This CNBC News Report describes how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Standard Oil a monopoly when it controlled 90 percent of the world's oil refining. However, John D. Rockefeller maintained control of the oil companies that splintered off from the monopoly, securing his historic fortune.
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On the eve of the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin describes the intense deliberations that went into two historic Court decisions: Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and the Dred Scot decision of 1857.
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Following the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, "Jim Crow laws," which discriminated against African Americans, were justified as offering "separate but equal" accommodations. Overturned in 1954 by the case Brown v. Board of Education, segregation began long before Plessy. Answer these questions on the history of Jim Crow.
1. The term "Jim Crow" originally referred to:
b. A popular burlesque song and theatrical dance number
White actor, singer, and dancer, Thomas D. Rice, wrote and performed "Jim Crow" (sometimes called "Jump Jim Crow" because of the first line of the chorus) in 1829 or 1830. To perform the song, Rice dressed in tattered rags and frolicked comically to impersonate a very low caricature of a black man. His performances became an overnight sensation among white audiences, and he performed all over the country. He then took his act to Britain and France, where it became an even bigger hit.
One dismayed English drama critic in the London Satirist, however, wrote: "Talent is of no country, neither is folly; and were 'Jim Crow' of English creation, we should have assuredly dealt as severely with it as we have now done with the bantling of the new world--perhaps more so, for we would have strangled it in its birth to prevent it begetting any more of its own species to offend the world's eye with their repulsive deformities. The circumstance of its being an exotic, the production of the pestilential marshes of backwood ignorance, has had no effect with us in giving our opinion. There is no concealing the fact, that Jim Crow owes its temporary triumph in this country to one of those lapses of human nature which sometimes occurs, when the senses run riot, and a sort of mental saturnalia takes place." Quoted in "Jim Crowism," Spirit of the Times (New York), February 4, 1837.
2. "Jim Crow cars" were separate railway passenger cars in which blacks were forced to travel, instead of in the passenger cars in which whites took their seats. The term "Jim Crow cars" first came into use:
a. In the mid-1830s, in Massachusetts and Connecticut
Segregated public transportation began in the North before the Civil War. In many parts of the South, a black could not travel at all, unless he or she was accompanying (or accompanied by) a white, or carrying a pass from a white person.
The inconsistencies themselves bred conflict. One Massachusetts newspaper editor wrote, "South of the Potomac, slaves ride inside of stage-coaches with their masters and mistresses—north of the Potomac they must travel on foot, in their own hired vehicles, or in the 'Jim Crow' car. … What a black man is, depends on where he is. He has no nature of his own; that depends upon his location. Moreover the contradictions that appertain to him, produce corresponding contradictions in the white man. … Seriously, very seriously—do not the incongruities, the strange anomalies, in the condition of the coloured race, clearly show there is terrible wrong somewhere? … The confusion of tongues is terrible; the confusion of ideas is worse." From "Incongruities of Slavery," The Friend, March 26, 1842, quoting the [Worcester] Massachusetts Spy.
3. Among the very first deliberate African American challengers to Jim Crow practices in public transportation was:
b. Frederick Douglass, who refused, in 1841, to give up the first-class seat on the Eastern Railroad he took when he boarded the train at Newburyport, MA, and move to the train's Jim Crow car
Douglass may not have been the very first, but he appears to have been one of the first. African Americans in New England, beginning in late 1839, along with white abolitionists, with some successes, deliberately challenged extra-legal but fairly common Jim Crow accommodations on railroads, on stagecoaches, in churches ("Negro pews"), and in schools. The persistence of Jim Crow practices in the North, however, gave Southern slave-holding whites the opportunity to reproach even abolitionist Northern whites for "not treating their free blacks better."
4. After the Civil War, the practice of formally segregating whites and blacks working in Federal Government offices was instituted during the administration of which U.S. President?
c. Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson, who had been born in Virginia, soon after he took office in 1913, began a government-wide segregation of blacks and whites in Federal workplaces, restrooms, and lunchrooms. The policy appears to have been instituted after Wilson's Georgia-born wife Ellen visited the Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Washington and "saw white and negro women working side by side." Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury, William McAdoo (also Georgia-born, and soon to be the Wilsons' son-in-law) took the hint. Shortly thereafter, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury John Skelton Williams issued an order segregating the races in the Bureau. A Washington-wide order, covering all Government offices, followed, and soon all Federal offices everywhere in the country were covered by the same order.
