Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Americas Self-Making and Self-Help, COGGLE MAP CHECK 2 NEW ADDITIONS…

- - - - PURITAN IDEAS:
        Their ideology is that everything is up to God, therefore there is this craze to find omens, symbols, signs to determine God's chosen destinies for them. Finding meaning in things to see if one is ELECT
        They also believe that God has his reasons. Therefore everything negative happening towards them is a test/trail of faith, that if they succeed, they will be rewarded with a "city on a hill".
        -------John Edwards-------
        "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741)
        Week 2 | The Origins of the American (Puritan) Work Ethic and Self-Made Moral Authority
        The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood "
        A reflection of how extreme the Puritans ideology of God was.
        
        GOD HAS HIS REASONS:
        Mary Rowlandson
        "Excerpt from The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682)"
        Week 2 | The Origins of the American (Puritan) Work Ethic and Self-Made Moral Authority
        Puritan Belief in Action
        "And here I cannot take notice of the strange providence of God in preserving the heathen."
        Rowlandson questions, why God is taking care of her captors instead of her. She answers her own question with Puritan Belief believing that God must have his reasons, and that it was another test of her faith.
        
        WHITe Supremecy???
        
        PURITAN REVIVAL:
        Cotten Mather
        "The Tryals of Several Witches" (1693)
        Week 2 | The Origins of the American (Puritan) Work Ethic and Self-Made Moral Authority
        ...an Attempt so Critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon Enjoy Halcyon Days, with all the Vultures of Hell Trodden under our Feet."
        Around this time, religion was declining (Great Awakening) people began to keep wealth and power to themselves; contradicting John Winthrop's idea of Christian charity. Cotten Mather is a "new light" minister, a minster hired to preach leading to a more entertaining preaching style with an emphasis on conversion.
        Mather's account of the Salem Witch trials preaches the idea that this all these problems the colonist are facing -- raids, death, war -- is the devil's work, and if they continue forward with this test sent by God, they will be rewarded with their beloved "city on a hill". This is so important because Mather is putting front to this very Puritan Christian idea that God is testing their faith, and they will be rewarded later on.
        
        Puritain Literature: (or at least have some ideals)
        "The New England Primer" - Benjamin Harris
    - - Literature Reflecting the Enlightenment:
        Declaration of Independence
        The New England Primer
        Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography
      - ROMATICISM
        
        ROMANTICISM IDEAS:
        1830-1800
        Romanticism goes against the enlightenment
        Compared to the Enlightenment, which is more about being a man of the public, society, and much more governmental by consensus/democracy/social contracts, ROMANTICISM is much more individualistic and inward turning focusing on emotions, and turns to solitude and nature. Its subjective and organic, a ideology that explores desire.
        
        CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE/CAPTIAN JOHN BROWN:
        Throeau
        "On Civil Disobedience" (1849)
        Week 6 / Week 7 | Refuseniks & Individualist: American Transcendentalism & Romanticism
        "If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go... let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
        Thoreau preaches the idea that people should stand by their values, rather than listen to group agreements. Its an ethical approach, yet it is anti-democratic. There is no vote.
        He calls the government a machine and encourages individuals to break the machine if you think they are wrong. Or are not taking action.
        
        AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM
        19th Century movement of writers and philosophers in New England... an Idealistic system of thought based on belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic.
        A responce to derivative European culture.
        Central Beliefs:
        Individual as Divine
        God as benevolent
        Nature as a pathway to the divine
        
        Edgar Allen Poe. C2
        Does NOT LIKE TRANSCENDENTALISM
        *"The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Conqueror Worm" (1843), "Annabel Lee" (1849), "The Raven" (1845)
        Compared to Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe had more romantic views of the past and was interested in what cannot be explained, he was more politically conservative than Thoreau, and had an emphasis on genius and inspiration. He interestingly was skeptical of democracy and more fond towards aristocracy.
        He has an interest in art that conveys beauty and death,
        *"The Death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world".
        
        A Scientific Skeptic C2
        "The Conqueror Worm" (1843)
        Week 6 / Week 7 | Refuseniks & Individualist: American Transcendentalism & Romanticism
        Edgar Allen Poe questions man's dominance over nature
        "But see, amid the mimic rout, a crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! IT writhes!-- it writhes!-- with mortal pangs
        The mimes become its food, and seraphs sob at vermin fangs in human gore imbued... That the play is the tragedy, "man". and its hero, the Conqueror Worm".
        At the end of the poem, a worm is eating the corpse of a man, symbolizing nature, and how it wins over man at the end .
        
