Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
remember-this-whenever-you-are-feeling-down
American Experiences &…
American Experiences & Constitutional Changes
Important People
Adults
Senator Marco Rubio
- "Born in Miami, Florida, one of four children of Cuban immigrants who came to America in 1956. Both of his parents earned their way to the middle class by working humble jobs, his father as a bartender in hotels and his mother as a maid, cashier, and stock clerk. Thanks to their powerful and loving example, Senator Rubio learned the importance of family and hard work and came to realize that all things are possible in America."
Costica Bradatan
- A Romanian-born American Philosopher. He's a Professor of Humanities in the Honors College at Texas Tech University.
Phillis Wheatley
1753-1784
- First black poet in English; Second American women poet, beginning African-American literature.
- John & Susanna Wheatley teach Phillis to read & write.
- 1773 - Gains Freedom
Benjamin Franklin
- 1706-1790
- American printer & publisher, author, inventor & scientist, & diplomat. One of the founding fathers, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence & was one of its signers.
- Ben's rules included temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, cleanliness, chastity, tranquility, & humility.
Thomas Paine
- England-born philosopher & writer who supported revolutionary causes in America & Europe.
- "Common Sense," (1776) gains support for the revolution during war. Also known as "Crisis Papers." Creates the term "U.S.A."
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
- Frenchman Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur bought farmland in 1764 after having served in the French & Indian War. He lived the life of an "American farmer" until the upheaval of the American Revolution drove him first to join Loyalist refugees in NYC & then, after being imprisoned as a suspected spy by the British, back to his homeland in France.
John Adams
- An early advocate of American independence from Great Britain, a major figure in the Continental Congress (1774–77), the author of the Massachusetts constitution (1780), a signer of the Treaty of Paris (1783), the first American ambassador to the Court of St. James (1785–88), and the first vice president (1789–97) and second president (1797–1801) of the United States.
Abigail Adams
- An early advocate for women’s rights, she was a vital confidant and advisor to her husband John Adams, the nation’s second president. She opposed slavery and supported women’s education.
- In 1776, as her husband participated in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Adams wrote her most famous letter that the Founding Fathers “remember the ladies.” She added, “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.”
John Winthrop
- An English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of colonists from England in 1630 and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring colonies in addition to those of Massachusetts.
Mary Rowlandson
- British American colonial author who wrote one of the first 17th-century captivity narratives, in which she told of her capture by Native Americans, revealing both elements of Native American life and of Puritan-Indian conflicts in early New England.
Anne Hutchinson
- A charismatic spiritual leader who was banished from Massachusetts & killed in a raid. She cursed the colony. The accusations against her was breaking the fifth commandment, holding improper meetings (preaching to men & women at her house), & speaking ill of puritan ministers.
Cotton Mather
- American Congregational minister and author, supporter of the old order of the ruling clergy, who became the most celebrated of all New England Puritans. He combined a mystical strain (he believed in the existence of witchcraft) with a modern scientific interest (he supported smallpox inoculation).
John Edwards
- Edwards believed that people had fallen away from the demanding faith, with its emphasis on God's grace, that was so essential to their salvation. With that in mind, this great theologian began a revival in his Northampton, Massachusetts, church in the 1730s that became part of the general revival movement called the Great Awakening. To awaken people's faith and belief in the majesty of God, he presented both positive and negative images of God's power. He wanted people to feel God's presence, not just think about it.
Frederick Douglass
- African American abolitionist, orator, newspaper publisher, and author who is famous for his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. He became the first Black U.S. marshal and was the most photographed American man of the 19th century.
Henry David Thoreau - An American transcendentalist and romanticist whose writings focused on ecology and civil liberties. Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist that inspired later political thoughts and actions of figures like MLK Jr.
Edgar Allan Poe
- A central figure of Romanticism in American literature. Creator of the short story, modern horror, science fiction, & detective fiction.
Booker T. Washington
- Born into slavery, Washington rose up and founded the Tuskegee Institute. In the midst of Jim Crow Laws, racial violence, and the KKK rising up, he delivered the Atlanta Exposition Speech in 1895, advocating for "separate but equal" practices in labor and for both whites and African-Americans to cast their buckets down.
W.E.B. Du Bois
- A sociologist, Du Bois was the founder of NAACP & The Crisis, and was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Du Bois advocated for Black American to embrace their black heritage in the U.S., creating the concept of "double consciousness." He advocated for black men to become leaders in their community through higher education.
Andrew Carnegie
- An immigrant from Scotland. He became the owner of Carnegie Steel Company/U.S. Steel. He became the leading philanthropist in the U.S. He gave around 90% of his fortune to charities, foundations, & universities.
Jacob Riis
- American newspaper reporter, social reformer, & photographer who gave readers factual descriptions of slum conditions in NYC. Riis photographed the interiors/exteriors of NY slums with a flash lamp.
