Buffaalo Soldiers

For the second week of finals prep, we focused on the buffalo soldiers and native Americans. Just as last week, we were given ABC Clio videos to learn the important facts about the topics. After watching the videos and taking notes as a class, we began reading over resources such as Helen Hunt Jackson’s Century of Dishonor 1881, as well as Excerpts of the Dawes Act, which both provided the points of view of one side, whether it be the Natives or the government. By the end of the second day of class, we had already developed an essential question as a class, which we thing hits all the important points to be made throughout this lesson while also being broad enough for us to give it our own individual spin. Our essential question is, "During westward expansion, did the impact of federal policy towards buffalo soldiers and native Americans match the intent?”.

Timeline of the American frontier.

This essential question is basically asking whether or not the government actually lived up to their promises of helping the Native Americans, which the way I see it, they did not. In the perspective of the government, they went to the Great Plains to take land belonging to the Native Americans and for all to remain peaceful. However, they did not anticipate that the Natives would put up a fight. As a way to fight for their own cause, the government took away some of the Natives’ already limited rights and freedom, all the while saying they were “helping them” and “making their lives easier”, as well as brought the Buffalo warriors into the mix, giving them orders to get their land. To steer back to the essential question, the impact and the intent of federal policy towards Buffalo soldiers were not matched.

Captains of Industry

Since it’s the end of the year, that means it’s time to prep for finals. However, rather than the painfully boring and difficult multiple choice, fill in the blank, true or false or matching that, to be honest, nobody’s ever really totally prepared for, Mrs. Gallagher is letting us develop our own questions and answers so we not only know what to study, but also so that we will be 100% prepared to answer each question correctly. To begin the process, we are given one topic a week for the last 3 weeks and are given the task to make our own essential question as a class, and then make multiple choice questions to answer it. This week, week 1, we studied the captains of industry during the age of industry. In particular, we talked about Carnegie and Rockefeller and how they and their companies impacted the country. The essential question we developed as a class was: Were the captains of industry a positive or negative impact to the public?

One of the most important and famous captains of industry was John D Rockefeller, who was known as "The Greatest Business leader in U.S. history". Starting in his father's business, since he had told Rockefeller to skip college and go straight into the business world, and then moving on to found his own oil company, he began to make his way to the top. Using the extensive amounts of

Political cartoon of J.D. Rockefeller pushing
a disgusting amount of money in a
wheelbarrow shows how the people thought
of him despite his philanthropy.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/36b.asp 

money he had obtained by supporting the Union army during the civil war, he bought out all of his partners and used cutthroat tactics to buy out rival companies so he alone was on top, and at a certain point he even began to bribe politicians to give him good publicity. Though he was a shark in the world of industry, he also had the best interest of his customers at heart. He did his best to keep costs down, even bringing them so low that other companies couldn't compete without going bankrupt, and obtained favorable shipping rates. Even when he couldn't control the prices on his prices low enough, he was smart enough to work with other companies to control the prices of the rivals. John D Rockefeller believed it was man's responsibility to drill and refine oil, and wanted to be the richest man in the world which is an opinion that may have caused all the negative political cartoons against him, even though during his lifetime he donated about $500 million to charity.

Portrait of Andrew Carnegie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie, successful steel manufacturer, was another famous captain industry of the time, though his ride to the top took a lot more effort than Rockefeller’s. Starting as an Irish immigrant working as a bobbin boy in a textile mill, Carnegie never would’ve imagined that he’d end up being a business mogul and philanthropist. One way he built up his business was by travelling through Europe to further his business and management skills. In particular, he took note of a system set in place in Great Britain steel industry and adapted their method of production. When he realized he could use help building his empire, he teamed up with Bessemer, who had introduced a process named after himself which produced steel for a lower price, which led to him being able to produce higher quality steel for less money than any American competitor. As of 1900, he was the second richest man in the world, which could have been what built up his confidence enough to plan on destroying the Iron and Steelmakers union, which of course stirred up trouble in the nation. However, his legacy goes much farther than that. He was one of the first operators in the country to take messages by sound, and was promoted to superintendent of eastern telegraph lines. Also, he is known for being one of the few business men to expand their companies during the great depression, rather than downsize as many of his competitors were. After years of business and philanthropy, Carnegie sold his steel company to J.P. Morgan in 1901.

Freedom from above, or below?

In class before beginning our lesson we were given the essential questions, "Who 'gave' the freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent were Abraham Lincoln's actions influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans?". To fully understand the questions, you should know that "above" is the group of higher class Americans, mainly politicians, and "below", is the slaves and the other lower class Americans who were directly impacted by slavery.

In class, we were given a set of documents which all went along with the argument of where freedom came from. In one document, Lincoln's Open Letter , President Abraham Lincoln states that, " If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union…I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.". This article shows that freedom comes from above, because though he didn't say he was planning on abolishing slavery during his term, President Lincoln said that he believed all men should be free, and if saving the Union could only be achieved by abolishing slavery then he would have no problem with it.

In a Letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside toSecretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, which our class had called Document X, we read about how when the union army takes over an abandoned southern city, slaves begin to come out of the swamps, some claiming to have lived there for 5 years, and start taking residence in the city. This shows that freedom came from below, because the fugitive slaves who took refuge in the swamps are now taking the opportunity for a better life, though it is causing anxiety for their new neighbors.

