Link to class audio here
EXPLORATION
Christopher Columbus
Lewis & Clark
Manifest Destiny
Apollo Program
LIBERTY
Pilgrims & Puritans (vs. Roger Williams)
Declaration of Independence & First Amendment
States Rights
Fascism, Nazism, and Communism
Culture Wars & the Supreme Court, 1960-2000
God, faith, and country in the 21st Century
EQUALITY
America vs. the rest of the world
Jacksonian Democracy
Black equality (Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Post-WW2, King, & Obama)
Immigrant Assimilation
PROSPERITY
European explorers
Jamestown, Georgia, New Amsterdam
Alexander Hamilton (Bank of the US, Western empire)
Gold Rush
Gilded Age
Great Depression & Dust Bowl
“Great Society” & the Welfare State
TECHNOLOGY
Education as means to virtue
Agricultural inventions (cotton gin, reapers, tractors)
Transportation inventions (steamboat, railroad, cars, airplanes, spacecraft)
Communication inventions (telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, computers, Internet)
Medical & quality of life inventions (vaccination, refrigeration, electric lights, scanners, DNA & the human genome)
Questions for Discussion:
Choose one of the five big stories and answer one of these questions about it:
Who (not a President) did the most to advance the story?
Which story had the biggest effect on a President's legacy?
What event shows the most overlap between multiple stories?
I think that the cival war when black people became free had a big efect on the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. That is what he will always be remembered for.
ReplyDeleteWho did the MOST to advance Technology? I almost said Neil Armstrong for being the first person to walk on the moon, but I started thinking about it and realized that without the Wright Brothers, the creation of computers, and probably a couple hundred other people and events in between, that event would never have happened. So, I honestly don't think there is any way to choose a single person. Without electricity (which goes back to the ancient Greeks, but I won’t go into that) Harrison Dyar would never been able to make the first telegraph, without the telegraph, Alexander Bell would never have made the first telephone (which is debatable if he even made the first one, but he patented it first.). Italian wind driven vehicles set the stage for steam powered trains and, in turn, personal cars. No single technological event that I can think of could have happened without a base that someone else set.
ReplyDelete@ katie
ReplyDeletei agree with you 100%
@Becca -- Did Abraham Lincoln advance the equality story at the expense of any of the others?
ReplyDelete@Katie -- You're right about technology, probably more than any other story, building on the foundations other folks have laid. That said, the story of technology is not limited to the inventors themselves. James Madison was the first to write laws protecting "intellectual property." Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Isaac Asimov, and Karl Copec all dreamed up ideas for technologies that other people actually invented. There are lots of ways you can go with the question.
A person not a president who inevitably advanced the equality of an entire race was Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. Before this invention, slavery was nonexistent in the North and almost wiped out in the South. Years of drought and not enough profit had made slaves nearly useless until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. Suddenly, slaves were in high demand to take care of the large cottton crops now made profitable by this machine. So in effect, one man did not begin the Civil War, but he certainly threw a rock off the mountain to begin the landslide that was to become the Civil War.
ReplyDelete@tiffany
ReplyDeleteI agree completely.
j.t.
I think that the people that advanced exploration were Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin in Apollo 11. I think that because after that people started to want to go to the moon, Mars, and beyond(even though the beyond hasn't happened yet) since then.
ReplyDeleteJ.T.
i think that the dust bowl and the great depession where a big effect on the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt because he came up with a program caleed The New Deal. This program created jobs for the 15% of americans that were out of work, but it also gave the government more control over the people and hindered private business.
ReplyDelete@Ben W.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't the S.E.T.I program count as both technological and as exploration?
@ tiffany
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good point, where did you get your info? I'd like to look at it.
I personally believe that the story of Liberty had the biggest effect on Thomas Jefferson's legacy. I think this, because he is most known for writing the Declaration of Independance. Another notable thing he did was write The Virgina Act for Establishing Religous Freedom, in 1786.
ReplyDeleteI think Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. both did alot toward black equality. They both stood up for what they believed what is right. Both of their stories affected each other. If Rosa Park had not had heard about Martin Luther King Jr., she probably would not have been able to stand up for herself on the bus that day. Martin Luther King Jr. was probably inspired by how Rosa Parks stood up for her rights as an American.
ReplyDeleteDude, I have no idea what i would post lol Wonder how many time i interrupted the audio you took from the class lols
ReplyDelete-Michael
Good stuff, guys.
ReplyDelete@JT -- Could somebody make the case that Armstrong and Aldrin actually set exploration back by making a trip to the moon look so easy?
@Callie -- Way to nail the "forces out of their control" angle. FDR and the weather. Well done.
@Mariah -- Rosa Parks is a good example, not only for advancing black equality, but also women's rights.
@Sarah -- You're right about Thomas Jefferson's greatest legacy being in the area of religious liberty.
Not for nuthin, but posts that start "I personally believe" just make me giggle a bit.
@Chewie -- I guess that depends on whether or not they find anything.
@Tiffany -- Advancing technology sets back equality. Then liberty is in doubt, followed by a threat to prosperity. Four stories in one event. Well done.
i totally agree with you guys. i think that all of you have great points. i think rosa parks did stand up for her her rights and i admire her for that.
ReplyDelete