. Horatio Alger. - A Best-Selling author who wrote rags-to-riches novels for children. He has a scholarship for "outstanding individuals who have succeeded in the face of adversity."
Henry Ford - The founder of Ford Motor Company & developer of standardizing the alienation of labor & assembly line. He was able to provide good pay for cheaper products. He did hold anti-semitic views.
Frederick Winslow Taylor - An American mechanical engineer who was an expert in efficiency and devised the "One Best Way" to solving labor through standardization.
Sui SIn Far - Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914) was the first daughter of a British father, Edward Eaton, & Chinese mother, Grace A. Trefusis. She wrote about Chinese men & women in the U.S., & of mixed-race women, challenging stereotypes of Chinese immigrants.
. Emma Lazarus
- One of the first successful & visible Jewish American Authors. She advocated for Jewish refugees & argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland. She was commissioned to write a poem to raise funds for the Statue of Liberty.
E.A. Ross
- An American sociologist, eugenicist, & criminologist that believed in restricting immigration & of "race suicide." Ross believed that immigrants were a "disease" overtaking America.
Theodore Roosevelt
The 26th President of the United States. Roosevelt's Presbyterian upbringing shaped his views on masculinity, not allowing children to be selfish, cruel, or cowardice.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- An American novelist & advocate for social reform & eugenicist. Her best remembered work is the short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," which she wrote after experiencing postpartum psychosis.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
- An American novelist, essayist, & short story writer. Known for writing about the flamboyance & excessive of the Jazz Age--a term he popularized. He believed Americans became disillusioned with social norms & obsessed with self-gratification.
Sinclair Lewis
- An American novelist who wrote satirical novels criticized American complacency and losing individualism due to a person's surroundings.
Dorothy Parker
- An satirical American poet who wrote for Vogue, Vanity Fair, New Yorker and was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.
Dale Carnegie - American writer & lecturer who developed courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, & interpersonal skills. Carnegie believed it was possible to change people's behavior by changing your own behavior towards them.
Ralph G. Martin - An American journalist who enlisted in the Army and was a combat correspondent for the Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Martin later worked as an editor for several domestic arts publications before writing biographies on popular historical figures.
Allen Ginsberg
- An American poet and beats writer. He embraced counterculture and opposed capitalism and conformity in the U.S.
Ralph Ellison
- A 20th century African American writer and critic who's bestselling works include Invisible Man in 1952 & Juneteenth in 1999.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
- An American baptist minister, activist, & one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement who believed in nonviolence and civil disobedience from his christian beliefs and other nonviolent activists.
Malcolm X - American Muslim minister, human rights activist, & a prominent figure during the civil rights movement as an advocate for the Nation of Islam and black empowerment. He advocated for the separation of black and white Americans.
Betty Friedan
- American feminist writer & activist who was a leading figure in the women's movement in the United States.
Phyllis Schlafly
- American attorney, conservative activist, author, & anti-feminist spokesperson for the national conservative movement. She opposed feminism, gay rights, abortion access, & successfully campaigned against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Audre Lorde
- American poet, essayist, and autobiographer known for her writings on lesbian feminism & racial issues.
Jenny Odell - Writer & artist based in Oakland, California who explores new frameworks to perceive everyday reality. They argue fro the right to do nothing in the age of everything & to see time as something other than money.
Children
Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, & Ann Putnam Jr.
- Three little girls (9-11YO) accused three poor/enslaved women of witchcraft for causing their fits. This accusation caused mass hysteria within the town and surrounding villages.
Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, & Carol Denise McNair
- The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing happened on September 15, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama by four members of a local KKK chapter. None of the perpetrators were prosecuted until 1977. The bombing marked a turning point in the U.S. during the civil rights movement.
Success
Thomas Paine, "Common Sense," (1776)
- “There is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.”
- “To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho’ himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that natural disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an Ass for a Lion.”
- “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.”
- “WHEREFORE, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen; an open and resolute friend; and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND, and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA.”
- “Now is the moment to declare independent and form our own government. And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge….Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do; ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government….”
- “The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves. First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas, the articles or charter of government, should be formed first, and men delegated to execute them afterward: but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity–To begin government at the right end….”
Frederick Douglass, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave," (1847)
- “These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty — to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both” (Douglass, 36-37).
- “From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a separate room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of myself. All this, however, was too late. The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell” (Douglass, 40).
- “I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled "The Columbian Orator." Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master — things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master” (Douglass, 41-42).
Current Events
Chinese Exclusion Act
- “In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States. For the first time, federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.”
Great Depression - A period of economic depression between 1929-1939 after the Wall Street Stock Market Crash of October 24th, also known as Black Tuesday.
18th Amendment - Proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment declared the production, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors illegal, although it didn't outlaw the actual consumption of alcohol.
