My Great Birmingham Experience

Jackson Pearson

    My experience in Birmingham was great. We went to the 16th Street Baptist Church and visited the Civil Rights Institute. Out of the whole day the best and most funny experience was in the church when the man that was telling us about the bombing, and about the church was cracking some pretty good jokes. I learned that the Civil Rights was something that was fought for, and was a struggle to press through for the black people of Birmingham. I also learned about the bombing that occurred at the church killing a few little girls.
    There was a huge difference to me when learning about the civil rights through the movie we watched before we went, and the hands on experience I had in Birmingham. There was a difference because when seeing and feeling the places and things were the events occurred is very different than just seeing it on a screen. Also when a man tells you about something in person, and does it with passion it is a very different experience. It changed my view on Civil Rights by providing me a perspective that I had not previously had.
    If I were to be faced with an arguer that wanted to say the trip was pointless it would be a very short argument. For someone to say that without backing it up would be ridiculous; It would not happen because they would have accepted the experience was very worth it. It was a very different experience than just watching a screen or browsing the internet.

This image is very impacting because the bus is what I remember seeing the most.



World War One: Fast Facts

WWI:Fast Facts

By:Jackson Pearson

When did World War I begin, and Why?

The Great War began in July 28, 1914, because of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, the assassin was a Serbian and the victim was an Austria-Hungarian. The countries that first went to war were Serbia and Austria-Hungary.

When and why did the United States enter the war?

The U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917. Many Americans were not in favor of the war. The U.S. was a part of WWI because of the support that they had to provide to their allies, America was essentially fighting to preserve democracy.

When and why did World War I come to an end? 

WWI came to an end on November 11, 1918 when Germany formally surrendered. It came to an end because of the allies defeating the central powers.

 What were the terms of the major agreement ending the war?  Why did the United States not ratify this treaty, even though President Wilson had played such a major role in negotiating it?

The Treaty of Versailles put all of the blame for the war on Germany. The treaty would put Germany in massive debt and surely cause another reason for them to go to war. The United States did not ratify the treaty because they could tell that the punishment that Germany had from it was too great and would cause later problems; even though President Wilson wanted to very badly the U.S. did not ratify the treaty.

Come up with a question of your own.

Why did the U.S. not enter the war on the side of the Allies earlier?

Was this war preventable?

Why was WWI as long as it was?

Casualty chart for all countries associated with WWI

Prohibition

Prohibition

By: Jackson Pearson

    In 1920, the United States, after the 18th amendment was passed, prohibited the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. This era in United States history is referred to as Prohibition. The drinking of alcohol had been looked down upon ever since the colonies had settled. The consumption of alcohol was, in many American eyes, a sin. Leading up to the passing of the amendment, there was even a tax on alcohol referred to as a “sin tax”. Obviously, the drinking of alcohol had caused many problems in society, but many Americans were outraged over the ban. However, there was a large percentage of the U.S. population supporting the amendment and doing many things to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol.
    The American Temperance Society (or ATS for short), helped initiate the first temperance movement. This movement was essentially trying to create a “dry” United States; to make the U.S. how this early group wanted to it took a little less than a century(94 years) after its creation. The ATS was the first group to be created for this movement and had many members (by 1835, 1.5million). The ATS group was largely composed of religious members, with a motive to rid the U.S. of alcohol because of it being a sin to drink.
    With many organizations encouraging the ban of alcohol, Kansas was the first state to make the consumption of alcohol illegal. Kansas outlawed alcohol in 1881 and created the first somewhat gateway to the creation of the 18th amendment 39 years later. Between the years 1881 and 1920, there was much debate on the subject of banning alcohol. Many court cases took place that favored the prohibition of alcohol; but there was also many that did not support the ban. Richmond P. Hobson was a representative from Alabama supporting the ban of alcohol. In 1914, Hobson showed support for the prohibition amendment but with only the majority vote and not 2/3 of the votes, the amendment did not pass congress. But in 1920 congress had a majority rule in favor of amendment, which passed the amendment to ban the sale, importation, transportation, and production of alcoholic drinks.
    The scramble to stock up on beer, whiskey, and other alcoholic beverages happened in 1919. Many Americans stockpiled themselves with alcohol, because the amendment did not ban the consumption of alcohol, many saw the ban coming and prepared themselves for when things went “dry”. After the amendment had passed some resorted to smuggling, illegally making, and bootlegging alcohol. Many wealthy men had a steady supply of alcohol and the passing of the amendment did not affect anything to them besides the cost of a drink.
    Once the amendment was passed it did not work nearly as well as the supporters of the amendment had hoped. The Prohibition Era was not very successful in the fact that many people still consumed alcohol. There was crime produced by the amendment and many people lost jobs (bootlegging, making alcohol illegally, and shootings over alcohol). Saying the amendment made the nation clear of liquor and beer would be a very false statement. It did diminish the amount of alcohol consumed overall but did not affect the nation how it was supposed to. The 21st amendment to the constitution took place in 1933; this amendment removed prohibition from the nation. After the 21st amendment, the nation was back to what it was before. The saloons were back, and stores sold and factories created alcoholic beverages once again.

