Doris Miller

In 1941, Miller was a 22-year-old mess attendant on the USS West Virginia. At the time, black sailors were consigned to roles in the messman branch — work that entailed swabbing decks, cooking and shining officers' shoes.

He had awoken at 6 a.m. and was collecting laundry when the Japanese attack began and an alarm sounded on the ship, according to the Navy. Miller headed to the antiaircraft battery magazine, but it had already been destroyed by torpedo damage. He proceeded to the deck, where he was assigned to carry his wounded comrades, including the ship's captain. Miller was strong: a former high school football player in Waco, Texas, he was the ship's heavyweight boxing champion.

"Miller went topside, carried wounded on his shoulders, made several trips up and down, wading through waist-deep water, oil-slicked decks, struggling uphill on slick decks," Navy Rear Adm. John Fuller said in 2016.

The young sailor then took over a .50-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun and fired it until the ammunition ran out. No matter that he'd never been trained on the weapon.

1) What is an 'Unsung Hero?'

2) Who was Third Class Cook Doris Miller?  Why was he given this stamp?

3) What opportunities did the war offer African Americans?   What Hardships did black soldiers still endure?

4) What was the 'Double V' campaign?

5) What even greater honor has Doris Miller received?  Do you agree?

Days Of Infamy

Like Pearl Harbor, the attacks on 9/11/01 forever changed us as a country. Not since December 7, 1941 had our nation suffered such a devastating defeat by a foreign power on our own soil. In the days after 9/11 comparisons to Pearl Harbor were frequently made. Both attacks resulted in a spirit of American unity. A common enemy was identified. A national government galvanized American energies to combat and destroy the forces that attacked the homeland.

Two years ago the US surgeon general described the upcoming grim period of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States as a "Pearl Harbor moment" and a "9/11 moment." 

Do you agree?  Why or why not?

Complete this Venn Diagram. 

Interstellar Dust Bowl

In “Interstellar,” humanity is endangered by a blight that is gradually eliminating the number of crops that are viable on Earth. The world economy and national governments have shrunk dramatically. Drones race through Midwestern skies, abandoned by the intelligence programs that set them aloft, and crash into fields where they are scavenged by entrepreneurial farmers like Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former pilot who still dreams of flying. Violent dust storms, straight out of documentary footage of Dust Bowl storms, rise like mountains in the skies, and the particles fill children’s lungs, killing them. If it is not made explicit that the disaster is man-made, the use of testimony from actual Dust Bowl survivors  does. 

“This really happened. It’s just a question of could it happen on a global scale, or in such a way that our existence on the planet would be imperiled?"

What do you think?

List 3 specific steps we can take to prevent future human/ environment disasters like the dust bowl.

Alphabet Soup

John Green teaches you about the New Deal, which was president Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to pull the united States out of the Great Depression of the 1930's. Did it work? Maybe. John will teach you about some of the most effective and some of the best known programs of the New Deal. They weren't always the same thing. John will tell you who supported the New Deal, and who opposed it. He'll also get into how the New Deal changed the relationship between the government and citizens, and will even reveal just how the Depression ended. (hint: it was war spending)

Critics of FDR's programs called them an 'Alphabet Soup' of confusing acronyms.  Conservatives felt FDR's government had no business regulating crop prices or digging ditches.  Radicals on the other hand felt that the President's New Deal hadn't gone far enough in redistributing the wealth.

What role should the government have in our lives?  Should the Government provide schools and roads?  Military?  Welfare? Health care?  Paid work leave?  Retirement?

What does our current POTUS think about the future of these programs?

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt

 

During your tour of the country, you learned about ordinary Americans who experienced the Great Depression. Like Lorena Hickok, you will now report your discoveries. Use the information in your scrapbook to write a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt describing the hardships people endured during the Depression.

Your letter must have the following:

1. An appropriate date, salutation, and closing.
2. A brief introduction summarizing the states you visited and the types of people you met.
3. A description of your visit to at least two states. For each state, include:

• information on the hardships people faced during the Depression and the ways in which they endured those hardships.
• a quotation and one or more facts from the reading.
• any relevant Vocabulary Terms.

4. At least four of these words: betrayal, change, depressed, desperation, destitute, dreadful, encourage, honorable, hope, ideals, plague, pride, self-respect, shame, stress, suffer, worth.
5. A conclusion summarizing your thoughts about how ordinary Americans endured the hardships they faced during this time period.

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ELEANOR?

Black Tuesday

The Great Depression in the United States began on October 29, 1929, a day known forever after as “Black Tuesday,” when the American stock market–which had been roaring steadily upward for almost a decade–crashed, plunging the country into its most severe economic downturn yet. Speculators lost their shirts; banks failed; the nation’s money supply diminished; and companies went bankrupt and began to fire their workers in droves. Meanwhile, President Herbert Hoover urged patience and self-reliance: He thought the crisis was just “a passing incident in our national lives” that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to try and resolve. By 1932, one of the bleakest years of the Great Depression, at least one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed.

1) Why was it called 'Black Tuesday?'

2) What is 'Black Friday?'

3) In economics what does 'being in the black' mean?

4)  How is this name misleading?

5) Who took the blame for the market crash?  Why?  Was it fair?

6) What measures were taken by the Government in the aftermath of the Crash?'

7) What actions should they have taken?

8) Could another crash like this happen again?  What would be the effects?

Horray for Hollywood!

The first Academy Awards in 1929 were a far cry from the suspense, glamour and endless press coverage surrounding the Oscars today: The first award recipients’ names were printed on the back page of the academy’s newsletter. A few days later, Variety published the information--on page seven.

Spearheaded by movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, the Academy was organized in May 1927 as a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and improvement of the film industry. The first awards went to movies produced in 1927 and 1928. Though the announcements were made in February 1929, the actual awards weren’t given out until May 16, 1929, in a ceremony and banquet held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Some 270 people attended the dinner, many paying $5 each for a ticket.

The first Academy Award winners also received gold statuettes but the awards weren’t nicknamed “Oscars” until 1931, when a secretary at the Academy noted the statue’s resemblance to her Uncle Oscar, and a journalist printed her remark. The Academy’s first president, the silent film actor Douglas Fairbanks, handed out the statuettes to the winners, who included Janet Gaynor for Best Actress (for three different films: Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise) and the German-born Emil Jannings (The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh) for Best Actor. Frank Borzage and Lewis Milestone both won Best Director awards, for Seventh Heaven and Two Arabian Knights, respectively. Best Picture honors went to "Wings," the World War I drama directed by William Wellman. Special recognition was given to actor/ director Charlie Chaplin and the movie "The Jazz Singer" which was excluded for being a 'talkie.'

1) The first Academy Awards ceremony took place in 1929. Why do you think the film industry wanted an awards ceremony at that time?

2) The awards are organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Why might filmmakers want their work judged by other professionals in the industry?

3) Early Hollywood films were produced during the same era as the Great Depression. Why do you think movies were still popular even when many Americans were struggling financially?

4) How have the Oscars changed over time (categories, diversity, technology, streaming films)? What does this tell us about how movies have changed?

5) What do you think was the best movie this year? Why?