21 Amendment
- Proposed by Congress on February 20, 1933, and ratified on December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, which mandated a nationwide prohibition on alcohol.
The Cold War
- Period of tension between the United States & the Soviet Union and their allies, the Western Block & the Eastern Block. The conflict was based on ideological & geopolitical struggle for global influence. Influenced the Red Scare, the Lavender Scale, and Marcarthyism.
Battle of Birmingham
- A movement led in 1963 by the SCLC to bring attention to desegregate public facilities in Birmingham, Alabama. It was launched with mass meetings, lunch counter sit-ins, marches, & boycotts. More than 1,000 African American students arched into downtown Birmingham where they were arrested, blasted by fire hoses, clubbed, & attacked by police & dogs.
Historical Events
Underground Railroad
- Enslaved African Americans gained their freedom by escaping bondage through undiscovered houses across state & international borders. Missing enslaved people were labeled as fugitives or runaways.
King Phillip's War
- An armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England colonists and their indigenous allies.
-At sunrise on February 10, 1676, during King Philip's War, Lancaster came under attack by Narragansett, Wampanoag, and Nashaway/Nipmuc Indians led by Monoco. Rowlandson and her three children, Joseph, Mary, and Sarah, were among those taken in the raid. The King Philip War.
Rowlandson's 6-year-old daughter, Sarah, succumbed to her wounds after a week of captivity. Lancaster raid site on Main Street in Lancaster
For more than 11 weeks, Rowlandson and her remaining children were forced to accompany the Indians as they travelled through the wilderness to carry out other raids and to elude the English militia.
- “I went along that day mourning and lamenting, leaving farther my own Countrey, and traveling into the vast and howling Wilderness; and I understood something of Lot's Wife's Temptation, when she looked back...When I came to the brow of the hill, that looked toward the Swamp, I thought we had been come to a great Indian Town (though there were none but our own company). The Indians were as thick as the Trees: it seemed as if there had been a thousand Hatchets going at once. If one looked before one there was nothing but Indians, and behind one, nothing but Indians; and so on either hand; I myself in the midst, and no Christian Soul near me.”
Salem Witch Trials
- The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, 19 of whom were executed by hanging (14 women and five men).
- “Wherefore The devil is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarl’d with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountered; 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. He has wanted his Incarnate Legions to Persecute us, as the People of God have in the other Hemisphere been Persecuted: he has therefore drawn forth his more spiritual ones to make an attacque upon us. 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!”
The Great Awakening
- A religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. Christian leaders often traveled from town to town, preaching about the gospel, emphasizing salvation from sins and promoting enthusiasm for Christianity. The result was a renewed dedication toward religion. Many historians believe the Great Awakening had a lasting impact on various Christian denominations and American culture at large.
- "Men’s hands can’t be strong when God rises up: the strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands...There is no fortress that is any defence against the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God’s enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces: they are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so ’tis easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by; thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell.”
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
- John Brown & 22 men raid the arsenal to provoke slave rebellion & force war. Ten of his men were killed. Brown was captured, tried, & hung.
Henry David Thoreau - "All is quiet at Harper's Ferry," say the journals. What is the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out, with glaring distinctness, the character of this government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself a merely brute force, or worse, a demoniacal force. It is the head of the Plug-Uglies. It is more manifest than ever that tyranny rules. I see this government to be effectually allied with France and Austria in oppressing mankind. There sits a tyrant holding fettered four millions of slaves; here comes their heroic liberator. This most hypocritical and diabolical government looks up from its seat on the gasping four millions, and inquires with an assumption of innocence: "What do you assault me for? Am I not an honest man? Cease agitation on this subject, or I will make a slave of you, too, or else hang you."
Tulsa Race Massacre
- From May 31 to June 1, 1921, white residents burned & destroyed 35 blocks of Black Wall Street, a wealthy black community. The massacre happened during a heightened time of mass disenfranchisement, racial violence, race riots, and the beginnings of the KKK.
-
Important Themes
Racial Equality
Ralph Ellison - “And whenever things went well for me I remembered my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable. It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself. And to make it
worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men in town. I was considered an example of desirable con- duct-just as my grandfather had been. And what puzzled me was that the old man had defined it as treachery. When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did. It made me afraid that some day they would look upon me as a traitor and I would be lost.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. - “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ As on of distinguished jurists once said ‘Justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”
Martin Luther King, Jr. - “I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods’; who paternistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . . .”
Martin Luther King, Jr. - “I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare ‘Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.’ In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice I have heard many ministers say, ‘Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern,’ and I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which made a strange unbiblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular. . . .”
American Suburbia
Ralph G. Martin - “People who lived for years in apartment houses without ever really knowing their neighbors come here and start living Dale Carnegie. For newcomers it sometimes becomes overwhelming. You come home from work to find your neighbor (whom you hadn’t yet met) had put your milk in her refrigerator so the sun wouldn’t spoil it. If you don’t have a car, neighbors with cars are always asking your wife, ‘I’m going shopping. Do you want to come along?’”