    In 1920 the United States conducted a nationwide experiment: stop the consumption of alcohol. The experiment looked as if it would work but after 13 years the experiment met an end and alcohol was once again back. The goal to remove alcohol was a less realistic than the goal to find bigfoot; there was no way that it would work

Many people wanted prohibition to happen.

Lots of events took place trying to overturn Prohibition.

Many women were strongly against men drinking.

This image shows barrels of beer being emptied into the streets.

A newspaper when the amendment was ratified.

Sources

1.  https://prohibition.osu.edu/hobson#main-content

This source was a great source about Richmond P. Hobson. It showed how he supported a prohibition amendment and how he voiced his support for it. It is a credible source because it is on The Ohio State University website.

2.  http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition

This source provided a great deal of information all about the process of how Prohibition happened. It is credible because it is the History website. It was written by the History.com Staff. Using this website required me to find the facts on my other sources to check that the facts are true, but it allowed me an insight of what Prohibition was like. This source also had great pictures that had great captions to explain the pictures.

3.  http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/about/

This source was great because of the great video; the video created a larger understanding of Prohibition. The site also had many facts on it that was backed up by many historians. This source proved great to me because of how many facts it had and the videos that explained a great deal to me on the site.

4.  http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/Funfacts/Prohibition.html#.VOznwPnF8np

This site provided many interesting facts about prohibition. The author, David J. Hanson, Ph.D., is a very intelligent historian and professor from Professor Emeritus of Sociology of the State University of New York at Potsdam. This is a very credible source that had many great facts.

5.  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1054.html

This site provided a decent amount of information about the American Temperance Society. Even though it is not a very big site it provided the information that was needed for the topic I needed to know about.

6.  http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/volstead-act/

This was a primary source of the Volstead act. It also had a description of what was being said in the act. This source was excellent in providing the original information, and an easier to read version. This source also provided a huge understanding in the language used in the document that prohibited alcohol in the United States. 

How do you analzse a Political Cartoon?

My thoughts on how to analyze a political cartoon:
1. Look at the caption/s
2. Find what it is about
3. which group or groups is it based against?

Actual way to analyze a political cartoon:
1. Let your eyes "float" over the cartoon.
2. Follow the cartoon's natural flow by discovering the interaction with the primary focus.
3. Determine the audience.
4. Understand the context of the cartoon.
5. Look for widely recognized symbols
6. Look at minor details in the cartoon that will contribute to the humor or the point of the cartoon
http://www.wikihow.com/Analyze-Political-Cartoons 


This political cartoon uncle Sam represents the Americans, the waiter is supposed to depict president McKinley. The waiter is "serving" the Americans what they want by giving them their choices of land.  http://lydiahistory.blogspot.com/2014/01/political-cartoons-of-spanish-american.html



This cartoon depicts Uncle Sam in the Philippines with a man depicting Spain in the background. Uncle Sam is supposed to be helping out the little Philippine child and Spain is supposed to look as if it were a threat.    http://www.globalresearch.ca/selling-empire-american-propaganda-and-war-in-the-philippines/5355055


This cartoon depicts what will happen if Americans allow Spain to have the territories. The cliff represents sure death and the man is pushing the little kid off.   http://www.conservapedia.com/American_History_Homework_Nine