Looking for more on Jim Crow laws and the impact of segregation on African Americans' lives? Try American Public Media's Remembering Jim Crow, for excerpts of oral histories from those who lived through segregation. Their close-to-an-hour-long radio program, Radio Fights Jim Crow, also looks at segregation—this time, at World War II-era radio programs that challenged civil rights abuses and stereotypes of African Americans.
The History of Jim Crow, created to accompany the PBS documentary miniseries The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, goes beyond guides to the series' four parts, providing essays, interactive maps, and lesson plans.
Race and Place: An African-American Community in the Jim Crow South: Charlottesville, VA, maintained by the University of Virginia, traces racism and segregation through the history of one city, with primary sources including oral histories, personal papers, newspapers, images, census data, maps, city records, and political materials.
For six lesson plans on segregation and education in a one-room Virginia schoolhouse, visit Teaching at Laurel Grove, from the Laurel Grove School Association.
The U.S. Supreme Court both looks to and sets precedents in handing down decisions that affect the fabric of American life and ideals—including the workings of U.S. schools. Match these descriptions of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on schools with the names of the cases.
1. Runyon v. McCrary, 1976: Private schools may not discriminate on the basis of race.
The Court decided that the 1871 Civil Rights Act gave the federal government power to override private as well as state-supported racial discrimination.
2. Epperson v. Arkansas, 1968: Prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools is unconstitutional.
The Court took on the case despite the fact that the state of Arkansas had never attempted to enforce its statute against teaching evolution.
3. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954: Racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
State laws that had set up "separate but equal" schools for black students and white students were overturned, because such schools were "inherently unequal," and so violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
4. Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923: Prohibiting the teaching of foreign languages in grade schools is unconstitutional.
A Nebraska law had prohibited the teaching (before high school) of any subject to any child in any language other than English. The plaintiff was a parochial school teacher who had taught German to one of his students.
5. Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963: Requiring the reading of Bible verses in public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
A Pennsylvania State law had required public schools to open each day with a reading, without comment, of 10 Bible verses.
6. Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 1925: Parents may send their children to private schools rather than public schools.
The State of Oregon had been on the verge of forcing all children to attend public schools in order to encourage immigrants' assimilation.
7. Engel v. Vitale, 1962: Requiring the recitation in public schools of an official school prayer is unconstitutional.
A Hyde Park, New York, school had opened each school day with a prayer addressed "Almighty God," which the Court held violated the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment (extended to the individual states by the 14th Amendment).
8. United States v. Virginia, 1996: Excluding either gender from any public school is unconstitutional.
The Court ruled that the Virginia Military Institute had not demonstrated a persuasive reason for excluding women, and so violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
9. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972: Parents may refuse to send their children to school after 8th grade if it violates their religious beliefs.
Amish parents had taken their children out of school after 8th grade, for religious reasons, and state authorities had attempted to force them to attend high school.
10. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 1969: Student protest is protected by 1st Amendment freedom of speech.
The protest in question was students' wearing of black armbands with peace symbols during the Vietnam War.
For more on major U.S. Supreme Court cases, try a search in our Website Reviews, using the topic "Legal History" or the keywords "Supreme Court." Search results will include websites like Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia, which features audio files, abstracts, transcriptions of oral arguments, and written opinions covering more than 3,300 Supreme Court cases, and Landmark Supreme Court Cases, which looks at 17 major court cases from a teaching perspective.
Or search by individual court case. A search for keywords "Brown Board of Education" using our general search (see the top righthand corner of the screen) produces websites (such as the University of Michigan's Digital Archive: Brown v. Board of Education), online history lectures, museums and historic sites, and other related resources.
Also check out our blog's roundups of resources on the Supreme Court: Our Courts Especially for Middle School Students and The Supreme Court: Connections Between Past and Present.
With Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th, students may be rolling their "Arrs." Popular media focuses on pirates pillaging at sea, but pirates didn't limit themselves to the open ocean. Consider these questions on oyster pirates, who made their living thieving shellfish in America's bays.
1. Oyster pirates were at the height of their trade during what years?
a. The 1700s, the Golden Age of piracy
b. The 1800s, prior to the Civil War
c. Approximately 1930 to 1940
d. Approximately 1870 to 1920
Oysters became a high-demand source of protein and nutrition following the Civil War. With the rise of industry and of shipping by rail, canneries and corporate oyster farming operations sprang up on both coasts, eager to supply the working class, and anyone else who wanted the tasty shellfish, with oysters shipped live or canned. In San Francisco, a center of oyster piracy, the boom years of the oyster industry corresponded, unsurprisingly, with those of the oyster industry—both took off in 1870, as the state began allowing major oyster farming operations to purchase the rights to underwater bay "land" (traditionally common property), and petered off in the 1920s, as silt and pollution disrupted the bay's ecosystem.
