Chapter 25 questions

Due next Monday, January 13.

Chapter 25 questions

Answer completely, and always include dates and specific names.

1. What trends/pull factors contributed to the growth of urbanization in the 19^th century worldwide? What were the largest cities in the world by 1900? (what are they now? look them up and see if anything has changed!)
2. What advances in transportation helped cities grow from the size of “walking cities?”  How did people buy groceries and other goods in an urban environment?
3. Describe the types of housing available for the urban poor? What kinds of people lived there, and how did the Great Chicago Fire affect building materials? Describe this disaster.
4. What were the differences between the “New Immigrants” and the “Old?” Who received the harshest treatment, and why? What were the push/pull factors in this wave of immigration for each country (what was going on in Europe)? Did all immigrants stay permanently? Explain.
5. How did political machines flourish in this environment? What services did they provide?
6. How did urban squalor generate religious reformers during the late 19^th century to focus on social issues? Who were some of the leaders and reformist movements in the cities, and what did they do?
7. What did settlement houses try to do, and what kinds of people ran these? Was there a difference between Protestant and Catholic Christian responses? Google “settlement house St. Louis” and report what you find.
8. How did mainline Protestant Christianity respond to scientific development? What specific challenge did Darwin’s work present to some Christians? How was Darwin’s work later (mis)used in regards to the problem of the poor? What was the connection between this dispute and the novel Ben Hur?
9. What work opportunities were available for women in the cities? Was there a difference between jobs for  white women versus women of color? How did marriage fit into women’s working lives? What does “white-collar” mean when speaking of jobs?
10. Why was there a move to restrict immigration by both the APA and the unions?
11. How were American colleges and universities affected during this time? What is a “research university” and a “liberal arts college,” and what were some important ones founded during this time? What is the philosophical movement known as “pragmatism?”
12. What is the connection between the waves of immigration during this time and the status of a free public educational system? Why else did public schools become more common and more rigorous?
13. Make a chart to compare the work and explain the main disputes between Booker T. Washington and WEB DuBois. How did they differ in their visions for the immediate future of African Americans? What in their backgrounds made them so different from each other? Why did Washington receive more support—financial as well as political—from whites?
14. What impact did the industrial revolution have on standard of living and life expectancy?
15. What judgments were leveled at the robber barons in terms of the impact of income disparity in American society by people such as Henry George? What did Edward Bellamy and Horatio Alger think about industry’s impact on society?
16. What philosophy did Andrew Carnegie develop in regards to his massive personal fortune and the proper uses for it? How was this different from other tycoons (be specific)?
17. How did the newspaper industry change during this time, and who were the most famous newspaper publishers? What methods did they use to increase circulation?
18. How did American literature change in the way it portrayed the world? What were some important writers and their books?
19. How did attitudes toward family and personal lives (sex! divorce! Kim Kardashian!) change after the Civil War? What effects did this have?
20. How did women’s rights activists attempt to use women’s “traditional” roles to argue for the expansion of women’s rights? What were some important women’s rights groups and their leaders? Was the temperance movement a women’s rights organization? Explain.

Civil Liberties in Times of Emergency

With the capture and arrest of the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, there are three opinion pieces I want you to read, as well as the first three paragraphs in particular from the front page of Thursday’s paper. As you hopefully know, at first authorities considered charging the surviving bomber as an enemy combatant, and deliberately decided not to Mirandize him once he regained consciousness. Remember that he is a naturalized US citizen captured on American soil and has so far not been tied to any international terrorist organizations.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/boston-bomb-investigation-extends-to-russia/article_047ec30a-d724-5b49-9811-c4c0941fd3dc.html (first three paragraphs are particularly important).

First, from an editorial from the Post-Dispatch: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-president-or-terror-suspect-the-rule-of-law-applies/article_411048ff-1e15-5032-8b1c-9756bc4a7d93.html

And this one from conservative commentator George Will: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/george-will/george-will-the-shame-of-deference/article_20bdbf54-e3fd-5fdb-aab5-7d8bb93e623e.html

And from moderate Kathleen Parker: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/kathleen-parker/kathleen-parker-the-terror-of-not-knowing/article_033f880d-56ef-5535-b1c5-0b7df2d2b74b.html

This is a great chance to APPLY what we learn and use it to determine our course of action. It is also a good chance to review the Constitutional Amendments and Supreme Court decisions as well as other historical precedents that apply to our understanding of  civil liberties. We will be discussing this in class next Tuesday, April 30. Take notes and CONSIDER your answer to these questions:

What are civil liberties? What is the purpose of civil liberties? Are they negotiable or variable? What does history show us about limitations on civil liberties in times of war or crisis? What points does George Will make about previous instances of racially-based civil liberties decisions? What point does Kathleen Parker make about the ease of stripping those perceived as “alien” or “other” of their rights and claims to humanity?

