American History since the Civil War

Lillie Greenwood
Prof. Robert Allison
American History II
27 Feb. 13
Cleve Jones: An Influential Child, an Influential Man
Cleve Jones’ role in the infamous gay rights activist Harvey Milk’s life was a simple one. He
was asked on the street if he would support Milk in his run for the position of being San Francisco City
Supervisor. Being a completely odd, charismatic person to Jones, Harvey Milk had run four times
already and lost. Not understanding what a having an openly gay city supervisor would do to help the
Castro neighborhood, which even though it was populated by the LGBTQ community, was a common
place for violence and even murder, Jones left to go to Spain. Seeing horrible violence there towards the
LGBTQ community there, Jones came back and realized that having a gay supervisor would be a
change that would inspire other LGBTQ people to fight against oppression in the city and across the
country. Gay activist Cleve Jones changed America for the better through helping Harvey Milk become
San Francisco City Supervisor, protesting for LGBTQ rights in the 1970s, and eventually creating the
AIDS quilt following Milk’s’ assassination.
Trying to get his degree in political science, Jones became Milk’s student intern with advice
from Milk himself. He worked gathering as many people as possible to come to support Harvey at
events, and support him in the campaign by holding signs with his campaign slogan. Jones is labeled in
an interview as “a witness to it all and remains an activist. He became a key organizer for Milk in the
1970s, mobilizing thousands with little more than pay phones and staple guns,” he himself saying that ‘It
was really pretty amazing; we could turn thousands of people out in a very short time …Harvey had a
real gift for involving young people, and he was a wonderful mentor to many young people, gay and
straight alike,’” explaining him and his mentor during the start of the gay right movement (Brown).
Without Jones on the outside Milk could not have gone to interviews, worked on speeches, or been
able to expand his following if Jones had not been there to help him. In a way, without Jones, Milk
would have never won the position of San Francisco City Supervisor for District 5 after running five
times, his accomplishments made possible by those closest to him.
By working closely with Milk, Jones not only helped gather supporters, as he worked with
Milk, he learned about being a social advocate for minorities, which Milk did to create a wellrounded
campaign for those in need. He also began to get experience as an activist. A woman named Anita
Bryant started the “Save Our Children” campaign that frightened every person in the LGBTQ
community in America, young and old. It was a campaign against all laws granting LGBTQ people any
rights. Her most intensive integration into the American society was Proposition 6, the Briggs initiative
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which worked to deny homosexuals to teach in public schools. What really stirred the activist was that
“the Save Our Children campaign successfully lobbied to repeal homosexual rights ordinances in Dade
County, Florida; Eugene, Oregon; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Wichita, Kansas. These successful
campaigns inspired rightwing
state senators in California and Oklahoma to introduce statewide
laws
targeted at gay and lesbian teachers,” the views of these people following Bryant were also convincing
families with gay children and thus creating a frightening life for them to lead (“The Briggs Initiative”).
That support for Anita Bryant and an initiative that would ban many innocent gay people from working,
and maybe keep other jobs in the future was the last straw and youth and adults alike were outraged.
They took to the street, and Jones led marches that showed for the first time since the riots at Stonewall
Inn in New York that the LGBTQ community was powerful, and would not be silenced. Protests, in
addition to this one inspired the gay rights movement in the 1970s to take a whole new stance, one of
strength and noncomplacency,
which Milk started but Jones continued, and he still does to this day.
What truly exists as the most influential action Jones has ever accomplished was after Harvey
Milk’s assassination months into being in office. In America in the 1980s, a disease called AIDS
(AntiImmune
Deficiency Syndrome) was discovered, and meant death for all people, but homosexuals
were blamed, as it affected them the most. Killing thousands in months, it was treated with drugs in
attempt to be cured, but those in the government hardly did anything to provide for those heavily
affected, providing funding or informing anyone about how it was transmuted. After his closest friends
died, Cleve Jones wrote the names of his friends on a card during the march commemorating Harvey
Milk’s death, and asked hundreds to follow. At the end of the march they posted them on the San
Francisco Federal Building. Noticing it looked like a quilt, Jones was inspired to create what became
the NAMES project and the AIDS quilt. He created a quilt piece on his back porch for his friend
“Realizing that from the beginning the quilt was not also to be a memorial but a call to action, Jones then
began asking his friends and volunteers to make a quilt to display in Washington D.C., as part of the
march for Lesbian and Gay rights on October 11, 1987. The venture became known as the NAMES
project, and its organizers issued a nationwide call for people to create panels, then send them to San
Francisco to be lain out in a quilt” (Stull).Coverage was done of the AIDS quilt created which eventually
reached to over 44,000 panels representing over 83,000 people. This project conjured up as much
controversy as it did solace, and the coverage was viewed at times as radical and insulting to the
government. The AIDS quilt stands as one of the most moving representations of the AIDS crisis, and
not only helped solace those who had lost loved ones in a social outreach attempt, but it showed the
world’s citizens informed, uninformed, and/ or in denial, that AIDS and the gay community were not
going to be ignored any longer.
Gay activist Cleve Jones changed America for the better through helping Harvey Milk become
San Francisco City Supervisor, protesting for LGBTQ rights in the 1970s, and eventually creating the
AIDS quilt following Milk’s’ assassination. He not only helped one man achieve greatness to win the
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hearts of hundreds, and then thousands, but helped the gay community through some of the toughest
decades for the community in American history as homosexuality being viewed as a disease than
something a group of people were, and form a community because of it. He led young and old, gay and
straight, black an white people through the time of the Save Our Children campaign, the first openly gay
American senator coming into office Harvey Milk coming into office, and through AIDS, one of the
hardest epidemic the country has seen. He stands as one of the most influential people in American
history in the 20th century, because he helped support right of a specific minority, but like his mentor
and friend Harvey Milk supports all minorities. The protests he led, the campaigns he’s led, and still
leading all have helped our country form a more perfect union, in this country of freedom and justice for
all.