Ralph G. Martin - “In the regular public schools (there will be three open soon, with sites for five more set aside) there are more than thirty new admissions a day. Slightly more than two years ago there were only thirty-seven pupils in this whole district. Now there are 1,180 pupils in grades one to eight, a thousand more expected by September, 1950.”
Ralph G. Martin - “Another frequently brought up criticism is that this town isn’t typical of the real world. You can tell your child about old people, but you can’t show him any. The same is almost true of teen-agers.”
Ralph G. Martin - “The case for this sort of new semi-rural community isn’t clearcut. It depends on who you are. But if you want a place where you can walk safely down the street with a pet live duck; if you want a place where you can start a small symphony orchestra simply by writing a letter to the editor, as automobile salesman Lawrence Eliscu did; if you like to get up in the morning and go right out into the fresh air–not smoke or dirt, but real fresh air; if you prefer folk dances to the juke box, buttercups to Broadway; if all your life you’ve unconsciously been running away from the pushing, blaring hurry of the city–then this is for you.”
American Cynicism
F. Scott Fitzgerald - “Yet the present writer already looks back to it with nostalgia. It bore him up, flattered him and gave him more money than he had dreamed of, simply for telling people that he felt as they did, that something had to be done with all the nervous energy stored up and unexpended in the War.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald - “Presently we began to have slices of the national cake and our idealism only flared up when the newspapers made melodrama out of such stories as Harding and the Ohio Gang or Sacco and Vanzetti. The events of 1919 left us cynical rather than revolutionary, in spite of the fact that now we are all rummaging around in our trunks wondering where in hell we left the liberty cap–“I know I had it”–and the moujik blouse. It was characteristic of the Jazz Age that it had no interest in politics at all.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald - “We were the most powerful nation. Who could tell us any longer what was fashionable and what was fun? Isolated during the European War, we had begun combing the unknown South and West for folkways and pastimes, and there were more ready to hand.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald - “The word jazz in its progress toward respectability has meant first sex, then dancing, then music. It is associated with a state of nervous stimulation, not unlike that of big cities behind the lines of a war.”
Rights & Duties of Man
Theodore Roosevelt - “There are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the last few decades there certainly have been some notable changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question had an excellent effect in increased manliness. Forty or fifty years ago the writer on American morals was sure to deplore the effeminacy and luxury of young Americans who were born of rich parents. The boy who was well off then, especially in the big Eastern cities, lived too luxuriously, took to billiards as his chief innocent recreation, and felt small shame in his inability to take part in rough pastimes and field-sports. Nowadays, whatever other faults the son of rich parents may tend to develop, he is at least forced by the opinion of all his associates of his own age to bear himself well in manly exercises and to develop his body—and therefore, to a certain extent, his character—in the rough sports which call for pluck, endurance, and physical address.”
Theodore Roosevelt - “We cannot expect the best work from soldiers who have carried to an unhealthy extreme the sports and pastimes which would be healthy if indulged in with moderation, and have neglected to learn as they should the business of their profession. A soldier needs to know how to shoot and take cover and shift for himself—not to box or play foot-ball.”
Theodore Roosevelt - “No boy can afford to neglect his work, and with a boy work, as a rule, means study. Of course there are occasionally brilliant successes in life where the man has been worthless as a student when a boy. To take these exceptions as examples would be as unsafe as it would be to advocate blindness because some blind men have won undying honor by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplishing great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons—in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his whole heart into them. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard play outside of school will not find any need for horse-play in school. While they study they should study just as hard as they play foot-ball in a match game. It is wise to obey the homely old adage, "Work while you work; play while you play."
Immigration
E.A. Ross - “Excessive insanity is probably a part of the price the foreign-born pay for the opportunities of a strange and stimulating environment, with greater strains than some of them are able to bear. America calls forth powerful reactions in these people. Here they feel themselves in the grasp of giant forces they can neither withstand nor comprehend. The passions and the exertions, the hopes and the fears, the exultations and the despairs, America excites in the immigrant are likely to be intenser than anything he would have experienced in his natal village.”
E.A. Ross - "Obedience to parents seems to be dying out among the Jews," says a Boston charity visitor. "The children feel it isn't necessary to obey a mother who wears a shawl or a father who wears a full beard." "Sometimes it is the young daughter who rules the Jewish family," observes a Pittsburgh settlement head, "because she alone knows what is 'American.' But see how this results in a great number of Jewish girls going astray. Since the mother continues to shave her head and wear a wig as she did in Poland, the daughter assumes that mother is equally old-fogyish when she insists that a nice girl doesn't paint her face or run with boys in the evening."
