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.