Computers have become an integral part in every day life. Universities have online courses and libraries. Companies hold Skype conferences from across the country, even the world. Today’s smart phone is nothing more than a miniature version of the computer you check your email on, if you use a computer to do that. The rise of computers takes the television and telephone advances and almost combines them. Computers are the cause of some other technological booms, such as the social media industry that has recently risen to prominence. The computer, like the phone and TV has been continuously upgraded since it’s initial release. The TV has evolved from a black and white box in the 1940′s to being thinner than a book ranging in size from 20”-80″. The first telephone call by Alexander Graham Bell was on 10 March 1876, saying, ”Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you.” (inventors). In over 100 years the phone has gone from a tool used to speak with someone in the next room, to the cellular phone, that can be used to call someone in a different country. The personal computer was initially created in 1975. The Altair 8800 has evolved now to a computer the size of a hardcover book. All of these technological advances have become interconnected. Advancements in these devices allow you to use your phone as a remote for your television, your computer to watch television, and your phone as a miniature computer. The technology in phones, tvs, and computers will continue to be connected until the next advancement in life-altering technology.

Work Cited:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm

http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm

http://0-search.ebscohost.com.library.law.suffolk.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=9746340&site=ehost-live

For my newspaper assignment I chose to read the Wellsboro agitator for the December issues of 1919. The reason I chose the previously stated articles is because I wanted to read a random article at a random time. I set out with this goal because I wanted to take in the culture of the past without a major historical event adding or taking away from the paper.  The articles in the newspaper for the time are completely ordinary excerpts, and for that reason I was interested because my goal was to read normal everyday things from our past.

The first thing I noticed when reading the paper was that there was a huge ad on the front page. The ad was for a type of rubber shoe or boot called the U.S. Walrus. The add contained a large picture of the boots, a headline saying “The new U.S. Walrus, which is becoming popular among farmers everywhere, and a small informational article below it about the product and company. I found this little detail of the paper amusing because it takes me back to a different time with the product and, as a marketing major, it was really cool to see a marketing campaign in the early 1900s, especially one on the front of a newspaper targeting farmers. Also, as I read further issues for the week I noticed that the U.S. Walrus boots had continued to be advertised.

The next article I read from the agitator was called “Facts about the Census”. What was strange about the article was that it was very informative. The writers did not put a lot of personality into it and it almost felt as if they were simply passing information. From reading the article I feel as though during the time many people might have been in the dark about what the purpose of the census was and what it did. The reason I say this is because there would not be an article about it if there was not a large group who would read it. The article summed up what the census is, why it is around, how it affects the people, what the results are generated from, and how those results help.