E.A. Ross - “Through their knowledge of our speech and ways, the children have a great advantage in their efforts to slip the parental leash. The bad boy tells his father that whipping "doesn't go" in this country. Reversing the natural order, the child becomes the fount of knowledge, and the parents hang on the lips of their precocious offspring. If the policeman inquires about some escapade or the truant officer gives warning, it is the scamp himself who must interpret between parent and officer. The immigrant is braced by certain Old-World loyalties, but his child may grow up loyal to nothing whatever, a rank egoist and an incorrigible who will give us vast trouble before we are done with him.”
E.A. Ross - “It is the second generation that will give us trouble. The parents come with rugged peasant health, and many of them keep their strength even in the slum. But their children often start life weakened physically and mentally by the conditions under which they were reared. They have been raised in close, unsanitary quarters, in overlarge families, by parents who drunk up or saved too much, spent too little on the children, or worked them too soon. Their sole salvation is the open country, and they can't be pushed into the country. All of us are aghast at the weak fiber of the second generation. Every year I see the morass of helpless poverty getting bigger. The evil harvest of past mistakes is ripening, but it will take twenty years before we see the worst of it. If immigration were cut off short to-day, the burden from past neglect and exploitation would go on increasing for years.”
Capitalism
Frederick Winslow Taylor - “Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern scientific management is the task idea. The work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work. And the work planned in advance in this way constitutes a task which is to be solved, as explained above, not by the workman alone, but in almost all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the management. This task specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it. And whenever the workman succeeds in doing his task right, and within the time limit specified, he receives an addition of from 30 percent to 100 percent to his ordinary wages. These tasks are carefully planned, so that both good and careful work are called for in their performance, but it should be distinctly understood that in no case is the workman called upon to work at a pace which would be injurious to his health. The task is always so regulated that the man who is well suited to his job will thrive while working at this rate during a long term of years and grow happier and more prosperous, instead of being overworked. Scientific management consists very largely in preparing for and carrying out these tasks. . . .”
Frederick Winslow Taylor - “Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will do exactly as this man tells you tomorrow, from morning till night. When he tells you to pick up a pig and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when he tells you to sit down and rest, you sit down. You do that right straight through the day. And what’s more, no back talk. Now a high-priced man does just what he’s told to do, and no back talk. Do you understand that? When this man tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit down, and you don’t talk back at him. Now you come on to work here tomorrow morning and I’ll know before night whether you are really a high-priced man or not.”
Frederick Winslow Taylor - "It is not fair, however, to form any final judgment until all of the elements in the case have been considered. At the first glance we see only two parties to the transaction, the workmen and their employers. We overlook the third great party, the whole people the consumers, who buy the product of the first two and who ultimately pay both the wages of the workmen and the profits of the employers."
Frederick Winslow Taylor - “The rights of the people are therefore greater than those of either employer or employee. And this third great party should be given its proper share of any gain. In fact, a glance at industrial history shows that in the end the whole people receive the greater part of the benefit coming from industrial improvements. In the past hundred years, for example, the greatest factor tending toward increasing the output, and thereby the prosperity of the civilized world, has been the introduction of machinery to replace hand labor. And without doubt the greatest gain through this change has come to the whole people, the consumer. . . .”
Intergenerational Poverty Jacob Riis - “Caught in the street by the truant officer, or by the agents of the Children's Societies, peddling, perhaps, or begging, to help out the family resources; he runs the risk of being sent to a reformatory, where contact with vicious boys older than himself soon develop the latent possibilities for evil that lie hidden in him. . . . The result is the rough young savage, familiar from the street. Rough as he is, if any one doubt that this child of common clay has in him the instinct of beauty, of love for the ideal of which his life has no embodiment, let him put the matter to the test. Let him take into a tenement block a handful of flowers from the fields and watch the brightened faces, the sudden abandonment of play and fight that go ever hand in hand where there is no elbow-room, the wild entreaty for "posies," the eager love with which the little messengers of peace are shielded, once possessed; then let him change his mind.”
Jacob Riis - “In a score of years an army of twenty-five thousand of these forlorn little waifs have cried out from the streets of New York in arraignment of a Christian civilization under the blessings of which the instinct of motherhood even was smothered by poverty and want. Only the poor abandon their children. The stories of richly-dressed foundlings that are dished up in the newspapers at intervals are pure fiction. Not one instance of even a well-dressed infant having been picked up in the streets is on record. They come in rags, a newspaper often the only wrap, semi-occasionally one in a clean slip with some evidence of loving care; a little slip of paper pinned on, perhaps, with some such message as this I once read, in a woman's trembling hand: "Take care of Johnny, for God's sake. I cannot." But even that is the rarest of all happenings.”
