Progressive Era - The Jungle

 Questions:
1) What qualities did Sinclair believe a person must have to succeed in Packingtown?
2) According to the passage, what is the plant owner's main goal.
3) What does Sinclair mean when he says, "...there was no place in it where a man counted for      anything against a dollar....?"



Answers:
1) He believed that people who had good character and worked hard would rise and become more successful in Packingtown. 
2) The plant owner's main goal was to get as much work as possible out of the workers.
3) He is saying that the owners of the meat packaging plants did not care for anything other than the money, and that they did not have any loyalty or decency towards their workers as long as they brought in the cash they could care less.

Current US Government Regulations:
      The government now has a very large hold on the environment and tries to regulate what people do towards the environment. Through information from the Environmental Protection Agency we know that the government is trying to help the environment. The EPA focuses on trying to clean up water, air, waste, and chemical influences on the US. One way the EPA enforces these is by creating laws and acts that have a huge penalty if they are not followed, and EPA agents are allowed to investigate any business, corporation or industry that they think might be violating any of their laws.

Eyewitness to Imperialism

      Imperialism has changed countless lives throughout the course of history and destroyed the governments of many countries. Imperialism is the total economic and political takeover of an entire country or a portion of one. Many European countries had already joined the race for Imperialism around the world by 1900, but the United States had not yet decided whether or not to join the Imperialism race. At the time the US had control over the Philippines and was having conflicts with the Spanish over Cuba, but many of the politicians had very different views about what to do with Imperialism. 
      The Democrat William Jennings Bryan a US presidential candidate running for office in 1900, did not like the idea of the the US partaking in anything to do with the Philippines; moreover, he thought they should let the Philippines govern themselves and leave them to their own devices "We are told that the Filipinos are not capable of self-government; that has a familiar ring... The Filipinos are not far enough advanced to share in the government of the people of the United States, but they are competent to govern themselves" (William Bryan). He was one of many who opposed Imperialism in the United States, but others thought they where insane for not seeing the advantages of Imperialism. The Republican Theodore Roosevelt responded to the speech given by William Bryan opposing Imperialism with his own speech supporting the matter "Many of their people are utterly unfit for self-government and show no signs of becoming fit"(Theodore Roosevelt). In this short sentence from Roosevelt's speech he clearly states that the Filipinos are unfit for self-government. This was his way of saying that the US should hold on to the Philippines for their sake.
      After the Spanish-American War the US granted Cuba their independence, but Senator Orville H. Platt put together a set of requirements, known as the Platt Amendment, that Cuba had to meet "That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba"(Orville H. Platt). This rule that Platt came up with implied that the US did not want Cuba to become a victim of Imperialism again. It also seemed that the US liked to have control over other countries as a higher power, but they also wanted to protect the people of other countries.
      I think that the US should protect the rights of some countries that might still be targets of Imperialist nations, but should not become a Imperialist nation. I agree with the speech spoken by William Bryan about letting the Philippines govern themselves. I am going to say that the United States should not become a imperialist nation and should let all the countries under US control practice self-government.
-Cordel Bever

John D Rockefeller

 

1839-1937
John D Rockefeller was a great entrepreneur in the mid to late 1800s in the United States. Rockefeller started in the business of oil in the early 1860s and opened his first refinery in 1863. Not but a decade later he started an oil company called the Standard Oil Company. By 1880 Standard Oil had control of almost all of the nations oil and refineries in one great monopoly. Under the rule of Rockefeller the company made thousands of miles of pipelines and bought oil train cars to ship his product across the country. At this point he had control over almost the entire nation's oil.
In 1882 Rockefeller organized the Standard Oil Trust, which was a business trust that would serve as a business model for other monopolies; of course, he was appointed to be the head of the organization. In 1895 at the age of 56, he finally retired from Standard Oil. After his retirement he gave over 530 million dollars to various causes including the college he made called the Rockefeller University. Because of his great company the US was able to gather an immeasurable amount of oil and money. Without his business the country would not have had a lot of jobs he made available when he opened all of his factories, refineries and oil wells.
Rockefeller had five children (one of which died in infancy). He died on May 23, 1937; however, his legacy as one of the nations leading business men, continues on today.

