Happy Halloween!

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Click here to learn more.

What is XENOPHOBIA? 

Should we be afraid of immigrants?

Real Oxford Ghost Stories

Is Oxford/ Miami haunted?

Listen to the 'Ghosts of Miami' as told by former Miami President Dr. Phillip Shriver.

What is the difference between 'lore' and history?'

What Does it Mean to Be an American?

If you wish to become a US citizen and neither of your parents are US citizens, you’ll first need to immigrate to the United States and become a legal permanent resident.  You must reside in the United States as a permanent resident continuously for five years. The only exception to this rule is if you are married to, and living with the same U.S. citizen spouse; then you can qualify after only three years.

Before immigrants to the United States can take the final Oath of U.S. Citizenship they must first pass a naturalization test which assesses their knowledge of basic U.S. government and history. Applicants must correctly answer at least 6 of the 10 randomly selected questions to pass.

Do you know more about America than the immigrants who want to become citizens? 

Click here to find out.

Are these questions fair? Why are they so hard? 

What questions should we be asking?

What does the US citizenship exam actually test? 

How has military service served as a pathway to citizenship?  Should it?

Is immigration good or bad for the USA?  Why?         Take the Poll

Angel Island

How were new immigrants 'welcomed' differently by Americans already living here (old immigrants)? Were all immigrant groups treated the same? How are immigrant groups today treated differently?

Isle of Hope

On the first day on January,
Eighteen ninety-two,
They opened Ellis Island and they let
The people through.
And the first to cross the treshold
Of that isle of hope and tears,
Was Annie Moore from Ireland
Who was all of fifteen years.

CHORUS:

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

Like Isle of Hope, The Pogues’ Thousands are Sailing (written by guitarist Phil Chevron) ties the economic emigration of the 80’s in with a prior wave of emigration—in this case, the post-Famine emigration to the United States.

1) Compare and contrast the two songs.

2) What was it like to really experience Ellis Island? 

3) What 'pushed' Immigrants from their homelands?  What Pulled them here? (t-chart)

4) Why do you suppose Ellis Island closed in 1954? 

5) How is immigration today different than a century ago?


How would you do as an immigrant?  Play from Ellis Island to Orchard Street.

How was this experience different than Angel Island in the West?  How and why were the Chinese Excluded?

Mission US: City of Immigrants

It’s 1907. You are Lena Brodsky, a 14-year-old Jewish immigrant from Russia. How will you start a new life in America?

Click the link to play the game. The goal of Mission US is to understand history, not to win. In each mission, you’ll meet a range of people with very different viewpoints, explore historical settings, and witness key past events, and will have to make difficult decisions. The fate of your character is based on your choices in the game, which will also impact the outcome of your character’s story. You can replay the game and make different choices to see how your character’s story might have turned out differently.

The Fire of a Movement

    On March 25, 1911, New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burst into flames, and 146 workers — nearly all young women, many of them teenage immigrants — perished. We visit the building and learn how public outcry inspired workplace safety laws that revolutionized industrial work nationwide. Descendants and activists show us how that work reverberates today.

Under the Boardwalk

In 1934, Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, presented a game called MONOPOLY to the executives of Parker Brothers. Mr. Darrow, like many other Americans, was unemployed at the time and often played this game to amuse himself and pass the time. It was the game’s exciting promise of fame and fortune that initially prompted Darrow to produce this game on his own.

With help from a friend who was a printer, Darrow sold 5,000 sets of the MONOPOLY game to a Philadelphia department store. As the demand for the game grew, Darrow could not keep up with the orders and arranged for Parker Brothers to take over the game.

Since 1935, when Parker Brothers acquired the rights to the game, it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western World. As of 1994, the game is published under license in 43 countries, and in 26 languages; in addition, the U.S. Spanish edition is sold in another 11 countries.

1) What is a Monopoly?

2) Was Monopoly intended to teach that capitalism was good or bad? How?

3) Who was the real inspiration behind the game?

4) Which piece is your favorite? Why?

5) What lessons does the game of Monopoly teach?

6) How much of the game is luck? Strategy? Is it fair?

7) How are monopolies regulated today?

8) If you were part of the Federal Trade Commission how would you change the rules of Monopoly to make the game more fair and ensure competition?

Want to learn more?

Social Darwinism

According to the idea of Social Darwinism who would the Lion be? And the giraffes?  What happens to the 'unfit?'  Can a giraffe ever hope to beat the lion?   What do the trees think?

When Science meets History: Consider this case of 'survival of the fittest' in the Florida Everglades. Talk about your hostile takeovers! 

As William Graham Sumner, the father of social Darwinism in America, put it in the 1880s: "Civilization has a simple choice." It's either "liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest" or "not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members."

Social Darwinism offered a moral justification for the wild inequities and social cruelties of the late nineteenth century. It allowed John D. Rockefeller, for example, to claim the fortune he accumulated through his giant Standard Oil Trust was "merely a survival of the fittest... the working out of a law of nature and of God."