Here is a link outlining very briefly the current case law on the matter of enemy combatants and civil liberties: http://web.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/civil/index.php?action=showtopic&topicid=24

US Citizenship Test

Give yourself the test! Click here: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0104/Could-you-pass-a-US-citizenship-test/Who-signs-bills?cmpid=prc:ctzn:d

The KKK and Eugenics

Go to this link. Take notes on the “mobilizing passions of fascism”. What did the Klan have in common with the rising fascist governments in Europe in terms of its worldview and aims?

Remember that groups like this sharply delimit who count as “us”– the chosen group, but one which also under siege and persecution– and who are “them”– the other, the “alien” living among and threatening “us.” Note exactly how the Klan defines “them.”

http://www1.assumption.edu/ahc/1920s/eugenics/klan.html

 

Then read this link on the eugenics mvement, which also reached its peak in the 1920s: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dh23eu.html

What are your responses to these two articles? Was this science or pseudo-science masquerading as science?

How the Other Half Lives

Here is a link to a digital copy of the book: http://tenant.net/Community/Riis/title.html

Here is background on the book: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/davis/photography/riis/otherhalf.html

How the Wong Kim Ark case applies to debates about jus soli

This was in the Post-Dispatch on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Note the bnold-faced information, which reflects our recent class discussion.

WASHINGTON • Conservative lawmakers from five state legislatures launched a joint campaign Wednesday afternoon to try to cancel automatic U.S. citizenship for the American-born children of illegal immigrants.

It is part of the conservative Republicans’ promised attack on “anchor babies” that included U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, marking his first day Wednesday night as chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration by introducing a bill to eliminate birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. “This isn’t what our Founding Fathers intended,” he told politico.com.

The state legislators used a news conference in Washington to unveil two model measures they said would be introduced in at least 14 states. One was a bill clarifying the terms of citizenship in those states to exclude babies born in the United States of illegal immigrant parents. The second was a compact among states to adopt common positions on the issue.

The lawmakers acknowledged that the state bills were not likely to have a practical impact anytime soon because they would be quickly challenged as unconstitutional. But the legislators — from Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina — said they chose the inaugural day of a new, Republican-controlled House of Representatives to open the first round of litigation they hope will lead to the Supreme Court and also spur action by lawmakers in Washington.

“We are here to send a very public message to Congress,” said Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican state representative from Pennsylvania. “We want to bring an end to the illegal alien invasion that is having such a negative impact on our states.”

The state lawmakers’ initiative put the highly emotional issue of birthright citizenship, which had long been marginal in the immigration debate, at the front of the Republicans’ immigration agenda as the new Congress gets under way. A study released in August by the Pew Hispanic Center found that about 340,000 children were born to illegal immigrants in the United States in 2008 and became instant citizens.

The right to U.S. citizenship for everyone born on American soil is described in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The state legislators argued that certain phrases in the amendment signal that it was not intended to apply to children of immigrants who do not have lawful status.

Opponents of changing the status quo argue that determining American citizenship is clearly a federal matter in which states have no legal role.

Because the federal government decides who is to be deemed a citizen, the state lawmakers are considering instead a move to create two kinds of birth certificates in their states, one for the children of citizens and another for the children of illegal immigrants. The theory is that this could spark a flurry of lawsuits that might resolve the legal conflict in their favor.

Most scholars of the Constitution consider the states’ effort to restrict birth certificates patently unconstitutional.

“This is political theater, not a serious effort to create a legal test,” said Gabriel J. Chin, a law professor at the University of Arizona whose grandfather immigrated to the United States from China at a time when ethnic Chinese were excluded from the country. He called the effort “unconstitutional.”

But conservatives contend that the issue is unsettled. Kris Kobach, the incoming secretary of state in Kansas and a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who has helped draft many of the tough immigration regulations across the country, argued that the approach the states were planning would hold up to scrutiny.

“I can’t really say much more without showing my hand,” Kobach said. “But, yes, I am confident that the law will stand up in court.”

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, was a repudiation of the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that people of African descent could never be American citizens. The amendment said citizenship applied to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

In 1898, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the citizenship provision as applying to a child born in the United States to a Chinese immigrant couple.

In April, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., one of those pushing for congressional action on the issue, stirred controversy when he suggested that children born in the United States to illegal immigrants should be deported with their parents until the birthright citizenship policy was changed.

“And we’re not being mean,” Hunter told a Tea Party rally in Southern California. “We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen.”

Multicultural History of the US: After the Civil War

How immigration exploded in the US from the Civil War onward. A good review of social history, a major strand in AP US history.