most Hollywood films are made with the intent to make a profit not teach history.  In any case if you are familiar with "Remember the Titans" you might want check out these links to entertain the further exploration of "history."

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/closer/020808.html

(hopefully ESPN covers this story better than the Ray Rice debacle)

http://deadspin.com/remember-the-titans-is-a-lie-and-this-man-wants-you-to-1609473834

(yes it is deadspin.com so be aware of any agenda)

http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/remember-the-titans-files/remember-the-titans-supplemental-materials.html#HelpfulBackground

(this is a teacher materials site so take it with a grain of salt)

In any case enjoy if you wish.

Week 13 Day 1: Theodore Roosevelt- Background

Since today we finished the Documentary on Theodore Roosevelt, I thought it would be helpful to give a little background on him, as well as connect it to his term as President. Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City in 1858, into a family that owned a successful glass import business. As a child he was very sickly, and had to be home schooled due to this. He also suffered from asthma, however through a vigorous training routine he outgrew this trait. He later graduated with honors from Harvard University, and attended Columbia Law school. His time at Columbia didn't last long however, as he decided rather to become the youngest representative on the for New York City on the state assembly. Roosevelt also served numerous other public service positions including the Captain of the National Guard. After losing his mother and wife on the same day, he took time off his political life for two years until 1886. He remarried, and carried on to raise a volunteer cavalry dubbed the "Rough Riders", who he led on a heroic charge on San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War. This boosted him to an almost heroic status, and as a war hero he was elected to the New York Governorship. After that we've covered in class, but I hope this was helpful as a background to his life. Also mentioned in the documentary briefly was how Theodore Roosevelt wanted to keep the wilderness, because he believed that it was untamed and wild, and with this aspect one could overcome adversity that was not present in everyday society.  This would make the Average american stronger, and more able to deal with hardship. If you have any other idea on this issue, please put them up for discussion as a comment!

More info and a video: http://www.biography.com/people/theodore-roosevelt-9463424#early-life

Civil War Podcast

Hello American History Buffs!

I know this has come too late to save our grades on the Civil War test we took a couple of weeks ago, but perhaps it might be useful for some passive AP exam studying! A professor at Yale University has published a series of audio lectures. While this might not be as exciting to listen to in the car as Lady Gaga, it might prove to be infinitely more informative and helpful in terms of passing our exam in May. And yeah, his voice isn't what I would call . . . sparkly. But there is information to be had here, and it sure beats rereading the textbook 12,000 times! So I urge you to give it a shot, or at least remember it when our tests are a week away and you've got to be reading 25 books at the same time to get the information you need. And who doesn't love to be able to lie back and eat enormous amounts of potato chips while scrolling through Tumblr but still be studying?!

The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877 - Audio | Listen via Stitcher Radio On Demand

Vocab word in Chapter 29 reading

Tonight, while reading, I came across a word that I've never heard before (I dont know if all of you have--maybe it's just me).  But the word is antijingoist (pg. 646, used to describe Cleveland during the Cuban revolts against Spanish rule).

The formal definition of a jingoist is "a person who thinks that their country is always right and who are in favor of aggressive acts against other countries", which means that an antijingoist would be a person who is opposed to aggressive acts against other countries.

In this case, I assume antijingoist would describe the fact that Cleveland did not want to interfere after General Weyler put many Cubans in concentration camps in which the conditions were so bad that many died.  Even though the American public was outraged and demanded action, Cleveland did not want to act because it would mean mobilizing the army.

However, I was still curious about this word--so I did further research on the etymology.  Turns out that the British first sung this word ("by jingo") in a pub song around the time of Russo-Turkish war (1877) where it had been used instead of the term "by Jesus".  This probably suggests that the jingoists thought of nationalism as a religion, meaning that they practiced an extreme version of nationalism.  Very interesting to see that this word's meaning has not been changed throughout the years and still mainly remains a derogatory term.