As I made my way to the next article I could not help but notice that advertisements again that were on the sides of the paper. The next three ads were for men’s work shirts, men’s overalls and jackets, and “Kemp’s Balsam Cough Medicine”. This is when I noticed that the paper was completely geared towards the male reader, which makes sense for the time. All the ads were targeted towards men. Even in the cough medicine advertisement there was a cartoon doodle where a woman was serving what appeared to be her sickly husband in bed. I guess at the time it was social norm for a woman to do this because in many cases the man provided for the house and the woman was there to support him.

The other article that caught my eye was labeled at the top of the paper in bolded black “Women Exceed Men in Japanese Factories”. This was another reminder for me of the idea that in 1919 it was a man’s world still. This title alone helps represent this because this issue of that many women working was big enough to put up a shocking, for the era, article about it. The article was pretty biased about how it was a strange occurrence and wrong. It goes on to say that there were “850,000 Japanese women working at an average minimum wage of 10 to 20 cents for a 12 hour day”. Realizing that inflation has occurred and prices were lower then, that is a dreadful minimum wage for what is probably hard labor in a tough environment and is worth the write by the author. It was a good article filled with personality, which was a nice switch up from the last factual article.

http://greenfreelibrary.newspaperarchive.com/PdfViewer.aspx?pubdateid=2230717&src=browse

news.google.com

http://www.ansci.umn.edu/UndergraduateProgram/Judging/dairy1/index.htm

http://www.howstuffworks.com/1903-1919-ford-trucks3.htm

http://verdoux.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/mack-sennetts-bathing-beauties-c-1919/

A “civil war” by definition is a war between citizens of the same country. The American Civil War was fought between the U.S. supported North, also known as the Union, and the South. The war was mainly fought over the issue of slavery. As the United States was expanding westward slavery in the southern areas was expanding as well. While the American Civil War only lasted for 4 years it set a precedent for the United States and had several long-term affects.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election running as a leader against slavery serving under the Republican Party. In 1861, before President Lincoln’s official inauguration, a group of slave owning southern states declared succession from the U.S., in turn creating the Confederate States of America also known as the Confederacy. The United States declared that the succession was illegal. Lincoln addressed the situation when giving his first inaugural address saying that he did not want a civil war.

Unfortunately, despite what President Lincoln wanted, it did not go that way. Representing the Confederacy, militias took control of several federal buildings and forts in southern states that were then claimed as Confederate States of America. The Confederate leaders believed that they would receive help from nations outside of the U.S. because the south was a major outlet in distributing cotton. They did not receive help from any. A peace conference was held during 1861 in Washington D.C., with over 100 politicians in attendance, in an attempt to prevent the civil war from happening. The conference was unsuccessful and war was declared.

During the 4 year war between the north and south Abraham Lincoln created the Emancipation Proclamation. Essentially it made it so that all people are free and should be treated as equals, making slavery illegal in the United States of America. The Civil War was officially ended when the Confederate’s General Lee surrendered after being defeated by the United State’s General Grant on April 9^th, 1865 in Virginia.

With the war over the United States had emerged victorious, but it also was left with positive and negative effects in its politics, technology, and economy. The most popular long-term effect was the political change the north fought for made possible through Abe Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the 13^th Amendment. The order officially made the United States the home of the free. After the Civil War was over every man was legally given the right to be free and treated with equality. But, even though the policy for freedom had been altered segregation was quickly created. While segregation no longer exists today, it created chaos and many suffered from hate crimes. The war began the path to black civil rights eventually leading to the change of the 14^th amendment in 1868 and the 15^th amendment in 1870.

Another key effect was that the war created a demand on the U.S. Many of the contributors to the workforce were enlisted in the Union creating a gap in production that had to be filled. The United States had to advance its technology so that they could keep up with the necessities of war and be able to win it as well. The U.S. achieved this advancement through the highly increased activity of industrialization. The nation had become capable of mass-producing weaponry at will for the first time in its history. With this catalyst on industrialization there were also improvements on steam powered vehicles and railroad expansion.