To end the lesson, we made a graph showing which documents argued that freedom came from above and which showed that it came from below. In my opinion, it came from below, because the actions taken above were set in motion not by their own humanity, but the actions coming from below.

My group's graph of the documents.

Civil War Scavenger Hunt

In class this past week, we were given the question, " Who was the ultimate victor in each theater of each of the theaters of war: East, West, and Naval?", as well as "What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles.". In order to get the information to answer these questions, either in a pair or on our own we were given a battle that took place in one of the theaters. We were then instructed to make 2 bullets with the important details of the battle, a picture involving the battle with a citation,  and put them on a google doc. Also, we had to link the google doc onto a QR Code and hang it up somewhere in the school. After giving our location to the person with the number after ours and getting the location from the person before us, we were ready to walk throughout the school, scanning the posters and gathering the information.

To find the ultimate victor of each theater, was a class we all contributed to a padlet , and under each theater we had to write who we thought dominated it and give examples of why. For the most part, the class thought the Union dominated all three theaters, however there were a few students who argued otherwise for the Eastern and Naval theater. However, for many of their arguments they chose battles that were a very close score. This activity helped answer the first essential question.

After the scavenger hunt we went through all of the battle as a class and talked about the way the battles all turned out and about the outcomes and similarities of the battles, which helped to answer the second essential question. Some commonalities between the battles were the way they were won, such as the battle of Cold Harbor and the Siege of Vicksburg, both of which the Union took advantage of the Confederate's short comings to get the upper hand and lead themselves to victory. Another Commonality is that in most cases the Union won, and mostly for the same reason such as tactics the Confederates wouldn't expect and having superior troops.

A depiction of my battle, Baton Rouge
http://www.knowla.org/entry/560/view=image-gallery

Elephant in the Room

In class, we were given the essential question: "How do we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century?", and to understand the question you need to know that by elephant in the room, we mean that it was a topic that was avoided in conversation as it was very controversial at the time. To answer the question, my group and I decided that the way to prove this is by pointing out that the Northerners developed a very passive approach towards slavery and didn't ever really directly address slavery as a problem which would have been because in every situation where they did, such as the Caning of Sumner (which will later be addressed), the southerners responded with violence or something of the sort.  In class, we went over some events that took place throughout the 19th century regarding slavery, and then put them in chronological order on a timeline, that being the images below. On the timeline, you'll find the Missouri Compromise which happened in 1820 and  made it so there were 11 free states and 11 slave states because the south didn't want to be outnumbered by votes in the senate because Maine was coming out as a free state, and also made it so nothing above Missouri could be declared slave territory. There is also the Compromise of 1850, which was that as states in the west such as Nevada, Utah, etc;, gained a larger population, they decided to let the people vote on whether they wanted to be a free or slave state. Not long after that is the Gadsden Purchase, in which the US paid $10 million for a small piece of land in present day South Arizona so they could build a transcontinental railroad. Later on the timeline is the caning of Sumner. In this, Andrew Butler hit Charles Sumner with his cane after his two day speech, which at a point directly targeted Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, which was held against southerners as a whole and was used to prove a point that they were all uncivilized. Throughout the Elephant in the Room lesson, it was made clear that slavery really was avoided in conversation for a good reason, because whenever it was mentioned bad things happened. 

In these pictures, you see the timeline made in class, as well as the description for each event on the timeline.

The Election of 1860

In class, we were told to answer the question: " How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions  over slavery?", and show how we got that answer in an educreations video made in small groups. After watching the John Green Crash Course Video about the Election of 1860 and what issues were going on at the time such as the Fugitive Slave law, (which meant that no matter where you were in the country if you found a fugitive slave you had to turn them in), and Bleeding Kansas (which is the nickname for a period of violence over the Kansas- Nebraska act of 1854, because it went against the Missouri Compromise). As seen in the photo below, the election split the country into groups depending on which of the candidates they agreed with. Abraham Lincoln was strictly against slavery, where his opponent Stephen Douglas tried to hide his bias by suggesting that they let it be the peoples' choice, then John Bell and John Beckenridge were both opposed to getting rid of slavery. As shown in the photo, since the anti-slavery states were some of the largest Lincoln was almost guaranteed a spot behind the desk in the Oval Office, which he did eventually obtain. Next, we got our information and photos to analyze from Civil War and Art, among our own sources.

The Power of Numbers

In class we were asked to answer the essential question :How did the differences between the North  and South affect each region's strategy and  success in the Civil War?. To answer this we were given documents and articles showing the advantages and disadvantages of both the union and the confederacy during the civil war. To show the answer and how we got it, we were asked to use a presentation making tool. I chose Infogr.am. In my presentation, I share the population as well as the slave population of the north and south since the side with the most troops is almost guaranteed to win, briefly refer to the railroad mileage of both territories which would've been essential in transporting the troops along with their supplies, the most famous war tactics used on both sides, as well as refer to the South's control over the nations cotton supply. With my presentation, I hope you'll agree that the North did in fact have the advantage in the Civil War.

The power of numbers | Create infographics