Jacob Riis - “Nothing is now better understood than that the rescue of the children is the key to the problem of city poverty, as presented for our solution to-day; that character may be formed where to reform it would be a hopeless task. The concurrent testimony of all who have to undertake it at a later stage: that the young are naturally neither vicious nor hardened, simply weak and undeveloped, except by the bad influences of the street, makes this duty all the more urgent as well as hopeful. Helping hands are held out on every side. To private charity the municipality leaves the entire care of its proletariat of tender years.”
Racial Equality
W.E.B. Du Bois - “Who are to-day guiding the work of the Negro people? The “exceptions” of course. And yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm; “These are exceptions, look here at death, disease and crime—these are the happy rule.” Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule: Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lewdness and apathy. But not even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration from black folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. Exceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise; it shows the capability of Negro blood, the promise of black men … . Is it fair, is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership and seek to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised themselves?”
Sui SIn Far - “I would rather have a Chinese for a father than a white man,” she often told Mark Carson. The last time she had said that he had asked whom she would prefer for a husband, a white man or a Chinese. And Pan, for the first time since he had known her, had no answer for him.”
Sui Sin Far - "“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!"
Ralph Ellison - “About eighty-five years ago they were told they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand. And they believed it. They exulted in it. They stayed in their place, worked hard, and brought up my father to do the same. But my grandfather is the one. He was an odd old guy, my grandfather, and I am told I take after him. It was he who caused the trouble. On his deathbed he called my father to him and said, ‘Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.’ They thought the old man had gone out of his mind. He had been the meekest of men. The younger children were rushed from the room, the shades drawn and the flame of the lamp turned so low that it sputtered on the wick like the old man's breathing. ‘Learn it to the younguns,’ he whispered fiercely; then he died.”
Segregation
Booker T. Washington - “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. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is, that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.”
Booker T. Washington - “Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the State Legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.”
Booker T. Washington - “Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upwards, or they will pull you against the load downwards. We shall constitute one third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.”
Malcolm X - “We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator. But once we all realize that we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy — the white man. He’s an enemy to all of us. I know some of you all think that some of them aren’t enemies. Time will tell.”
Malcolm X - “And when you and I here in Detroit and in Michigan and in America who have been awakened today look around us, we too realize here in America we all have a common enemy, whether he’s in Georgia or Michigan, whether he’s in California or New York. He’s the same man: blue eyes and blond hair and pale skin — same man. So what we have to do is what they did. They agreed to stop quarreling among themselves. Any little spat that they had, they’d settle it among themselves, go into a huddle — don’t let the enemy know that you got a disagreement.”
Slavery Pt. 3
Henry David Thoreau - "The only government that I recognize,--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army,--is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!"
Henry David Thoreau -
Democracy vs. Monarchy/Aristocracy Pt. 2
Henry David Thoreau - “All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. …But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.”
Henry David Thoreau - “Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.”
Women's Independence
Abigail Adams - "I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."
Abigail Adams - "That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness."
F. Scott Fitzgerald - “The married woman can now discover whether she is being cheated, or whether sex is just something to be endured, and her compensation should be to establish a tyranny of the spirit, as her mother may have hinted. Perhaps many women found that love was meant to be fun.”
Betty Friedan - “For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words written about women, for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian sophistication that they could desire--no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity. Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training, how to cope with sibling rivalry and adolescent rebellion; how to buy a dishwasher, bake bread, cook gourmet snails, and build a swimming pool with their own hands; how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting; how to keep their husbands from dying young and their sons from growing into delinquents. They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights--the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for. Some women, in their forties and fifties, still remembered painfully giving up those dreams, but most of the younger women no longer even thought about them. A thousand expert voices applauded their femininity, their adjustment, their news maturity. All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children....”
Democracy vs. Monarchy/Aristocracy
Thomas Paine - “There is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.”
Thomas Paine - “To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho’ himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that natural disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an Ass for a Lion.”
Thomas Paine - "But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is."
Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur - "It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical [church-based] dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe."
Henry David Thoreau - “I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. ...The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.… I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”
Religion
Frederick Douglass - “I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, — a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, — a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, — and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.”
Frederick Douglass - “There was not a man in the whole county, with whom the slaves who had the getting their own home, would not prefer to live, rather than with this Rev. Mr. Hopkins. And yet there was not a man any where round, who made higher professions of religion, or was more active in revivals, — more attentive to the class, love-feast, prayer and preaching meetings, or more devotional in his family, — that prayed earlier, later, louder, and longer, — than this same reverend slave-driver, Rigby Hopkins.”
John Edwards - “Men’s hands can’t be strong when God rises up: the strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands...There is no fortress that is any defence against the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God’s enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces: they are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so ’tis easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by; thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell.”
