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American Experience: Self-Making and Self-Help, IMG_0262, IMG_0263, IMG…

- - - - In this poem,
        Ginsburg discusses the fact that the rise of 1950’s suburbia has brought along a new age of conformity, and states that he has watched some of the greatest minds of his generation be destroyed by this massive shift in culture.
  - - - “Of course the effect that a thoroughly manly, thoroughly straight and upright boy can have upon the companions of his own age, and upon those who are younger, is incalculable. If he is not thoroughly manly, then they will not respect him, and his good qualities will count for but little; while, of course, if he is mean, cruel, or wicked, then his physical strength and force of mind merely make him so much the more objectionable a member of society. He cannot do good work if he is not strong and does not try with his whole heart and soul to count in any contest; and his strength will be a curse to himself and to every one else if he does not have thorough command over himself and over his own evil passions, and if he does not use his strength on the side of decency, justice, and fair dealing.”
    - - In Friedans writing, she discusses the “strange sense of dissatisfaction” amongst American women. How they’ve been told to find their worth and happiness in being a caretaker, whether it be for their husbands, children, houses, or all three at once. Women all over were left wondering if this is all that is out there for them.
        However, this is right around when the womens suffrage movement started, and women began to enjoy new rights and ways to live, this bringing about a societal change in regards to the role of women.
    - - Amidst the rise of feminism and womens suffrage, Phyllis Schlafley takes on a rather different take, in saying that women shouldn’t want the right to work (as well as other goals set by the suffrage movement) because women already have it so easy. They don’t have to lift a finger, and are provided for and treated like queens by society, therefore, why shift his mindset at all and give women more work and responsibilities?
- - - - The autobiography he wrote emphasized his status as a “self-made” man, and expressed the value in this way of life. He said that his priotritization of self-growth and his status as “self-made” was the main contributor to his success. This way of living has made its way into our modern way of living as we see the idea of self-help and independence as a major part of the american identity
- - - - An escaped slave who moved to the North and advocated for abolition, as well as writing about his experiences as a slave.
        “I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it….”
    - - A former slave who became the first black, female, english poet. She was well educated by her slave owners, and her writings and experiences were taken, and radicalized by abolitionists as well as pro-slavery advocates.
    - - Malcom X
        
        Malcom X was also a well known civil rights activist, however, he took a less peaceful route of advocacy. Malcom wanted to bring about a revolution, he saw how the whites were treating African Americans, and decided that a revolution was necessary in order to give them equal rights. This can be seen in his “Message to the Grassroots”.
      - MLK
        
        MLK is a household name, and was at the forefront of the civil rights movement. He took a more peaceful approach to achieving equal rights for black citizens, and was very outspoken in regards to the fact that racism is some within groups not only engrained in society, but the government and justice systems as well.This can be seen in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
  - - - Wife of John Adams. Wrote letters to her husband emphasizing the hypocrisy of the fight for “liberty”, due to the fact thatr their definition of liberty very cleary did not apply to enslaves people, and women in particular.
        “I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be Equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon that generous and Christian principle of doing to others as we would do unto them.”
    - - Cotton Mathers on the trials
        
        “We have been advised by some Credible Christians yet alive, that a Malefactor, accused of Witchcraft as well as Murder, and Executed in this place more than Forty Years ago, did then give Notice of, An Horrible PLOT & against the Country by WITCHCRAFT, and a Foundation of WITCHCRAFT then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered, would probably Blow up, and pull down all the Churches in the Country. And we have now with Horror seen the Discovery of such a WITCHCRAFT!”
    - - Neuropathy
        
        “The Yellow Wallpaper”
        By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
        
        The yellow wall paper depicts a woman who was suffering from a sort of depression, and prescribed rest by her psychiatrist husband to cure it. While trying to get better, her husband constantly belittles her and does not take any of her concerns seriously. Throughout the writing, the woman begins to go crazy, imagining a man behind the wall paper.
        