-Cordel Bever 

Source: http://www.biography.com/people/john-d-rockefeller-20710159?page=1
            http://www.biography.com/people/john-d-rockefeller-20710159?page=2
Click HERE to see the full history of the Rockefellers 

 

The Builders

One of the many men who controlled the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad was Leland Stanford. He was a Governor that only ran one term because of the poor choices he made wile building the railroad and was a very self centered person. This man, even though he was horrible, built a large potion of the railroad.

On January 8, 1863 he first announced that he was going to start construction of the Central Pacific Railroad; on that day everyone cheered for all the great things that he promised. Their opinions quickly changed after some of his decisions. His first decision in may of that year was to appoint his business partner E. B. Crocker to the to California's supreme court. it was not really a bad thing but it made him look bad and he lost most of his supporters.

In August of 1868 the railroad had pushed out of the mountains and made a huge mistake by not keeping a delegate in the railroad camp of Brigham Young. So he then had to hire new workers. He had recently reached an agreement with Mormon laborers to work on the railroad. Some pros of Stanford's business on the railroad was that he built a good portion of it and helped expand the rail system all over the Pacific. Also because he was the boss he was able to make some of his own decisions. Some cons where that he made a fair amount of bad decisions that both hurt him and the railroad as a whole.
By Cordel Bever
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/tcrr-stanford         

Blog Post

Impacts of the Transcontinental Rail Road  

Anne-Marie Hammarstrom

http://historyissuperduperfunfun.blogspot.com/2013/10/impacts-of-transcontinental-rail-road.html

Dealing With Workers
Cordel Bever
http://vicksburgus.blogspot.com/2013/10/dealing-with-workers.html 

The Builders
Cordel Bever
 http://vicksburgus.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-builders.html

The Workers
Tj Cecil
http://alliemorgan99.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-workers-early-america-as-industrial.html

Life in Camp 
Allie Morgan
http://alliemorgan99.blogspot.com/2013/10/life-in-camp.html

Dealing With Workers

The working conditions where very bad on the West coast. Even in the early summer there where snow drifts up to 12 feet high, and the only way to build the railroad was to shovel a path. All the workers stayed at camps that where set up around the railroad, but the camps did not move with the progression so every day they had to walk an amount of miles to get back to camp. The workers on the railroad mostly consisted of Chinese and Irish immigrants.

The workers where working in very dangerous conditions for pay as low as 35 dollars a month. On one area of the Pacific railroad the Chinese tried to get their employers to raise their pay from 35 dollars to 45 and shorten their work hours to 10; however, they did not want to do that so they cut off all supplies to their camp in the mountains and did not pay them as a punishment. The workers finally went back to work so they would get food and pay but it did not settle the danger of working on the railroad. The workers will try to make the railroad a safe place to work but the employers will not.

The employers will only change the working conditions if the workers demand it and stop working to prove their point. As for dealing with the workers it is hard because the employers have to constantly make new payment plans for the workers and try to get a plan that both the workers and the employers agree with.
By Cordel Bever
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-strike

Battle of Vicksburg, 1863

Battle/Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi,

 By Cordel Bever

The town of Vicksburg was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi river. If the Union could take the town of Vicksburg they would be able to completely split the South in half and the Confederation would lose control of the Mississippi river. On May 19, 1863,Commander Grant launched an all out assault on Vicksburg resulting in huge Union casualties. They then tried to attack the town again but it failed as well.

            After both attacks failed Grant decided that the best way to capture the town was to put it under siege. Cutting off all food and supplies wile constantly bombing the town was the only way to capture the town. On June 4, 1863, when the Confederate troops where at the brink of starvation their commander at Vicksburg surrendered.

            After the battle of Vicksburg was over the Union had full control over the area. The battle of Vicksburg was a huge event for the Union; because of that battle, and a few after, the Union was able to win the war.