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The American Experience: Self-Making and Self-Help, By: Jake Fischer -…

- - - - John Winthrop
        
        Winthrop was a Puritan lawyer who really paved the way to the religious aspect of the Puritans when they were first colonizing in Massachusetts.
        
        He had a book he wrote that laid out the idea of worshiping the same God and the values that come with that. The book is called "A Model of Christian Charity"
        "From hence it appears plainly that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy etc., out of any particular and singular respect to himself, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature, man. Therefore, God still reserves the property of these gifts to himself"
        This is an excerpt from the book just explaining that all man is equal in sense of it doesn't matter how wealthy or how honorable, God is still greater than all mankind.
    - - Anne Hutchinson
        
        During the 1600s, there was a lot of belief that there were witches that would go against God's grace and be punished for being suspected. There were people held on trials and then put to death if found guilty. Anne Hutchinson was a woman that was suspected of witchcraft.
        
        Anne Hutchinson was a spiritual leader who had been preaching to the men and women of Massachusetts in her own home. This was looked at poorly because it was an improper way to hold meetings. She was also accused of speaking poorly on Puritan ministers idea of work versus grace.
      - "Elect" : Elect = worthy of heaven
        
        You were an elect individual if you were hardworking and showed frugality. Typically people would think its the other way around; you were hardworking and frugal if you were elect.
- - - - Was a best seller, with between 6-8 million copies sold from 1680-1830. This was used to teach literacy as well as religion.
- - - - Ben Franklin was a founding father of the United States who held many titles to his name. He was a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, forger, and political philosopher. That is quite the resume, so there is no doubt that he was a successful man and that he had his own idea about his success.
  - - - Douglass was a slave that, once free wrote a narrative about his life throughout his time being a slave and even time after. It showed people how gruesome and tough his upbringing was as a slave and shed light on the brutality and inequality shown towards blacks.
        
        "I could not feel that I was leaving any thing which I could have enjoyed by staying. My mother was dead, my grandmother lived far off, so that I seldom saw her. I had two sisters and one brother, that lived in the same house with me; but the early separation of us from our mother had well nigh blotted the fact of our relationship from our memories
        
        This excerpt from Douglass' Narrative shows the idea that there was not much connection to family as a slave. They were to be separated and used for work and that was it, they couldn't be with their families.
        
        Booker T. Washington
        
        Booker T Washington was a very big voice for African Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In this class we looked over The Atlanta Compromise Speech of 1895. This speech was one of the most influential and important speeches of American history.
        
        W.E.B. Du Bois
        
        We studied "The Talented Tenth" by WEB Du Bois. In the passage it says,
        "He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social classes."
        This is saying that the African Americans have people that can lead them through the tough times by giving them wisdom and they typically were people that went to school. It is tough for colored people to be apart of social groups since the use of them was typically for slavery and work.
    - - Phillis Wheatley was the first black poet in English, and was also the start of African American literature. She was taught English, where she then began writing poems. Soon there after she had become free from slavery where her poems grew a name for her and she gained international freedom.
        
        Wheatley's poems were written with very proper and verbose vocabulary:
        "O could my muse thy seat on high behold,
        How deckt with laurel, how enrich'd with gold!"
  - - - Poe was a poet that really highlighted the idea of Romanticism. The reason I put him under the success category is because he was a very popular poet whose work is still looked at today in classrooms. He was a very successful writer and idealist.
- - - - "We have an opportunity to remake America and make it an example of freedom for the world; we should seize it."
        This is just one of the summaries in Paine's "Common Sense," but it really shows the ideology that he used to bring sense to new Americans and shows how he influenced the nation a great amount to break free and become an independent country.
  - - - Martin Luther King Jr.
        
        Martin Luther King was an activist leader, probably the most popular in America that many learn about, who fought against racial injustice during the time of segregation. He is put under the independence branch because he was a major voice for the independence of African Americans during a very racially motivated time.
      - Abigail Adams was very vocal about the idea that women should be created equally and have a voice in important things like political decisions, and other day to day things. This opinion can be seen in the letters written between her and John Adams.
  - - - Madison is known as the Father of the Constitution due to the fact that he played a big role in writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
  - - - When we looked at Thoreau we mainly looked at his ideas of abolitionism.
        " 'That government is best which governs least'... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which
        also I believe,—'That government is best which governs not at all'"
        This quote shows the idea that there were skeptical thoughts of the government at the time and Thoreau thought the idea of a perfect government would be one that isn't governing.
    - - We looked at Phyllis Schlafly's speech "What's Wrong with Equal Rights for Women." In this she talks about how women have it off great and she illustrates the idea that the fight for equal rights isn't something that needs to be happening.
        "The real liberation of women from the backbreaking drudgery of centuries is the American free enterprise system which stimulated inventive geniuses to pursue their talents—and we all reap the profits"
- - - - Teddy Roosevelt had written the "American Boy" which pretty much walked through the ideal way to raise a son in order for him to be a respectable and honorable American man. He really focused on the idea that the way you are is the way that you were raised.
  - - - Dale Carnegie was a writer who really focused on self-improvement, salesmanship, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. We looked at his book "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
        In the beginning of this book, he gives the reader nine steps on how they could get the most out of this book as they read. Part of step five says
        "So, if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this book, don’t imagine that skimming through it once will suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month. Keep it on your desk in front of you every day. Glance through it often. Keep constantly impressing yourself with
        the rich possibilities for improvement that still lie in the offing."
  - - - We looked at Jenny O'Dell's "How to do Nothing" and it really talks about how technology has made the world lazy and we can be productive through the technology used.
        "Nothing is harder to do than nothing. In a world where our value is determined by our productivity, many of us find our every last minute captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily."
- - - - F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American novelist who had written many books in his time. Some of his works include The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and many more. The one that we looked at in class was "Echoes of the Jazz Age" and it says,
        "'there’s a whole generation growing up that will never know the taste of liquor.' Meanwhile their granddaughters pass the well-thumbed copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover around the boarding school and, if they get about at all, know the taste of gin or corn at
        sixteen."
  - - - Ralph G. Martin was a journalist and in class we touched base on one of his articles called "Life in the New Suburbia." This article really talks about how the suburban houses and communities that started to sprout up really made people feel like they were at home for the first time. Everyone was nice to each other in neighborhoods and willing to help each other.
        "For new comers it sometimes becomes overwhelming. You come home from work to find your neighbor (whom you haven't met yet) had put your milk in her refrigerator so the sun didn't spoil it."