        This writing attests to the struggle that women faced not only in psychiatry, but in society, this struggle being that they were never taken seriously. The woman constantly expresses her feelings to her husband, and is instead belittled to the point of insanity
        
        When diagnosed with neuropathy, there were different treatments for men and women.
        
        Men were expected to go into the wilderness, and be rugged and manly to cure them
        
        Women were sentenced to bed rest in order to cure them… of depression… because that certaintly makes a lot of sense
    - - Audre Lorde
        ”The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”
        
        Audre Lorde discussed the fact that in order to acheive equal rights for lesbians, black people, and women, you cannot separate the three. Rights have to be rough for with all people in mind, and you can’t separate someone’s identity into simply one or the other, which sadly was a common experience for poor, POC, LGBTQ and other marginalized women when trying to participate in feminism.
  - - - This poem depicts the Statue of Liberty as an American mother figure of sorts.
        She welcomes immigrants from far and wide, the poor and the starving, and says that they wil be welcomed here, and will be able to live in peace here.
        Establishes America as a beacon for the less fortunate.
    - - “It’s Wavering Image”
        By Sui Sin Far
        
        “Because I am a Chinese woman.” She answered.
        ”you are not,” cried Mark Carson, fiercely. “You cannot say that now Pan. You are a white woman - white, Did your kiss not promise me that?”
        ”A white woman!” Echoed Pan her voice rising high and clear to the stars above them. “I would not be a white woman for all the world. You are a white man. And what is a promise to a white man
        
        This story represents a half-Chinese, half-white immigrant woman in America, and her experience with a white man constatly misrepresenting her race, and attempting to completely assimilate her into white culture, as he does not understand nor accept her half-Asian heritage.
- - - - John Winthrop, a puritan man who emphasized predestination, communitarianism, and relationships with God. Also introduced the “city on the hill”.
        “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”
    - - A puritan woman who was captured and held captive by Native Americans and wrote a book about her experience, in which she demonizes their way of life and critizes them for their religion and “lack of morals”. She also descirbes how her relationship with God helped her to survive
        “I cannot express to man the affliction that lay upon my Spirit; but the Lord helped me at that time to express it to Himself. I opened my Bible to read, and the Lord brought that precious Scripture to me, Jer. xxi.16, Thus
        saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy”
  - - - Benjamin Franklin is arguably one of the most important enlightenment figures, and his autobiography was one of the key factors into the introduction of the “self-made man”
        “From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and in which I passed my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence and some degree of celebrity in the world.”
    - - Thomas Pain was also a significant enlightenement thinker. He wrote the essay “Common Sense”, in which he emphasized rational thinking, as well as it’s important role in the American Revolution.
        “Tmhink for yourself, and follow common sense. In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.”
  - - - Believed in a small government and individual freedoms. “the government is best which governs least.”
  - - - A whimsical and mysterious man, with a strange life. Huge focus on emotions, as well as the romatiscism of odd topics, and skeptical views on science.
        “The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world,”
  - - - Founded Carnegie Steel, and was the wealthiest man in America at the time. He was a self made man and a firm believer in philanthropy, and the fact that the wealthy should be giving back to their communities and the less fortunate.
        ”The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and the poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days, there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and enviroment of the cheif and those of his retainers… The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day measures the which has come with civilization”change
    - - Pros: Incredibly industrious, and forever impacted the American way of work and living
        Cons: Was horrifically antisemetic…
- - - - Carnegie was at one time the wealthiest man in America, and he was also one of the strongest advocates for philanthropy, and believed that the upper clas should be giving back to their communities. However, this was not completely out of the goodness of his heart, as he also believed that this was one of the best ways to keep a class war at bay
- - - - This film follows a young wanna be influncer as he tries to grow his following and succeed in internet stardom in order to help him and his family out of poverty.
        I think it is particularly interesting to see the shift from hands on, 9 to 5 jobs to modern day careers, and how much the modern mindset regarding work has shifted, especially in the age of technology.