        Enlightenment Man Who Deserves to Be Criticized
        "The Tell-Tale Heart" C2
        Week 6 / Week 7 | Refuseniks & Individualist: American Transcendentalism & Romanticism
        The first words of the story are: "Its true, I've been I'll".
        Poe reveals how one man drives himself farther into insanity though his own guilt, as the man confesses his crime and that the body is hidden in his floorboards.
        
        Critical Of A Man Who Believes In the Enlightenment
        "The Raven (1845)" C2
        Week 6 / Week 7 | Refuseniks & Individualist: American Transcendentalism & Romanticism
        The Raven is a popular poem by Poe, in which a man who is thinking about his dead lover encounters a talking raven.
        "Thrilled me-- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; so that now, to still the beating of my herat, I stood repeating... tis some visitor entreating entrance at my door-- (stanza 6)"
        The grieving narrator is an enlightened man who makes excuses to rationalize fantastical things. Into the poem, he tries to come up with logical reasoning for what is happening.
        "We cannot help agreeing that no living human being ever yet was blessed with seeing a bird above his chamber door---" (stanza 9)
        The narrator is sounding like Benjamin Franklin who argues that nothing magical is possible.
        In stanza 17, the narrator unravels. The Narrator becomes undone, and loses his reasoning which causes him to act upon emotion. The narrator speaks back to the raven and the stanza's punctuation changes (more !'s) to show loss of control.
        "Leave my loneliness unbroken!... Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
        Poe in this poem, is calling out enlightenment men, saying that they cant deal with emotion
- - - - ASSEMBLY LINE:
        A product for work efficiency: Chaplin's Modern Times
        A protest against factory systems. This film challenged the idea of efficiency as good in itself, and commented on treatment of poor/immigrants.
        On the other hand, the film emphasized the importance of laughter.
    - - Echos of the Jazz Age
        EXPENDABLE MONEY
        
        Week 12 | The Businessman & The Flapper: The Middle Class, The New Morality, and Conspicuous Consumption C3
        Fitzgerald "Echos of the Jazz Age" (1931)
        In his book, Fitzgerald reflects on the Jazz Age. He recalls that the Jazz Age "had no interest in politics at all", he says there was a since of power and pride that lead Americans to think, "Who could tell us any longer what was fashionable and what was fun". The Jazz Age was a period of timme where everyone was having fun and partying (elders getting drunk with youth).
        He states with a bitterness that there was an explosion of wealth after World War 1, which referenced the increase of expendable money the middle class had gained. He says:
        "Nevertheless, Americans were wandering ever more widely-- friends seemed eternally bound for Russia, Persia, Abyssinia, and Central Africa. And by 1928, Paris had grown suffocating... money and power were falling into the hands of people... There were citizens travelling in luxury... who in the direction of their new condition, had the human value of Pekinese, bivalves, cretins, goats."
        The party has gone wrong, the wrong people are joining the party.
- - - - BEING SELF MADE:
        J. Hector St. John De Crèvecoeur
        "Letter 3: What is an American?"(1782) Establishing what is an American
        Week 3 | Ideas to Make a Nation
        "A traveller in Europe becomes a stranger as soon as he quits his own kingdom; but it is otherwise here. We know, properly speaking, no strangers. This is every person's country; the variety of our soils, situations, climates, governments, and produce, hath something which must please everybody. No matter of what condition, than his eyes are opened upon the fair prospect."
        
        A SELF MADE IMMIGRANT:
        Andrew Carnegie
        Week 10 | Upward Mobility and Man and the Machine: Robber Barons, Ragged Dicks, and Efficiency Experts C2
        
        A self made immigrant & millionare
        Owner of Carnegie Steel--> U.S Steel
        Self
        A sense of capitalism and social responsibility of wealth (nobles oblige)
        
        Horatio Alger
        Week 10 | Upward Mobility and Man and the Machine: Robber Barons, Ragged Dicks, and Efficiency Experts C2
        Horatio Alger, author of "Ragged Dick"
        Alger makes "rags-to-riches" novels for children, with the idea of inspiring the idea of outstanding individual who have succeeded in the face of adversity.
        He introduces the idea that these boys aren't perfect boys/children, rather slight naughty good boys which becomes more relatable and achievable.
        Literature such as this targeted the younger generation to inspire boys to make themselves work hard.
        