Lastly, the economy had also been affected. Before the war began, in 1860, the U.S. was 65 million dollars in debt. When the war finally ended, 1865, the U.S. was in debt 2.7 billion dollars. The inflation rate had increased significantly while the wage rate had only risen slightly. It has been proven that war can cost a lot of money and when it is a civil war the financial toll is even worse. Also, when soldiers went back to their homes the unemployment rate increased causing more westward expansion, where farms and mines created jobs.

http://danmillerinpanama.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/civil-war-soldiers.jpg

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-economic-costs-of-the-civil-war#axzz2S0VeYeAe

Will Kaufman- The American Civil War (chapt. 13), War Writings edited by Kate McLoughlin, Cambridge University press 2009

When given the choice to write about any historical place in the world I automatically thought of looking in my backyard. By my backyard I am referring to the city of Boston Massachusetts. Boston is one of the first areas where people settled during immigration to the United States, dating all the way back to 1630. For this reason it is rich in historical significance. After considering several options I decided to choose a place I see everyday, the Boston Common.

Established in 1634 the 50-acre common was initially owned by a European settler named William Blaxton. A Puritan group, who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, bought it from him shortly after. During the 1630s it became a place where people would go to graze their cows. Due to a problem with families trying to graze too many cows at once, a limit of 70 cows at a time was added in 1646. Finally in 1830 Harrison Otis, the mayor at the time, officially banned cows from the park.

On a darker note of its history the common was also frequently used as an area for hangings. When it was first being used for this purpose they would hang their victims from trees. As this cruel punishment became more popular gallows were installed in 1769. People would be hanged for all sorts of reasons from criminal activity to treason, but a lot of the time it was done to punish those who did not have Puritan beliefs. Hangings would continue in the common until 1817.

The common was also occupied by the British pre-American revolutionary war. They used the common as a place to set a military camp. Later they would leave to fight in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The battle was won by the US and is often referred to as the “shot heard around the world”, because the shots fired were the first of the American Revolutionary War between USA and Great Britain.

The people of Boston have used the common as an area to protest for a long time now. One of the first protests in its history was held there on May 19^th, 1713 when around 200 people gathered because there was a food shortage. This protest later evolved into a riot. Another notable protest occurred there on October 15^th, 1969. The protest was a peace rally to end the Vietnam War and over 100,000 people attended it.

The Boston Common is officially the oldest park in the United States. The common was given a park status by the people during the 1830s, seeing as cows were no longer grazing and the hangings had stopped. From that point many public icons like Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II, and Gloria Steinem gave speeches there. Currently the common hosts attractions like its softball fields, carousel, gazebo, grass plains, and a “Frog Pond” which also serves as an ice rink in the winter. Now the common has become a place where families, workers, students, tourists, protesters, musicians, athletes or whoever can go and enjoy it how they please.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/parks/emerald/boston_common.asp

http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=10

http://www.planetware.com/boston/boston-common-us-ma-comm.htm

http://www.boston-discovery-guide.com/boston-common.html#.UYCeOJXU7zI

In 2013, the Old State House in Boston celebrated 300years of existence. It is the oldest historical site in Boston on the Freedom Trail. The Old State House is located in the heart of Boston, surrounded by modern and luxurious skyscrapers at the intersection of State and Washington Streets. The building has two floors and a basement.  The second floor was divided between east, central and west side. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Courts of Suffolk County were located on the west side, while the Council Chamber of the Royal Governor was located on the east side. The chambers of the elected Massachusetts Assembly occupied the central part of the second floor. A Merchant’s Exchange occupied the first floor and the basement was divided into different warehouses.

The Old State House was where Boston’s leading patriots gathered and discussed revolutionary ideas. In 1770, the Boston Massacre took place right in front of the State House. After this incident, patriots of Boston started to protest against British authority. Six years after the Boston Massacre, the Declaration of Independence was read from the building’s balcony for the first time. At the same time, the cupola that was the tallest point of Boston was torn down. It was a lion and unicorn, the symbol of the royal authority. It was in the Old State House that John Adams declared “the child Independence was born”. This one building, in the heart of Boston is a symbol of the American History. It is now a museum, where the reenactments of the Boston Massacre take place for the tourists.

“ A date which will live in infamy,”  President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The assault, which lasted less than two hours, claimed the lives of more than 2,500 people, wounded 1,000 more and damaged or destroyed 18 American ships and nearly 300 airplanes. Almost half of the casualties at Pearl Harbor occurred on the naval battleship USS Arizona, which was hit four times by Japanese bombers.