2. Which famous author spent time as an oyster pirate?
a. Jack London
b. Mark Twain
c. Ernest Hemingway
d. Upton Sinclair
At 15, Jack London bought a boat, the Razzle Dazzle, and joined the oyster pirates of San Francisco Bay to escape work as a child laborer. London wrote about his experiences in his semi-fictional autobiography, John Barleycorn, and used them in his early work, The Cruise of the Dazzler, and in his Tales of the Fish Patrol. The latter tells the story of oyster pirates from law enforcement's perspective—after sailing as an oyster pirate, London switched sides himself, to hunt his former compatriots.
3. What was popular working-class opinion on the oyster pirates?
a. Oyster pirates should be hunted down and captured, as they gave a bad name to common fishermen
b. Oyster pirates meant very little to the working class in bay areas; a few people admired or condemned them, but most people ignored them
c. Oyster pirates were heroes, fighting back against corporate ownership of underwater property
d. Oyster pirates pulled attention from more important issues, such as urban crime rates and public health
The working class romanticized oyster pirates as Robin-Hood-like heroes, fighting back against the new big businesses' private control of what had once been common land. Traditionally, underwater "real estate" was commonly owned—anyone with a boat or oyster tongs could fish or dredge without fear of trespassing. Following the Civil War, states began leasing maritime "land" out to private owners; and the public protested, by engaging in oyster piracy, supporting oyster pirates, scavenging in tidal flats and along the boundaries of maritime property, and, occasionally, engaging in armed uprisings.
4. On April 3, 1883, the comic opera Driven from the Seas; or the Pirate Dredger's Doom played to an appreciative audience at the Norfolk Academy of Music in Virginia. What Chesapeake Bay event did the opera satirize?
a. A successful raid against Chesapeake oyster pirates by Virginia governor William Evelyn Cameron, in 1882
b. The sinking of two dredgers' ships in February 1883, when the dredgers ran against rocks while being chased by overzealous patrol boats
c. The misadventures of a group of drunk oyster pirates arrested for causing a public disturbance in Norfolk in March 1883
d. An unsuccessful raid against Chesapeake oyster pirates by Virginia governor William Evelyn Cameron, in February 1883
The opera satirized Governor William Evelyn Cameron's second raid against oyster pirates in the Chesapeake Bay, on February 27, 1883. Cameron had conducted a very successful raid the previous February, capturing seven boats and 46 dredgers, later pardoning most of them to appease public opinion—which saw the pirates as remorseful, hard-working family men. His second raid, in 1883, went poorly. Almost all of the ships he and his crews chased escaped into Maryland waters, including the Dancing Molly, a sloop manned only by its captain's wife and two daughters (the men had been ashore when the governor started pursuit). The public hailed the pirates as heroes and ridiculed the governor in the popular media—the Lynchberg Advance, for instance, ran a poem comically saluting the failed raid.
Oyster piracy highlights the class tensions that sprang up during post-Civil War industrialization. Big business and private ownership began to drive the economy, shaping the lives of the working class and changing long-established institutions and daily patterns. Young people such as Jack London turned to oyster piracy as an escape from the new factory work—and the working class chaffed against the loss of traditional maritime common lands to business owners.
For more on oyster piracy, consider Jack London's fiction on the subject. Full-text versions of The Cruise of the Dazzler, John Barleycorn, and Tales of the Fish Patrol are available at Project Gutenberg, which provides the full text of hundreds of out-of-copyright works.
The Smithsonian's online exhibit On the Water includes a section on the Chesapeake oyster industry, with a mention of oyster pirates.
The oyster war!
The oyster war!
The biggest sight you ever saw;
The Armada sailing up the Bay,
The oyster pirates for to slay.
With cannon, brandy, cards aboard,
They steam from out of Hampton Road,
The Govnor wearing all the while
A Face lit up with many a "smile."
But when the pirates hove in view
Quick to his post each sailor flew!
The squadron, with "Dutch courage" bold,
Sweeps like the wolf upon the fold.
They to the Rappahannock turn
To fight like Bruce at Bannockburn,
And give the oyster-dredgers fits,
Like Bonaparte at Austerlitz.