The New England Primer - "THOUGH I am young, a little one, If I can speak and go alone, Then I must learn to know the Lord, And learn to read his holy word. 'Tis time to seek to God, and pray For what I want for ev'ry day: I have a precious soul to save, And I a mortal body have. Though I am young, yet I may die And hasten to eternity; There is a dreadful fiery hell, Where wicked ones must always dwell: There is a heaven full of joy, Where godly ones shall always stay; To one of these my soul must fly As in a moment when I die. When God who made me calls me home, I must not stay, I must be gone: He gives me life, and gives me breath, And he can save my soul from death, By Jesus Christ, my only Lord, According to his holy word. He clothes my back, and keeps me warm He saves my bones and flesh from harm."
Phyllis Wheatley - "Perfect in bliss she from her heav'nly home Looks down, and smiling beckons you to come; Why then, fond parents, why these fruitless groans? Restrain your tears, and cease your plaintive moans. Freed from a world of sin, and snares, and pain, Why would you wish your daughter back again? No––bow resign'd. Let hope your grief control, And check the rising tumult of the soul. Calm in the prosperous, and adverse day, Adore the God who gives and takes away; Eye him in all, his holy name revere, Upright your actions, and your hearts sincere, Till having sail'd through life's tempestuous sea, And from its rocks, and boist'rous billows free, Yourselves, safe landed on the blissful shore, Shall join your happy babe to part no more."
Benjamin Franklin - "And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me, incontinuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions."
Slavery Pt. 2
Frederick Douglass - “A city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation. There is a vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that does much to curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty so commonly enacted upon the plantation. He is a desperate slaveholder, who will shock the humanity of his non-slaveholding neighbors with the cries of his lacerated slave. Few are willing to incur the odium attaching to the reputation of being a cruel master; and above all things, they would not be known as not giving a slave enough to eat. Every city slave-holder is anxious to have it known of him, that he feeds his slaves well; and it is due to them to say, that most of them do give their slaves enough to eat.”
Frederick Douglass - “The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders; but I undertake to say, it is the result of selfishness, and one of the grossest frauds committed upon the down-trodden slave. They do not give the slaves this time because they would not like to have their work during its continuance, but because they know it would be unsafe to deprive them of it.”
Phyllis Wheatley - "Which wanton Tyranny with lawles hand Had made, and with it meant t' enslave the land. Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labour in my parent's breast? Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd: Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?"
Henry David Thoreau - “… Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote.”
Henry David Thoreau - "It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; …They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect.”
Henry David Thoreau - “The slave-ship is on her way, crowded with its dying victims; new cargoes are being added in mid-ocean a small crew of slaveholders, countenanced by a large body of passengers, is smothering four millions under the hatches, and yet the politician asserts that the only proper way by which deliverance is to be obtained, is by "the quiet diffusion of the sentiments of humanity," without any "outbreak." As if the sentiments of humanity were ever found unaccompanied by its deeds, and you could disperse them, all finished to order, the pure article, as easily as water with a watering-pot, and so lay the dust. What is that that I hear cast overboard? The bodies of the dead that have found deliverance. That is the way we are "diffusing" humanity, and its sentiments with it.”
Slavery
Frederick Douglass - “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.”
Frederick Douglass -“It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.”
Frederick Douglass - “The whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose whilst the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.”
Frederick Douglass - “His fame as an overseer went abroad. His horrid crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation. It was committed in the presence of slaves, and they of course could neither institute a suit, nor testify against him; and thus the guilty perpetrator of one of the bloodiest and most foul murders goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the community in which he lives.”
Frederick Douglass -“ Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.”
Independence
John Winthrop - "If the time and occasion be ordinary, he is to give out of his abundance. Let him lay aside as God hath blessed him. If the time and occasion be extraordinary, he must be ruled by them: taking this withal, that then a man cannot likely do too much, especially if he may leave himself and his family under probable means of comfortable subsistence."
John Winthrop - "A man must lay up for posterity, the fathers lay up for posterity and children, and he is worse than an infidel that provideth not for his own."
John Winthrop - "For the first, it is plain that it being spoken by way of comparison, it must be meant of the ordinary and usual course of fathers, and cannot extend to times and occasions extraordinary. For the other place, the Apostle speaks against such as walked inordinately, and it is without question that he is worse than an infidel who through his own sloth and voluptuousness shall neglect to provide for his family…."
Declaration of Independence - "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Charity/Communitarianism
John Winthrop - "…There is a time when a Christian must sell all and give to the poor, as they did in the Apostles’ times. There is a time also when Christians (though they give not all yet) must give beyond their ability…. Likewise, a community of peril calls for extraordinary liberality, and so doth community in some special service for the church. Lastly, when there is no other means whereby our Christian brother may be relieved in his distress, we must help him beyond our ability rather than tempt God in putting him upon help by miraculous or extraordinary means."
John Winthrop - "This duty of mercy is exercised in three kinds: giving, lending and forgiving."
Andrew Carnegie - “It is founded upon the most intense Individualism….Under its sway we shall have an ideal State, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, property of the many, because administering for the common good; and this wealth, passes through the hands of the few, can be made much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if distributed in small sums to the people themselves.”