On December 7^th 1941 the United States of America was attacked by Japan in an event well known as Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona was located in Peal Harbor in Hawaii when it was attacked, sinking it, and killing 1,117 crewmen.

Today the USS Arizona Memorial is the final resting place for many of those men. The memorial grew out of desire to honor those who died in the attack. The memorial included multiple rooms including a shrine room where the names of those killed on the Arizona are engraved on a marble wall. 

Almost half of the casualties at Pearl Harbor occurred on the naval battleship USS Arizona, which was hit four times by Japanese bombers and eventually sank. Among the 1,177 crewmen killed were all 21 members of the Arizona’s band, known as U.S. Navy Band Unit (NBU) 22. Most of its members were up on deck preparing to play music for the daily flag raising ceremony when the attack began. They instantly moved to man their battle positions beneath the ship’s gun turret. At no other time in American history has an entire military band died in action.

On December 6, 1941, the USS Arizona took on a full load of fuel—nearly 1.5 million gallons—in preparation for its scheduled trip to the mainland later that month. The next day, much of it fed the explosion and subsequent fires that destroyed the ship following its attack by Japanese bombers. However, despite the raging fire and ravages of time, some 500,000 gallons are still slowly seeping out of the ship’s submerged wreckage: Nearly 70 years after its demise, the USS Arizona continues to spill up to 9 quarts of oil into the harbor each day. In the mid-1990s, environmental concerns led the National Park Service to commission a series of site studies to determine the long-term effects of the oil leakage.

Memorial Facts:

The battleship weighed 31,400 tons and was 608 feet long and stood more than 97 feet high. It was built at a total cost of $12,993,579.

The memorial was designed by Honolulu architect Alfred Preis who had been detained at Sand Island at the start of the war as an enemy of the country because of his Austrian birth.

The memorial has 21 windows. This is said to symbolically represent a 21 gun salute or 21 Marines standing over the fallen structure.

The USS Arizona Memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day, i.e. on May 30, 1962, by Texas Congressman and Chairman of Veteran Affairs, Olin E. Teague and Hawaii Governor, John A. Burns.

The USS Arizona Memorial is accessible by U.S. Navy boat and the visitors must obtain a number from the Visitor Center. Due to an overwhelming number of visitors and limited number of available boats, only 4,500 visitors’ tickets are issued on a daily basis. Prior to boarding the boat which takes visitors to the memorial, the visitor are also shown a documentary based on the Pearl Harbor attacks by the Japanese. More than one million people come to pay their homage at the USS Arizona memorial.

For my Newspaper Project, I chose to read the New York Times April, 1915 issues. The reason why I picked a specific month and year is because on April 24^th, 1915 approximately 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Empire. Ever since 1915, Armenians have been fighting for recognition, especially from Turkey and United States. This article that was published in NY Times was historical for the Armenians, because it was one of the only times where the genocide was spoken about openly in America. The title of this article is “Reports Great Uneasiness Over Treatment of Armenians” published on April 29^th of 1915.

“Washington, April 28^th-Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople today notified Secretary of State Bryan that he and other members of the diplomatic corps in the Turkish capital had taken up with the Ottoman Government the complaints of the Katolikos head of the Armenian Greek church at Etchmiadzin, on behalf of Armenian Christians who have been massacred by Turks and Kurds in the Transcaucasian region.”

            Sadly this was one of the few times where the American government was investigating this crime. As years passed, Turkey became an important alley for the U.S. and by pushing them to recognize the massacre of 1915 can and will ruin the relations with the Turkish government.

Some of the other headlines in the April issues were “Great Tobacco Consumers: We Produce, Export and Import More Than Any Other Country.” The article talks about how according to the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, the United States is the greatest producer and exporter of tobacco.  Another article title reads “Yanks Beat Boston; Hartzell’s Hit Wins.” The game took place on April 20^th in Boston.

“The Yankees outpointed the Boston men today, for five innings the Sox making only one hit against the club’s cast –off pitcher and doing all their execution with their war clubs only after the Yankees had pilled up a six-run lead.”

It is interesting to see that the rivalry between New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox dates this far back. This article also shows how baseball was and is a big part of American culture.