In 1838, former South Carolina Governor John Lyde Wilson published The Code of Honor; or, Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Duelling. You are a respected lawyer and landed gentleman in Charleston, SC, in 1838, and determined to follow the Code in your life (and duels).
1. To your face, a store-clerk—rather than asking you when he might expect payment for an overdue bill—says that he doubts you have ever intended to pay it. What should your response be?
A. Take out a pistol and threaten to shoot him, unless he immediately apologizes.
B. Ignore the insult as unworthy of notice and take your business elsewhere.
C. Later that day, have your Second ask him for an explanation. If the response conveyed to you is not satisfactory, challenge the clerk to a duel.
D. Immediately beat the clerk with a cane or a horsewhip for his insolence, or have your servant do it.
The point of the duel was not to inflict harm on your opponent, but to preserve your honor. If your honor was threatened and you did not defend it, then you demonstrated that you had none. The clerk was below you in social station and so could not threaten your honor. Duels could only occur between social equals—and gentlemen—who could be expected to rise to a challenge. However, social inferiors could sometimes require discipline or punishment, with the cane or the whip, for their impertinence or rebelliousness.
2. During an evening at a tavern with your long-time acquaintances, the political discussion becomes heated and one of the party intimates strongly but vaguely that the local opposition party leadership (of which you are a member) clings to power because of its willingness to offer bribes. What should you do about it?
A. Nothing at the time and nothing in front of other people. Avoid mentioning it then, but send a respectful letter through a Second to the other person shortly thereafter, asking for an explanation of his actions or words.
B. Call the attention of other witnesses to the insult just after it happens. Leave the scene immediately and send a written challenge to a duel to the person who insulted you.
C. Confront the other person immediately, explaining that he has impugned your honor. Slap his face with a glove or your hand, and tell him that your Second will deliver a demand to him for a duel to settle the matter.
Advocates of the Code of Honor held that its formalities minimized spontaneous escalations of violence, allowing passions to abate and providing opportunities for mediation and reconciliation. Moreover, the Code cautioned against reacting immediately and in front of other people because such an uncontrolled reaction would insult the integrity of the group and would preclude any resolution of the dispute except through a duel. The careful procedures the participants were expected to follow were explicitly detailed. The person who felt insulted and the person whom he thought had insulted him were the "Principals." Each of them found "Seconds," who acted on their behalf at various points in the dispute. The aggrieved Principal was expected to write a polite note to the other Principal (delivered to him by the first Principal's Second), asking for a clarification of his words or actions. If the response did not satisfy the aggrieved Principal, he would write another note, issuing a challenge to a duel, which the Seconds would arrange.
3. You have been sent a note asking for an explanation of your words or actions, but you refuse to respond satisfactorily and repeatedly ignore the challenger's request for an explanation or his later challenge to a duel. What is likely to happen next?
A. You and your friends have a good chuckle over it all and get back to your work, knowing that dueling is unlawful.
B. You send the challenger's note to the local police requesting a judge to issue an injunction against the challenger to stay away from you.
C. The challenger posts a notice in a public place, naming you as a coward who is unwilling to defend his honor. As a consequence, your friends shun you, your business fails, and any political aspirations you may have had are now finished. Your family is shamed by their loss of honor.
The Code of Honor was seen as existing in a society in which the law might act to defend and protect many things, but did not act to defend your personal sense of honor, which could be taken from you if you did not think enough of it to defend it. Dueling was technically illegal in every state in which it was practiced (with the punishment ranging from execution to disbarment from public office), but the law was rarely enforced. Moving the defense of one's honor under the umbrella of the law—through such things as the establishment of libel laws and the use of civil suits—was probably one of the causes of eventually quelling the practice of dueling.
4. You have sent a note, asking for explanation for someone's words that have offended your honor. In a note of reply, the person explains that he was intoxicated when he said what you found offensive. Is that the end of the matter?
A. Yes. Gentlemen may not have been excused by the law from criminal actions that they perpetrated when drunk, but the point of honor with other gentlemen was satisfied when the offender stated that he had been intoxicated.
B. No. In order to satisfy your honor, the offender was obliged, not only to state in reply to you that he was intoxicated, but also to disavow explicitly the insulting words.
Wilson's Code says, "Intoxication is not a full excuse for insult, but it will greatly palliate. If it was a full excuse, it might be well counterfeited to wound feelings, or destroy character." If the initial insult was "You are a liar and no gentleman," the note must not only explain that he was intoxicated when he said that (or that he does not remember saying it because he was intoxicated), but also must state, "I believe the party insulted to be a man of the strictest veracity and a gentleman."