First Semester Summary

First Semester Summary Analysis
Jackson Pearson
          

When this semester of US History Started, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what I was going to learn and I did not know if I would be interested in the stuff were going to be taught about. As the first quarter started I learned many things about the history of the United States. How the United States dealt with slavery, and how specifically the south dealt with slavery, was profoundly interesting to me. The brutality intrigued me the most because I had no idea how inhuman the southern whites were to the blacks until we learned about it. Out of the sections we studied in the first semester, the section “Age of the City” was my least favorite of them all. Although it is an important time period in American History I simply did not find anything about it that I thought was that eye opening or particularly interesting. Out of the whole section the only thing that appealed at all to me was the railroad strikes, and how the other strikes happened, I do find it beneficial to have learned about the United States’ economy through this time period because it is good to know how our economy got to where it is today. In ten years I will have forgotten a lot of the specific details from first semester of US History, however I feel as if I will remember the section that we studied the Native Americans. I think it is important to know who was hear before we come to this continent and what happened to all of the Indians that were here. The issue that I see that keeps occurring in American History is the how the government deals with poverty. Even when the economy was booming the poor had horrible working conditions and were not making very much money at all, they lived in small rooms that they were crammed into because that’s all that they could afford. Even today the poor has multiple families living in the same home and the government has still not been able to find a solution to poverty that works. After learning about all of the events in US history from 1865 to 1920, I have decided the name of this period of time should be called the “Booming Period”. It should be named this because over this period the US went from a decently small economic country to a country that has a working economic system, and a flourishing middle class. Based on what we learned, the economy in the US went from (in today’s terms) a Razor flip phone to an IPhone 6+. It had improved dramatically, kind of like a boom. Hence the “Booming Period”. In the earlier part of this time period you would have seen buildings that were only a few stories tall and stared in awe, but at the end of this period a 30 story building was something that could be seen in the cities with skyscrapers. 

Letter back to my Home Counry

Jackson Pearson

Blog Post

12/2/14

Dear Ana,

            It’s been a hard first year here in America. Not only is it hard to be away from you but the long hours have made me very tired and weak. It is by no means hard to find work here but coming from a background with no education means I have not many job choices besides working at the steel mill. Chicago is a very impressive city, nothing like our hometown in Germany. The City has tall buildings that I have never seen before and they are called “skyscrapers”.

            At the steel mill it is easy to get through the long 13 hour days when I have fellow Germans there to help me get through it. After we leave the steel mill, I go with a few of my German friends to the bar where we meet up with many more Germans. The neat thing that I have come to discover is that this country’s largest cities are composed of mostly foreigners. This makes it easy for people that are in my exact situation to get along pretty well.

            As my first year comes to an end, I would like to say that I want to be an American, I encourage you to hurry up and come to live here in Chicago with me. I had no idea that the process of assimilation would be something that I would grow to like! I want to leave my old heritage behind and become more of an American. I am glad to say that as a German it is easy to fit in with the crowds; it would have been horrible if I was from Asia or Mexico… I cannot wait to see you!

Sincerely, Marvin

P.S. - I included a picture of the skyscraper that I see from my bedroom in this letter                                                                                  

                                                       

Thinking About Success

Factors for Success
Luck, Opportunity, Skill, and Hard work are all very important when dealing with the topic of success. When given the assignment to rank these 4 key factors of success in rank of which makes a person the most successful, I was faced with three questions. Question one: Which factor has given me the most success in my life? Question two: Which factor has given significant public figures the most success? Question three: What Factor out of the four would you be the most successful without? After thinking about these questions I came to the conclusion that they fall in this order of importance: Hard Work, Skill, Opportunity and then luck. Any person can go without luck if they work hard enough or have prepared themselves for whats ahead. Hard work has gotten me to where I am today; in sports, school and in my social life. Many people have to work very hard most of their lives to develop their skills, but when looking at the most influential people of today's world it is almost as if they were given their skills at birth. Whether the person is an actor, the president, or a professional athlete, it looks as if they were blessed with a skill and hard work was not hardly needed. For an ordinary person I believe that hard work will cause give them more success than the other three options.

This picture illustrates a man hard at work.