Luke's questions:
- When Bellamy published his story Looking Backward, did it help to create more optimism of the American’s view toward mechanization?
- How did minute increases in the rate of productivity result in greater market advantages?
Kevin's questions:
1. Upon exploring the links related to Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Authur's Court, it is stated that Mark Twain, a.k.a Samuel Clemens, was raised in a Protestant tradition that was tarnished with a strong Anti-Catholic bias. Since one of the most prevailing themes throughout his novel is the Catholic Church's manipulation of the people of Authurian England, and its determination to disrupt Morgan's modernizing, is it fair to say that it would be hard to read the novel without being skeptical and critical of Twain's account of how the Church conducted itself at that time, and the way it is portrayed to be an institution which instills fear into it's followers?
2. Within the link titled "Centennial Exposition" a there is information surrounding the declaration and protest of the women of the United States by the National Woman Suffrage Association, which took place July 4th, 1876. Upon reading the statement it looks as if the complaints being made have to do with the a general mistreatment and injustice towards women, with specific rules and principles that are held to be true by this nation and how this organization of women feels the law has not been equally applied to them. However, what would the correlation be between complaints such as those being made by the women and an event that is a celebration of mechanization? Did the women's group just look for a large and highly publicised event to unleash such statements?Kerry's questions:
Pg 61-62 Talking about Whitman
I didn’t really understand the association of the role of science and technology either?
Is there a reason why they only mention Thomas Edison as being the only predominant individual or were there not any others that were as well know as him?Frank's questions:
Growing up, the history books I have used in school always seemed to glorify the Industrial expansion in America. While there were tragedies in the factories, and safety hazards were rampant, many history books have strayed away from those things and focused more on the positive impacts of the industrial expansion. For the most part - its been presented as nothing more than "industry was growing, America was becoming more competitive, people were on the road to becoming happier, more productive people." Yet, reading through Trachtenberg's writings on the Gilded Age, I am wondering if this was the case or not.
"In all its guises, the machine had made the future seem problematic, and among the responses in the realm of culture were a growing number of future-oriented stories, utopian and science fiction (p. 49)"
"In the end, the Yankee and his small elite of faithful followers (who address him as The Boss) find themselves trapped behind 'a solid wall of the dead -- a bulwark, a breast-work, of corpses...We were in a trap you see -- a trap of our making (p. 51)."
But the predicament the book dramatizes, of machine-making a human future, resonated grimly with the realities of the day. Had "to produce" come to mean "to destroy (p.52)?"
1.) Why did it seem in history books that people liked the changes of the Industrial expansion when there is such a prevailing tone of negativity towards it in the book?Where did this pro-Industry notion come from?
Going back to the Civics discussion held in class last Friday, numerous thoughts have been running through my mind while reading Trachtenberg's writings. There are numerous statements made in the reading where I question the concept of civics playing a role in American views pertaining to this time period. Such statements include:
"Americans were taught to view their machines as independent agencies of power, causes of progress (p. 54)"
"The belief that viewed progress as a relation between new machines and old, the transformation of labor of the human relation to production, each mechanical improvement represented (p. 55)"
2.) Even though factory owners benefited directly and largely from the Gilded Age and invention of new machines, can it be assumed that the American government was just as concerned with progress as the factory owners were? So much to the point that the pro-industrial notions brought up in Question #1 would be instilled on people?Matt's questions:
"Americans before the Civil War had believed that industrial technology and the factory system would serve as historic instruments of republican values, diffusing civic virtue and enlightenment along with material wealth. Factories, railroads, and telegraph wires seemed the very engines of a democratic future."
What were the reasons for this belief back then?
And do you feel that Americans still have that kind of mentality?