5. Someone strikes you, but then soon apologizes. Is that all that honor demands?
A. Yes. A heartfelt apology, publicly offered, is to be accepted in a spirit of Christian forgiveness. The honor of both parties is preserved.
B. No, that is not enough. Words alone cannot satisfy for a blow offered first.
Wilson's Code says, "As a blow is strictly prohibited under any circumstances among gentlemen, no verbal apology can be received for such an insult; the alternatives therefore are: the offender handing a cane to the injured party, to be used on his own back, at the same time begging pardon; firing on until one or both is disabled; or exchanging three shots, and then asking pardon without the proffer of the cane."
6. Apart from the Principals and their Seconds, who should be present on the ground during a duel?
A. The duelers' families.
B. Members of the local constabulary.
C. The duelers' ministers or priests.
D. Surgeons and their assistants.
E. The general public.
No one else in this list would have been welcome or even tolerated. Dueling was not a family feud, and having family members present would have been distracting, provocative, and cruel. Dueling was conceived as a private matter between gentlemen, so the general public was certainly not invited to witness it. It was also illegal, and so duels were generally conducted in secret, at a time and place such that police or sheriffs would not interfere. And the clergy did not countenance the practice, and so they would not appear on the dueling ground either.
7. If you are the Principal in a duel and you come onto the ground but then refuse to fight or to continue the fight when required—or you leave the site altogether—what should your Second do?
A. Step in and take your place in the duel to uphold your honor.
B. Try to determine from you the reasons for your actions, explain them to the other Principal and Second, and negotiate the best settlement possible.
C. Ask for mercy from the other Principal on your behalf.
D. Say to the other Second: "I have come upon the ground with a coward. I tender you my apology for an ignorance of his character." Then tell him and the other Principal that they may publicly post your name as a coward.
It was felt that if the strongest means to enforce the system were not in place, it would very quickly become nothing but a farce. During antebellum years, the weapons used were often smoothbore, muzzle-loaded, flintlock pistols, which fired a single bullet and had to be reloaded after each shot. The exchange of shots was sometimes lethal, but often not. Depending on the nature of the dispute and the disputants, honor might be "satisfied" on both sides after an exchange of fire in which neither one of the Principals was hit, or in which one or the other were merely wounded or grazed.
8. As Principal, you appear with your Second at the appointed time and place for the duel. The other Principal also appears with his Second and offers you an apology for his insult. Is your honor satisfied?
A. Yes. The whole point is the reconciliation of disputes.
B. No. At this point the dispute cannot be settled with a mere apology, for the other Principal has placed you in a trying situation far beyond the initial insult. The duel must proceed.
"No apology can be received, in any case, after the parties have actually taken their ground, without exchange of fires." In fact, this rule was sometimes breached, and reconciliation was achieved on the ground before shots were exchanged.
9.Is honor satisfied if one or both of the Principals "delopes"—that is, deliberately fires into the air or into the ground to avoid harming each other, or to show their magnanimity?
A. Yes. It is sufficient, and in many cases, laudable.
B. No. This is not admissible.
If the offence and the challenge were not serious in the first place, it should not have come to the point of a duel. If they were serious, the duel must be taken seriously, or in a way that might even suggest that you do not regard your opponent as worthy to shoot at. As a matter of historical fact, however, either one or both of the Principals did "delope" and afterwards counted the matter settled.
10. After an exchange of shots and neither one of the Principals is hit, can the duel be ended with honor served?
A. No, never. The Principals must reload and continue firing until one of them is hit.
B. Yes, always. The exchange of shots proves each Principal's willingness to defend his honor.
C. Yes, sometimes, depending on whether the Challenger feels that his honor has been satisfied.
If neither Principal is hit, the Second to the one who was challenged should approach the Challenger's Second and ask if he is satisfied. He may say yes, if the original insult or injury was not great, but he may say no if the insult was a serious one, in which case the duel must continue until one or the other of the Principals is hit.
Project Gutenberg provides the full text of John Lyde Wilson's The Code of Honor, or, Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Duelling. The pamphlet runs to 14 printed pages, in eight chapters of bullet points—short enough for homework reading, or perhaps division and discussion in class.
