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3:55 PMon Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Alexandria and Northern Virginia were the first areas to feel the fury of the Civil War. Alexandria, Virginia was the longest occupied Southern city during the Civil War. The New York Herald war correspondent observed, “Many hamlets and towns have been destroyed during the war, Alexandria has most suffered. It has been in the uninterrupted possession of the Federals. . . . Alexandria is filled with ruined people; they walk as strangers through their ancient streets, and their property is no longer theirs to possess. . . . these things ensued, as the natural results of civil war; and one's sympathies were everywhere enlisted for the poor, the exiled, and the bereaved.”
Posted by
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10:42 AMon Sunday, August 16, 2009
The movies were an important cultural bridge, mediating the immigrant’s transition into broader American culture. The movies were a collective experience where diverse groups experienced the same public phenomenon. Going to the movies was a common bridging experience between groups. The movies also allowed immigrants (and especially immigrant women who were very limited in their interactions with people outside of the family and “neighborhood”) to broaden their experience outside of the family and immigrant group. The movies helped immigrants organize exposure to new cultural experiences in their own terms in a benign environment. The movies also served as the catalyst for breaking down traditional immigrant norms among the younger generation who were now exposed to a broader range of options.
Cinema and other forms of mass communications helped to define the public and public opinion. In an earlier time this had been the province of the written word, but emerging technologies made “public spaces” (opinions about common ideas) accessible to virtually everyone. To be a public figure was to be someone who was before the public in a mass communications format. The public person (movie star, commentator, politician) because of his public presence came to define the norms, symbols, and values of the society. The consumption of the products of the mass media constructed the mass public.
The so called notion of “Taylorism” underlined the clash between the norms of largely rural family and community based institutions, and the rigorous, impersonal demands of labor and social discipline imposed by an industrializing America.
Taylors’s work glorifies the notion of labor discipline in the cause of maximum productivity (which he justifies as economically good for both the worker and the employer). The three elements of scientific management are: (1) standardization of tools and processes, (2) selection of the most capable workers, and (3) close supervision of the worker to ensure that the worker executes the previously management approved “one best way” of doing the job. Taylor’s critics decried scientific management for de-humanizing workers, making them nothing more than interchangeable parts in a giant industrial machine.
The emergence of consumerism served to mask the transformation of the worker from person to commodity and tempered resistance to labor discipline.
Sollors uses American literature/culture to explain the continuous process of revitalization of the concept of Americanism” as new ethnic groups are assimilated into the existing mainstream. As new groups are assimilated they simultaneously modify the very nature of Americanism.
Sollors argues that there are two legitimizing strains in the formation of “Americanism”, one being descent and the other being consent. There is (and always has been) a tension between Americans who feel that they are legitimate Americans by right of birth and descent and those who feel that they are equally legitimate because they have chosen (consented) to be Americans. This tension is reflected in literature and culture. Sollors argues that it is cultural medium that provide a place for mediation between group norms and the socialization of new groups into the codes of American-ness. Sollors argues that the sense of national kinship between Americans is created by a process of cultural mediation. Forms, symbols and language do much to forge national identity. Out of a shared symbolic language ( the acceptance of the symbolic meaning for events) emerges a middle ground for the immigrant between assimilation (complete surrender to the new culture) and ossification (refusal to abandon Old World identification).
Posted by
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4:03 PMon Saturday, July 25, 2009
Scott’s book on gender points out the very fragile nature of “how we know what we know.” Scott points to language as the way in which people represent and organize life. Language creates a cosmology upon which people build their values, order their priorities and take action. Napoleon once said that, “a man will die for a bit of ribbon” (a medal), this because he had internalized the symbology of the ribbon. Thus if you change the language (terms of debate) you begin to change the system of values.
Why would you need to change the terms of debate? Scott suggests that history, as it had traditionally been written by men, is a fiction created through implicit processes of differentiation, marginalization, and exclusion. Power relationships determine how the story is told. As new power centers emerge in a society (class, race, gender, ethnicity) alternative views of history emerge. Scott shows the underlying power structure behind the writing of history and implicitly raises the question, “Who owns’ history?” In a homogenous society you have “one” history. In a heterogeneous society you have multiple histories.
In the 1940s, Edward Rowe Snow of Marshfield, Massachusetts searched for the treasure of Captain James Turner, “The King of Calf Island”. He didn't have a treasure map, but by a stroke of extraordinary luck Snow came into possession of a 17th century book which proved to be the key to the treasure’s whereabouts. Upon examining the book he found that holes picked out certain letters which spelled out a message, “Gold is due east trees Strong Island Chatham Outer Bar.” When he searched the area, Snow discovered a small metal chest buried just above the high water mark. The chest contained 316 silver coins dating between 1799-1820.
Posted by
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4:14 PMon Saturday, July 11, 2009
As communications and national maritime strength grew piracy withered. Still, as late as 1813 three thousand acts of piracy were reported in the Gulf of Mexico. It was not until 1850 that piracy finally disappeared from the Western Hemisphere.
One of the greatest pirates of the Gulf was Jean Lafitte. Jean Lafitte was born in France in the year 1780. He was apprenticed as a blacksmith in his youth, a trade which he took up in New Orleans when he and two of his brothers moved to America. Within a few years the smithy had become a clearinghouse for pirate goods.
Lafitte decided to outfit his own ships to bring in more goods. He established a base in Barrataria Bay outside of New Orleans. Soon Lafitte's ships were cruising the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. Holding a privateer's commission from the Republic of Cartagena, Lafitte preyed on Spanish commerce. The merchandise would then be smuggled into New Orleans. All attempts to dislodge the pirates failed. The governor of Louisiana offered the unheard of sum of $5,000 for the capture of Lafitte, dead or alive. Lafitte responded by offering a $50,000 reward for the head of the governor.
The War of 1812 placed Lafitte's pirates in a tenuous position. The Barratarian gulf was an important approach to New Orleans, and in 1814 the British offered Lafitte a huge cash settlement , along with a commission in the Royal Navy for his cooperation in seizing the city. Lafitte alerted American authorities and offered to aid the Americans if the United States would offer a full pardon. General Andrew Jackson accepted Lafitte's offer, and the pirates, in charge of the artillery, rendered distinguished service in the battle of New Orleans. Lafitte and his men received a full pardon, but Lafitte found that he could not endure the monotony of a respectable life. In 1817, Lafitte, with a thousand followers, established a new pirate stronghold on Galveston Island off the coast of Texas. Finally, after several more years of piratical activities an American naval force smashed Lafitte's base. Laffite fled to South America, finally returning to Europe, where he died in 1826.
Most of the treasures hidden by Lafitte are in Louisiana, although Florida and Texas claim their share as well.
