Semester I Speech

The history of the United States of America is not as long as some others but not less important. In this semester we learned about a time period including 60 years of fast developing history. Beginning with the mess, that was left after the civil war, which was consider as the first war that included strategies for a total war, and continuing through waves of immigrants, with highs to a couple millions every year, to the supremacy of the US economy in the world.

Very interesting to hear was the fact that this – one of the most powerful industry in the world – build up its success on corruption and other arguable ways. Like monopolization. And so it´s not very surprising that millions of people in that period of time starved and lived in most dangerous places in the fast growing cities of the late 18 hundreds. And also not very surprising, that the common knowledge, that six out of the ten richest people of all times are Americans of this time period.

A problem that the USA always had is for example a problem with races. Before the time we´re studied the tension was between black and white and Indians, soon afterwards it spread out to many different ethnic groups to hate. Mexicans, Chinese and Catholics – just to name a few more. And a lot of those problems still exist today. What we can see nearly every day when we take a look into the news.

And also the army! I mean first you have a civil war where the own people fight against each other. Followed by a time where its main task is to hunt natives down. And then after a while just used to break strikes. Strikes for a better live just ran over by soldiers – using the army against your own people. And right now? What country in the world spends more money for military forces that are just used to invade other countries? You may discuss that point but there are millions of people thinking this nation has an army that is way too big.

Naming a period of time is a risky undertaking because you need to support your idea in many different ways. In my research I often had the feeling that this time was characterized by industry, money and technology. And when we look back we see that all this evidence appeared before. In the time of 1750 an era took its beginning: the industrialization. And we can draw the connections between 1750 and 1900 were more and more machines are doing the jobs and social crises are getting more likely. But even when we can draw those pretty strong connections I would like to name this time the poly sided age. Money, post war society, growing industry, upturn                and poverty. Corruption and mistrust everywhere! Including deals like: we take our troops out of your territory if you give us another president. We have crime and disasters everywhere and in the same breath we need to name the rising standards for nearly everyone. We have more new patents then in any previous time and also the most unsafe workplaces in history. We have the two sides of the medal – good and bad – gold and nothing. We can see one of the biggest spectrums in human history happening in these 60 years!

And there is something we will remember in 10 years! Right now we got a couple of political issues in Europe with our parties and I’m not sure how we are going to handle them but then again… it can´t be worse than a hundred and fifty years ago right here with a government that was actually nonexistent. But in the same way it is likely that we will remember empathy and sympathy and the experiment were the Dutch engineer refused to hurt someone due to his own experience.

And also I don´t think it will be a problem to remember the strikes beginning in the “poly sided age” because in the same way they were bad… they are also very good memorable. And if you were interested in the history of Native Americans before like I was then you´re on a good way to remember the story of Sitting Bull or Geronimo for quite a while.

I don´t think that the age of the city was very interesting. Except of all the new invention for building them like steel or the elevator. A police showed up because the situation was so bad. Fire departments were build, after a few cities completely burned down. No I´m sure we won´t remember that.

One thing we really don´t need to remember is the fact that the confederation states were economically behind the north after the war. What actually still hasn´t change! And it’s not likely to change in the next ten years.

But whatever our result for this semester is I´m sure the second one will be even better.

Thinking about success

1 : -Skill
1 : -Hard work
1.5 : -Opportunity
1.5 : -Luck

I don´t think that success is determined by one of the listed points but is the best mixture of all of those. You can work as hard and skilled as you want to but if there is never an opportunity to rise you will ever stay where you are. Getting the right opportunity is partly caused by luck but also influenced by what and how you’re doing. Skill for itself happens to get lost in the knowledge that you could easily do it (what ever) and take that as reason not to work hard. Hard work is done every day by so many people – physically and otherwise. But just a very few of them get the chance to do something great.

I think that success is easy to achieve when you gather all four points. But the problem is, that at least luck and opportunity are not bound to human will and so the success in every form is slightly rare.