Colonial Williamsburg's podcast has twice looked at early American dueling—in one podcast on The Code Duello and its application in Europe and the States, and in another on the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
PBS's website The Duel looks in detail at the duel between Hamilton and Burr and provides history on dueling and a teacher's guide for viewing the corresponding documentary, American Experience: The Duel. You can also watch the sections "A Father's Loss" and "The Duel" from the full PBS documentary American Experience: Alexander Hamilton online (scroll forward to 15:27 or right click on the chapters on the thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen).
Or try the lesson plan and resource collection compiled by the Missouri State Archives' Missouri Digital Heritage: Crack of the Pistol: Dueling in 19th-century Missouri. The lesson plan invites students to read and interpret a variety of primary sources related to dueling in Missouri, including the original 1777 Irish Code Duello.
As the work of another school year begins, Labor Day reminds us to honor the nation's workers. Since the rise of industry, workers have used strikes and other forms of protest to demand change and recognition. Select the correct answer for each of the labor-related questions below.
1. What U.S. census data does this map portray?
a. The 1930 relative concentration of "totally unemployed persons registered" in each state.
b. The 1870 relative amount of "total capital invested (in dollars) in manufacturing" in each state.
c. The 1920 relative concentration of "manufacturing establishments" in each state.
d. The 1950 relative concentration of "employed females" in each state.
By 1920, industry had established itself as a fixture of the American economy and way of life, though its hubs remained in the Mid-Atlantic. New York continued to be a center of industry, and Illinois, with the continuing rise of Chicago as an urban industrial center, had become one, as well.
2. On May 4, 1886, a peaceful workers' rally in Chicago's Haymarket Square ended in death and confusion when a dynamite bomb was thrown into a line of approaching police officers. The Haymarket Affair received nationwide media attention and the trials of the alleged guilty parties went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Four of the accused were hung and a fifth committed suicide.
What reform was the rally supporting?
a. The removal of hazardous parts-manufacturing machinery from a McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant.
b. The passing of a minimum-wage law in the state of Illinois.
c. The paying of compensation to workers who suffered debilitating injuries from repetitive factory work.
d. The institution of the eight-hour workday.
The speakers at the Haymarket Affair supported strikers who had engaged in a May 1 nationwide walkout to support an eight-hour workday. On May 3, the first workday after the walkout, police killed two workers outside a McCormick plant during a confrontation between scabs (temporary workers hired to replace strikers) and strikers. This event provided an impetus for the Haymarket rally.
3. On February 6, 1919, more than 60,000 Seattle workers refused to work, marking the high point of a series of strikes and unrest that started in January 1919. The first labor action to effectively shut down an entire city, this strike hoped to secure what result?
a. The reinstatement of workers ousted by returning soldiers.
b. A pay raise for the city's shipyard workers.
c. The cessation of all U.S. hostilities against the Bolshevik Red Army in Russia and of any support for forces opposing the Red Army.
d. A stop to the installation of new machinery that would reduce the work force necessary in the shipyards.
During World War I, the government imposed wage controls, keeping the wages of Seattle shipyard workers down even as the shipyards expanded through war production contracts. Following the war, the workers expected a raise in their wages; when denied, approximately 25,000 members of the Metal Trades Council union alliance went on strike. A general citywide strike followed, with about 35,000 other workers striking in support of the shipyard protest. The strike officially ended on February 11—though not before touching off a widespread "Red Scare."
4. On December 30, 1936, the workers at Flint, Michigan's General Motors automobile plant began a six-week long strike to press for better working conditions. Organized by the United Auto Workers, the strike used what relatively unusual technique to make its point?
a. Strikers not only stopped working during the strike, but left town entirely, taking their families with them.
b. Strikers remained entirely silent during the strike.
c. Strikers, instead of picketing outside of the factory, occupied the factory, preventing upper management and law enforcement from entering.
d. Strikers sabotaged the factory's power supply, re-sabotaging it whenever plant management repaired it.
Known as the Flint Sit-down Strike, this strike used techniques later adapted by the civil rights movement. On December 30, workers sat down at their places and refused to leave the factory for six weeks. Provided food and supplies by supporters, the workers repelled attempts by the police to drive them out and even initiated the surprise takeover of another plant in the last two weeks of the strike.
The map of the 1920 concentration of manufacturing establishments was generated by the University of Virginia Library's Historical Census Browser. The browser provides searchable census data for 1790 through 1960, with the option to visualize any data selections in maps such as the one above; all of the categories mentioned in Question One are categories available on the website. For Teachinghistory.org's review of the Historical Census Browser, go here.