Any other people that you can think of in US history that are obviously jingoist or antijingoist?

A bit off topic but interesting...

As we continue the debate about "history" this recent discussion of an event in American history might help to understand that "history" is often made up of multiple views...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/04/opinion/bergen-seals-bin-laden-killing/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Week 12: Day 2

Hi guys,

Don't forget that our test this week on chapter 24-28 (75 points)

There are many resources to use for this test:

• edmodo practice test/objective review ( it goes from chapter 24-32, but we only need to know 24-28) 
• blogger :D (thank you to everyone that has been contributing) 
• google doc folder (here's the Link if you need it) 
• college.engage's lectures: Transforming the West and Rise of Industry
• Mr. Stewart in-class lectures: (in-order)
• Little Big Horn
• Robber Barons and Rebels
• The Sinews of Democracy
• Wealth and Power Video
• Segment Part 1
• Segment Part 2
• Review Part 1
• Review Part 2 

Also, I'm going to hopefully get all the lectures in this 'topic' uploaded on dropbox and shared. Hope you guys don't mind the sound and other noises in the background. 

I hope this helps. I know that I personally like using different kind of methods to study. The college engage lecture I haven't really used yet, but it seems pretty good so far since it is supposed to summarize the textbook reading (at least for the 12th edition) They're pretty short about 15 minutes or so each compared to the ones I'm going to upload. Those ones are actual lectures in class, hence the reason why they are ranging from 40-50 minutes long. However, we still have a few more days, and you can always play these lectures in the background as you do your other homework

Good luck everyone

Jay Gould and The Gold Scandal

Hey guys!

I don’t know how many people were wondering this, but during this section Jay Gould’s name has been mentioned a few times, but I don’t really know what happened or why he’s famous. I figured I’d do a little researching and post it, in case anybody else was wondering the same thing.

First, to summarize Gould’s background, he was dubbed the “Mephistopheles of Wall Street.”  Mephistopheles is a German demon, sometimes considered the Devil.  He had ways of getting his hands on money that shouldn’t have been his (through fraud, bribery, etc.).  (He also worked with Boss Tweed.)

In 1869, Jay Gould decided he would corner the gold market by buying huge amounts of gold and hoarding it, driving the price up.  Then he could control the price of gold and sell it off slowly to make extremely large profits.  Unfortunately for him, President Grant’s monetary policy at the time was to buy back greenbacks from the people using gold (and so the U. S. Treasury controlled the price of gold).  And so Gould made friends with Grant’s brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, and the two struck a deal.  Corbin would get a split of the profits in exchange for insider’s information.  Corbin convinced Grant to hold onto gold and not sell; he reported this to Gould and Gould began buying.  (He let Jim Fisk in on the plan, which is why the their names appear together in reference to the event.)  The price of a $100 gold piece rose from $132 (in greenbacks) to $160.  Finally, Grant realized what they were up to when Corbin was too nosy, asking too many questions about Grant’s plans.  On September 24, 1869, Grant flooded the market with gold, immediately dropping the price back down to $133.  But by then Corbin had warned Gould, and Gould had sold his gold for a profit of about $12 million.  (Gould didn’t pass this information to Fisk, though Fisk got out without too many losses.)

The effects of the sudden drop in the price of gold was felt across the American economy.  The stock market dropped 20%, speculators were ruined, and the value of wheat and corn dropped by nearly 50% (destroying American farmers).  Grant earned a bad reputation from the scandal, and Gould got out with no consequences (and a lot of money).

I hope this helps clear some things up :)

Just a note, since we’ve been talking a lot about perspectives, I wonder if there is another way of spinning this story so that Gould looks like a good guy (similar to how Carnegie or Morgan can be viewed as good or bad, depending on your perspective).

(By the way, Gould rhymes with “fooled.”  It isn’t pronounced “gold.”  That would have been awesome though…)

http://www.history.com/news/the-black-friday-gold-scandal-145-years-ago