Andrew Carnegie - “This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community-the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves. . . .”
Andrew Carnegie - “In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms giving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. . . .”
Jacob Riis - “Perhaps, as the drowning man clutches at a straw, she hopes that these happier hearts may have love to spare even for her little one. In this she is mistaken. Unauthorized babies especially are not popular in the abodes of the wealthy. It never happens outside of the story-books that a baby so deserted finds home and friends at once. Its career, though rather more official, is less romantic, and generally brief. After a night spent at Police Headquarters it travels up to the Infants' Hospital on Randall's Island in the morning, fitted out with a number and a bottle, that seldom see much wear before they are laid aside for a fresh recruit. Few outcast babies survive their desertion long. Murder is the true name of the mother's crime in eight cases out of ten.”
Emma Lazarus - "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lighting, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 'Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"
Land of Opportunity/American Dream
Marco Rubio - "In this very room five decades ago, tens of thousands of Cuban exiles began their new lives in America. Their story is part of the larger story of the American miracle. How, united by a common faith in their God given right to go as far as their talent and work would take them, a collection of immigrants and exiles, former slaves and refugees, became one people, and together built the freest and most prosperous nation ever."
Marco Rubio - "For almost all of human history, power and wealth belonged only to a select few. Most people who have ever lived were trapped by the circumstances of their birth, destined to live the life their parents had. But America is different. Here, we are the children and grandchildren of people who refused to accept this."
Marco Rubio - "My father became a bartender. My mother a cashier, a maid and a Kmart stock clerk. They never made it big. But they were successful. Two immigrants with little money or education found stable jobs, owned a home, retired with security and gave all four of their children a life far better than their own."
Costica Bradatan - "When my turn came to follow this tradition, it was a relatively simple decision. I would emigrate to the United States. For I knew right away that America’s noisy worshiping of success, its mania for ratings and rankings, the compulsive celebration of perfection in everything served only as a facade. Behind the optimistic veneer there lies an extraordinary fear of failure: the horror of going down and going under, of losing face and respectability, of exclusion and marginalization. It’s not success but failure — the savage fear of it — that lies at the heart of the American dream. The country is custom made for an aficionado of failure like me."
Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur - "I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman when he first lands on this continent. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled. He must necessarily feel a share of national pride when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes these extended shores. When he says to himself, this is the work of my countrymen who, when convulsed by factions, afflicted by a variety of miseries and wants, restless and impatient, took refuge here. They brought along with them their national genius to which they principally owe what liberty they enjoy and what substance they possess. Here he sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner and traces in their works the embryos [origins] of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which flourish in Europe. Here he beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where a hundred years ago all was wild, woody, and uncultivated!"
Segregation Pt.2
Malcolm X - “[As] long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled. You bleed for white people. But when it comes time to seeing your own churches being bombed and little black girls be murdered, you haven’t got no blood. You bleed when the white man says bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and you bark when the white man says bark. I hate to say this about us, but it’s true. How are you going to be nonviolent in Mississippi, as violent as you were in Korea? How can you justify being nonviolent in Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches are being bombed, and your little girls are being murdered, and at the same time you’re going to violent with Hitler, and Tojo, and somebody else that you don’t even know?”
Malcolm X - “So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show you — you don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. [The] only kind of revolution that’s nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. That’s no revolution. Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality."
Malcom X - “There’s nothing in our book, the Quran — you call it “Ko-ran” — that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That’s a good religion. In fact, that’s that old-time religion. That’s the one that Ma and Pa used to talk about: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head, and a life for a life: That’s a good religion. And doesn’t nobody resent that kind of religion being taught but a wolf, who intends to make you his meal.”
Capitalism Pt.2
Jenny Odell - “A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act like dams that capitalize on our natural interest in others and an ageless need for community, hijacking, and frustrating our most innate desires, and profiting from them. Solitude, observation, and simple conviviality should be recognized not only as ends in and of themselves, but inalienable rights belonging to anyone lucky enough to be alive.”
Jenny Odell - “...it’s merely an observation of a social world that is itself a paradox, defined by hypocrisy, ignorance, and illogic. In a society like that, a man attempting a humble and ethical life would certainly appear ‘backward’: for him, good would be bad, up would be down, productivity would be destruction, and indeed, uselessness would be useful.”
Jenny Odell - “In that way, the tree provides me with an image of ‘resistance-in-place.’ To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system. To do this means refusing the frame of reference: in this case, a frame of reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of one’s career, and individual entrepreneurship. It means embracing and trying to inhabit somewhat fuzzier or blobbier ideas of maintenance as productivity, of the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal. It means recognizing and celebrating a for of the self that changes over time, exceeds algorithmic description, and whose identity doesn’t always stop at the boundary of the individual.”