Teachinghistory.org's reviews the Library of Congress's American Memory collection Chicago Anarchists on Trial: Evidence from the Haymarket Affair, 1886-1887 here.
The Seattle General Strike Project looks at the 1919 general strike through primary sources, including photographs, video clips, newspaper articles, and oral histories. The website is part of the University of Washington's larger Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, collecting primary sources on civil rights and labor movements throughout the city's history. NHEC reviews the Project here.
Historical Voices provides a website on the Flint Sit-down Strike: Remembering the Flint Sit-down Strike: 1936-1937. The website provides close to 100 oral history interviews with strikers, as well as essays on the events of the strike. NHEC's review of the website can be found here.
From the Facing History and Ourselves website:
"Educators are invited to join this free online workshop designed to introduce the resources and interactive features of Facing History's newly revised website, Choosing to Participate.
Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves is an engaging interactive multimedia exhibition that has won national praise for encouraging people of all ages to consider the consequences of their everyday choices and for inspiring them to make a difference in their schools and communities. The exhibition focuses on four individuals and communities whose stories illustrate the courage, initiative, and compassion that are needed to protect democracy and human rights."
When you think of life at sea, what comes to mind? Excitement? Danger? Pirates? Johnny Depp? This quiz has a bit of all of the above, with the exception of Mr. Depp. Test your knowledge of renowned maritime disasters and confrontations.
1. On December 5th 1872, the Mary Celeste was found sailing empty of all crew, but with all valuables—including her cargo of raw alcohol—still aboard. The yawl (a small boat) was missing, and two cuts were made to the bow of the ship. Which of the following theories was proposed by one of the captain's relatives?
a. Warm weather made the alcoholic cargo release gas, causing cargo barrels to explode and the crew to abandon ship.
The captain's cousin, Oliver Cobb, and the vessel owner, J.H. Winchester, felt that the cargo caused minor explosions in the hold. Following the explosions, the ship would have been abandoned in extreme haste, as such explosions were known to splinter and sink vessels.
The official opinion on the Mary Celeste was that the crew sampled the alcohol, killed the captain and his family, damaged the bow of the brig to make the vessel appear unseaworthy, and waited for another captain to "save" them from their vessel. Others held that the ship was becalmed. As it slowly drifted toward shore, Briggs and his men set out in the yawl, to avoid being onboard if the ship wrecked. However, they did not tie the yawl to the Mary Celeste; and when the wind started again, the ship abandoned them. Many other theories exist, and this remains one of history's mysteries. (Incidentally, there were no African Americans among the crew—though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a fictionalized account in which African American crewman mutinied.)
2. In November 1819, a vessel was struck and wrecked by a sperm whale the crew had seen before, at previous whaling sites. What is the name of the ship?
b. The Essex
Having survived the wreck, 20 crewmembers set out from the Essex in small rowboats with minimal supplies. Over the course of three months, they floated about the South Seas, suffering from the heat, dehydration, and starvation. The evacuees eventually resorted to cannibalism when their food stores were depleted. Eight men survived, including the captain, James Pollard, Jr., and Owen Chase, author of the best-known firsthand account of the disaster. The story of the Essex inspired Herman Melville to write his famous novel Moby-Dick.
3. The 1904 loss of the New York excursion steamer the General Slocum resulted in over 400 dead. Which factor did not contribute to the loss of life?
b. Inaccurate nautical charts
On June 15, 1904, the General Slocum departed on the annual Sunday School excursion of St. Mark's German Lutheran Church. However, unbeknownst to passengers and crew, a fire had broken out in a storage room. Many passengers died of burns, and others drowned, unable to swim. The steamer's defective life preservers added to the death toll. The preservers' insides, made of finely-ground cork, quickly became waterlogged when the preservers' rotten covers fell away. One survivor told of a woman with three children. The mother and two girls could swim, but one daughter could not. The daughter was put in a life preserver and tossed overboard, where she immediately sank.
The General Slocum disaster was recognized internationally because of the loss of so many women and children.
4. In December 1717, Blackbeard captured the sloop Margaret. What did the pirates take from the ship?
c. Cutlasses, hogs, books, and navigational tools
Captain Henry Bostock reported his losses as cutlasses, hogs, books, and navigational instruments—not the traditional image of pirate booty. However, the hogs would provide fresh meat; the books provided entertainment on board a ship where the crew often had little to do (pirate crews could be roughly 80 men strong, as compared to the 12-man crew of a merchant vessel); and accurate navigation was crucial at sea. When we think of pirates and maps, we imagine mythical treasure maps, but maps were vital to any ship—the more the better, as they were often inaccurate by as much as 600 nautical miles. Also, pirates were essentially democratic, so crews determined destinations by common vote. As a result, pirate ships often took odd, zigzagging routes, rather than tried-and-true sea paths, making maps still more valuable.