Fashion retailer

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-14/2014-outlook-zaras-fashion-supply-chain-edge
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2012/10/23/the-future-of-fashion-retailing-part-1-uniqlo/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2012/10/25/the-future-of-fashion-retailing-the-zara-approach-part-2-of-3/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2012/11/05/the-future-of-fashion-retailing-the-hm-approach-part-3-of-3/
http://www.scdigest.com/assets/FirstThoughts/10-12-03.php

All the websites above show how different success looks like. From being fast to planning ahead or just searching for the golden middle way. But the very interesting concept of selling goods is, that you need to be yourself. “As soon as they decide to localize, to have two brains, one in Spain and one in China, it will be a different Zara,” (Felipe Caro)

Zara´s Headquarter

Test - Letter Home

Dear Mom,

The street where this Charakter has to life.

it has been three month since I left Germany. I write this letter in another language because we have to… The officials are making us speak just in English but it´s fine, with working factory and meeting other people this part of the integration is getting better and better. I had some problems with starting here but there was a nice guy who helped me a lot with nearly everything like food, a room where I can sleep and in many ways also with the language.
Yesterday was Sunday again and you need to know that I spend my free time almost always with exploring my new home – New York, but I more and more I think I immigrate to fast because just yesterday I walked through another Neighborhood. You can´t imagine how many Germans I saw that day an all of them spoke in German… It was a feeling of being back in Germany because it looked just like it and the smell of the bread was exactly the same. Of course it was clean… at least compared to other neighborhoods I saw.
I still have not so many friends but every Saturday evening I go into a salon to drink on day off with the entire group of worker from the factory. And when they talk about what they want to do the next day I sometimes think I´m doing the wrong thing, but I first want to know where I life before I start celebrating. I heard from so many nice places in this city: central park – a big nearly natural park in the center of this town; Coney Island – a huge amusement park. And so on I still have a lot to see and I don´t think I will ever discover all the places here.

PS: don´t tell dad, because elsewhere he will get a heart attack: I am still not sure whether it was a good Idea to come or not because every day I fear about my life. There are people in this town who are completely against immigrants. Some of them are that radical they would kill me if there wouldn´t be police men on every corner of the street. But that’s ok I think this a minority and they will lose their power very soon. 

Kind Regards

You’re Son

Railroad and Immigration

German Advertising poster - Northern Pacific

Train station

After the civil war and the years after it, it become more obviously that the United States needed a better infrastructure. With that background the Government decided to connect the east and west coast, as first step, via train. In 1862 the two biggest railroad companies opened their competition and started building a railroad track through the US. The finishing in 1869 was a very big deal not just for the companies, getting their awards of million acres of land and a lot of money, but also for the whole country.
Before the time of track, it was a long journey from one coast to other. Very dangerous and very expensive: it could cost more than 1000$ to travel per ship. With the railroad the price dropped to not more than 150 for a week of traveling. The national parks in the west of the US became more important and attractive. The Yellowstone national park had in 1905 since its opening 13.000 Visitors. Only in the summer of 1915, with some help of advertisement from the railroad companies itself Yellowstone had more than 52.000 Visitors.
The Wild West had become less wild after you were able to reach nearly every region with a train. Settlers from the east coast and from Europe came in millions and settled all over the Great Plains. City’s spread all over the country where a railroad was build. And the railroads where happy about that because most of the land were the new settlers wanted to live was owned by the railroad companies and if not the railroad was the only way for the farmers to sell their products to the big cities.
In the same time when the Land departments and Bureaus of immigration were selling land and tried to attract settlers to come to the US the railroad companies weren´t inactive: In 1872 the first European agency opened it gates. And it shouldn’t be the last one. In nearly every big city in Europe was at least on agency settled to sell land and get producers for God´s which can transported by the railroad. “The new country was so healthy that every known disease was cured there.” Is just one Quote how the agents – successfully – tried to get people settling near a railroad.
It must have been very attractive for an European farmer to settle in the Great Plains. In your own country the farming sector is still the biggest one but landowners own the most of the land. You get very less money for your products. The industrialization is moving very fast and machines beginning to do your job. Wars are going on in Europe all the time and if they can´t fight on their country they fight in the old colonies. The population is growing very fast and there are more people and less work, less money.
The circumstances getting worse and worse and someday a guy comes to you and offers you to take care about your travel to the USA. Tells you story´s about successful immigrants. Maybe about his own time there. Tells you that the government gives you 160 acre to live with and you just have to live there for five years and you own that land.