What would it be like to be eaten by a boa constrictor? 
Do Boa Constrictor's feel guilty for who they eat?
Should the rich 'eat' the poor? 
What was Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal?

The social Darwinism of that era also undermined all efforts to build a more broadly based prosperity and rescue our democracy from the tight grip of a very few at the top. It was used by the privileged and powerful to convince everyone else that government shouldn't do much of anything.

Do the rich have a responsibility to help the poor? 
What does wealth inequality sound like?
Why does it matter? Why should the 'lion's' care about the 'trees?'

Richest People In the World

Who are the 5 richest people in the world today? Sure you can name Bill Gates but what about the rest? How did they make their fortunes? The answers may surprise you.

Who were the TYCOONS of the late 1800s? In what ways are they similar or different from today's tycoons?

Is Greed Good?  What is the legacy of the Business Tycoons?

Modern Times

Charlie Chaplin, considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular "Little Tramp" character; the man with the toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, bamboo cane, and a funny walk.

Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's last 'silent' film, was filled with sound effects and was made when everyone else was making 'talkies.' Charlie turns against modern society, the machine age, (The use of sound in films ?) and progress.

Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a production line, tightening bolts. Then he is selected for an experiment with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss to believe he has gone mad.

The idea of the film was apparently given to Chaplin by a young reporter, who told him about the production line system in Detroit, which was turning its workers into nervous wrecks. In the film, Charlie becomes literally trapped in the machine.

This was one of the films which, because of its political sentiments, convinced the House Un-American Activities Committee that Charles Chaplin was a Communist, a charge he adamantly denied. He left to live in Switzerland, vowing never to return to America.

Discussion Questions

Thomas Edison's Shaggy Dog

"It was back in the fall of eighteen seventy-nine," said the stranger at last, softly. "Back in the village of Menlo Park, New Jersey. I was a boy of nine. A young man we all thought was a wizard had set up a laboratory next door to my home, and there were flashes and crashes inside, and all sorts of scary goings on. The neighborhood children were warned to keep away, not to make any noise that would bother the wizard. "I didn't get to know Edison right off, but his dog Sparky and I got to be steady pals. A dog a whole lot like yours, Sparky was, and we used to wrestle all over the neighborhood. Yes, sir, your dog is the image of Sparky."

1) Would you want to be Edison's Shaggy Dog?

2) What is a 'Shaggy Dog' story?

3) What if dogs are smarter than people?  What have they figured out?

4) What is the moral of the story?

5) How smart are dogs?

Edison vs. Tesla

Sure you know about Thomas Edison the Ohio entrepreneur and inventor. But who was the real genius behind many of his inventions?

Starting in the late 1880s, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were embroiled in a battle now known as the War of the Currents.

Edison developed direct current -- current that runs continually in a single direction, like in a battery or a fuel cell. During the early years of electricity, direct current (shorthanded as DC) was the standard in the U.S.

But there was one problem. Direct current is not easily converted to higher or lower voltages.

Tesla believed that alternating current (or AC) was the solution to this problem. Alternating current reverses direction a certain number of times per second -- 60 in the U.S. -- and can be converted to different voltages relatively easily using a transformer.

Edison, not wanting to lose the royalties he was earning from his direct current patents, began a campaign to discredit alternating current. He spread misinformation saying that alternating current was more dangerous, even going so far as to publicly electrocute stray animals using alternating current to prove his point.

What kind of monster publicly electrocutes his neighbors dogs and cats?

Did Tesla really invent a way to transmit elecrticity wireless for free?

How has Tesla been immortalized in the movies?

Want to build your own 'Tesla Tower?'

Why don't we have wireless energy?

Peculiar Patents

What is this contraption?

The U.S. Constitution states in Article 1, section 8, clause 8 that one purpose of the legislature is:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

This is known as the "patent and copyright clause" and states the rationale for a patent system. The government is counting on commerce involving successful inventions, and the infectious inspiration which hopefully will encourage other inventors.

A great many inventions that receive patents never earn their inventors anything. We're not worried about that now. What we want to know is: what makes an invention patentable over those that aren't according to U.S. law?

In short your invention will qualify if it fits one of these five criteria:

1)Process: doing something?
example: toasting bread

2)Machine: something that can do something
example: a pop up toaster

3)Manufactured: something made by man
example: a Pop tart

4)Composition of Matter: substance made by man
example: snozzberry Pop tart filling

5)New Use: doing something new with something that isn't new.
example: Pop tart as body fragrance?  Toaster as musical instrument?

Now take a look at these peculiar patents and you decide whether they 'cut the mustard.'

Have a great idea for an invention you think would make our lives here at school easier?

Think it could get patented?

Founded in 1973, The National Inventors Hall of Fame meets every year to honor a new group of inventors. To be considered for induction, an inventor must hold a US patent and the invention must have benefited society and advanced science and technology. Inventors in the Hall of Fame include Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright for the airplane, Rudolf Diesel for the internal combustion engine, and more recently Les Paul for the solid body electric guitar. Click here to see the complete list.

Who in our class would we induct?