        THE ROAD TO FAME
        Jawline (Mandelup 2019) C3
        Week 15 | #riseandgrind: contemporary self-making and self-help
        
        This was a documentary following a young boy who tries to make it big in social media.
        His road to fame fails, but we can see self-help media being consumed by this young boy. He learns from other famous figures, and begins to read about self-discipline.
        We can see him trying to reach for The American Dream to make it big and make money, and to be an inspiration to others.
  - - - RELIGION IN EDUCATION
        Week 4 | American Educations: Child, Genius, Citizen
        
        "The England Primer"
        The England Primer taught literacy and religion. It has some Puritan ideals. Morals & the alphabet were taught side-by-side. It has implications about children (sinners)/childhood.
        "Though I am young, a little one, If I can speak and go alone, then I must lean to know the Lord, and learn to read his holy word."
        It suggests that at the time, it was assumed that if you were old enough to be saved by the lord.
    - - WHY AMERICAN SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT FROM ENGLAND
        Thomas Paine
        "On Common Sense"(1637)
        Week 3 | Ideas to Make a Nation
        Principles of the American Revolution, Paine's theories for why the American colonies should declare independence
        "In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense... that so far we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king... let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony, be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is"
        Common Sense gains support for the revolutionary war from the "Crisis Papers" which creates term of U.S.A and gives the first idea of American Political Identity. Paine is against allowing churches to pick new kings, thus he provides facts using science and logic to argue for the independence of America.
        This quote here argues that the law is king and even describes that the power of the monarchy, is dispersed to the people.
        This is why America is different and must be separated from the rule of monarchs like Europe.
      - DECLARATION AND THE CONSTITUTION
        Week 3 | Ideas to Make a Nation
        Declaration of Independence (1776)
        The Constitution (Ratified 1788)
        The Declaration of Independence is a declaration of truths and list of grievances about the King's Abuse of Power back in Europe as the King and Parliament acting together to pass laws and suspend rights in the colonies. In response to this, the D.I addresses "performative utterance": in which it brings the U.S into being.
        "When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to *dissolve the Political Bands"
        The Constitution
        "We the People of the United States, in Order to forma. more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility..."
        The Constitution sets up the government, and establishes articles and amendments to make America a "people's government".
- - - - Booker T. Washington
        Week 8 |A Black Middle Class After Reconstruction C2
        
        Cast your bucket down
        Five fingers
        Beginning w/ economics (working from bottom to top)
        
        1985 Atlanta Exposition Speech ("Atlanta Compromise")
        "To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next door neighbor. I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are"-- cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded."
        "In all things that are purely social, we can be as *separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress"
        Booker T. Washington gives a speech to a white audience, encouraging them to make friends with the african american people already in America, to befriend them and give them jobs, rather than immigrants.
      - W.E.B. Du Bios
        Week 8 |A Black Middle Class After Reconstruction C2
        
        1st African American w/ Ph.D from Harvard
        Souls of the Black Folk (1903)
        The Talented Tenth
        
        Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life.
        Du Bois is proposing that Black education shouldn't not include a focus on the practical skills he says that training and education only create money-makers and artisans, but not a man. Therefore, manhood should be the object of the work of schools.
        If intellegecne, sympathy, and knowledge is taught together, then this is the foundation in which the community can make *"bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life"
        In conclusion, if we change education to be more than just educating for the work force, the black community can make perfect people to represent us. one in ten Black men that have cultivated the ability to become leaders of the Black community by acquiring a college education, writing books, and becoming directly involved in social change.
  - - - ANXIETIES FOR AMERICANS: C2
        As immigrants came to America, Americans became concerned and afraid that American culture would change. Assimilation
        They were afraid that the habits and cultures of immigrants would taint American culture.
        
        E.A ROSS
        Week 11 | American Modernity - A Nation of Immigrants; Nervous White Boys and Girls
        Using Arguments of Women's Rights Against Immigration. C2
        "The Social Effects of Immigration" (1912)"
        "The Slavic thirst, multiplying saloons up to one for every twenty-six families, is communicated to Americans, and results in an increase of liquor crimes among all classes. In like manner familiarity with the immodesties of the foreigners coarsens the native-born".
        E.A Ross wanted to restrict immigration, because he believed that immigration would "lower" American society. It was an idea that sparked the term Race suicide.
        
        The Making Of An American Citizen Alice Guy Blache 1912
        Week 11 | American Modernity - A Nation of Immigrants; Nervous White Boys and Girls C2
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WSld4iEs04
        An immigrant husband makes his wife carry a heavy bag, and pull the carriage. When seen by an American citizen, the American takes the bag away from the wife and hands it to the husband.
        This film implies that Americans view immigrants as bad, and stereotypes them to be bad to women.
        This is an example of the anxiety of immigrants changing culture.