If you are curious about the Mary Celeste, one interesting online resource is "Sinbad's Genie and the Mary Celeste", a weather-related theory for the ship's lack of crew, written by a meteorologist.
For more information on the General Slocum disaster, try the National Archives and Records Administration's online exhibit Slocum Disasters, June 15, 1904. The page offers an image of the steamer, a contemporary newspaper page on the disaster, and the vessel's enrollment certificate.
North Carolina Digital History provides a brief biography of notorious pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. To learn more about the wreck of his ship and about a pirate's material possessions, head to the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, which offers artifact images and an archaeological site map.
How has U.S. history changed in the telling? Examine each history textbook passage on the Salem Witch Trials and connect it to the year of publication.
1. The severely religious trend of thought, the barrenness of life, and the dangers from Indian attacks that impended about the year 1691, account for the occurrence in Massachusetts of the witchcraft troubles. The theory of Satanic manifestations was commonly held in European countries, and there claimed its thousands of victims. In Salem and surrounding towns, two or three hundred persons, some of them being of the highest character, were accused of having allowed themselves to become possessed by the devil. Of these, nineteen were judicially condemned and were put to death. The comparative brevity and mildness of this outburst of religious fanaticism testifies to the real sadness of the Puritan mind. Nowhere in the world at this time was life more pure or thought more elevated.
1912
2. Early in the year [1692], two children of the family of a clergyman in Salem village, the one eleven, the other nine years of age, having been for some time indisposed, and no relief being obtained from medical aid, the attending physician suggested the probability of their being bewitched. The children, informed of their supposed situation, complained of an Indian woman, and declared they were "pinched, pricked, and, tormented" by her. Other persons, soon after, afflicted with various complaints, attributed their sickness to the same cause; and several of the imagined witches were put in prison. In the month of June eleven persons were tried, condemned, and executed. The awful mania increased. In September, nine more received sentence of death. Each became suspicious of his neighbor. The charges of witchcraft, commencing with the lower part of society, extended to all ranks; even a clergyman, among others, having been executed. A confession of guilt became the only security for life; such not being condemned. In October, the number of persons accused was so great, and their standing in society so respectable, that by general consent, all persons were released, and all prosecutions dropped.
1823
3. The most plausible explanation may lie in the uncertainty of life in late seventeenth-century New England. Salem Village, a farming town on the edge of a commercial center, was torn between old and new styles of life. Some families were abandoning agriculture for trade, while others were struggling to maintain traditional ways. The villagers who exploited the new economic opportunities were improving their status relative to their neighbors. Most people were uncertain about their destiny, but none more so than adolescent girls. As children their fate lay in the hands of their parents, yet their ultimate destiny would depend on their husbands. But would their husbands be farmers or artisans or merchants? What would their future lives be like? No one knew. By lashing out and in effect seizing command of the entire town, the girls gave their lives a certainty previously lacking. At the same time, they afforded their fellow townspeople an opportunity to vent their frustrations at the unsettling changes in their lives. The accused witches were scapegoats for the shattered dream of an isolated Bible Commonwealth.
1982
4. In 1692, the supposed witchcraft broke out in Salem and Danvers. Here the first subjects of it were children. The disorder, whatever its character may have been, … [at first] affected the lower classes only; but at length it pervaded all ranks and conditions. Two daughters of a minister, in Salem, were strangely affected. Before this they had been quiet, happy children but now they began to look wild, shriek, tell strange stories, sit barefoot among the ashes, or go abroad with their clothes and hair in great disorder, looking like insane people. Sometimes they were dumb; at others they would complain of being pricked severely with pins. The madness continuing to spread… Those who confessed the crime of witchcraft, however, were not executed. It was indeed a fearful time. Multitudes were suspected and accused, and at one period no less than one hundred and fifty were in prison for witchcraft…. The excitement at length passed away; and the more rapidly in proportion as the criminals were treated with clemency. Multitudes owned, at length, that they confessed their guilt to save their lives! For a century past little has been said of witchcraft in the United States, and few believe in its existence. The events we have narrated are supposed to have been the result of delusion.
1866