A Railroad train

First Transkontinental Railroad comletion

The result of the advertisement in Europe lead by the railroad companies was that the population, in the middle of the United States, grows rapidly, because just in one decade between 1880 and 1890 1.7 million Germans immigrated to the US and a lot of them settled in the Great Plains. City’s spread out all over the place. And even more railroad tracks were build. And the agricultural production doubled between 1870 and 1900.

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Industrial situation in Europe in 1870th and reasons from emigration to the US

American History

Land departments and Bureau of Immigration ways of selling land (first two paragraphs)

Quotes about advertising the great plains

Northern Pacific pdf

Report of the northern pacific railroad company about development in Europe with numbers and places about agencies in Europe

Northern Pacific pdf 2

Report of the northern pacific railroad company about development in Europe

Dates and information about work in Europe

Railroad advertisement - national parks

How the railroad helped Yellowstone survive – visitors numbers of Yellowstone

Harvard University

Information about the railroad competition – money gained, time etc. and the time after it (immigration)

Transcontinental Railroad

Facts about the competition and the general traveling with the train (cost) awards for the railroad companies for building the track

Film review on 12 Years a slave and Glory

Film review on 12 Years a slave and Glory

What is a Movie?

A Movie should entertain the watching people. Therefore it needs to have a story which can be told. It needs to have line it can follow and there have to be a point when everything changes.

How can Movies help to understand History?

History is a story which is already been told. It has his ups and down. Is Boring and exiting. But a Movie can just be exiting. Documentations are mostly boring and that is the reason why just a few people watch them. But the story needs to be told, I think we can agree with that. But nobody is interested in boring History and so we need Movies which are made to be successful for telling the story of the past.

One of the hardest parts in the history of the US is the slavery. For the most persons it isn´t possible to empathize with slaves or with slave owners either. And the picture of Slavery, that the most persons here in the US have, is made in the 60^th. The story was told from a perspective of: “Why is it wrong?”

A Movie has to capture the feelings of the watcher! And try to think about what happens is the main character is a slave. Or a slave owner. Or a Soldier. The Movie 12 Years a slave is made from the perspective of a slave. Solomon Northup was a free man – as we all are in these years – and was sold in to slavery. The movie shows the process inside him. How it works, how he feels. The watching persons itself is send to slavery and has to feel everything he feels. The watcher knows that it is a true story and maybe he knows that the movie was produced just a few miles from the place where it happened 160 years before.

And just to stay with 12 years a slave: Try to read the book which was published in 1853 when Solomon was released. Try to make a book exiting for a history class. It is the same Information – one you have to read, the other to see and to feel.

On the other hand “Glory” is a totally different kind of movie. This time you have Soldiers fighting for Slaves. But these Soldiers are black and some of them are just escaped from Slavery. It is a documentation about the Civil War, made as a story based movie. You have the feelings of Soldiers, knowing that they have after war nothing left but still fighting for justice. Colonel Shaw leads a black regiment in to the battle were more than the half of them died.

A movie is never as accurate as to be on the place in the time and even not than books or letters published in that time. They have to be a bit creative. But Movies based on true stories are in many ways good enough to talk about them.

The question to talk about is not: are movies a possible way of learning and enjoying history? But more: Which question do we should ask while watching them? A movie has much information and is a very good way to understand the thinking of the time. But just watching the movie as watching a Horror movie because then you didn´t think about.