The Lusitania

On May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, rival of the Titanic, was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk. Of the 1,959 people on board, 1,198 died, including 128 Americans. The sinking of the Lusitania enraged Americans (even though they had been warned) and hastened the United States' entrance into World War I.

1) Would you know how to escape a sinking ship? List 5 steps you could take to ensure your survival.

2) What did the passengers of the Lusitania do wrong?

3) Titanic vs Lusitania: Who survived and why?

4) Was anyone on board both Titanic and Lusitania when they sank?

What's So Great About the GREAT WAR?

Newsreel 2    Newsreel 3

Woodrow Wilson, born in the 'Confederate States of America,' remembered the devastation, the deprivation, and the degradation that comes from losing a war. He carried that with him.

On August 4th, he wrote to the leaders of the newly warring nations that he would “welcome an opportunity to act in the interest of European peace.”

Almost from the outset of the war, Woodrow Wilson was trying to find diplomatic solutions. He believed if all the heads of state could sit at a table and confer, they could probably have ended this war. There didn’t have to be a war here...

What changed his opinion leading him to quote: "We are glad to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples...the world must be made safe for Democracy!?"

Or to put it in another way:  "I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it!"  -The Peacemaker

Panama!

The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is a 48-mile (77.1 km) ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade;  the 10 hour crossing shaving 2 weeks off a dangerous trip around the tip of South America. There are locks at each end to lift ships up to Gatun Lake (85 feet (26 m) above sea-level). The Gatun Lake was used to reduce the amount of work required for a sea-level connection. The current locks are 110 feet (33.5 m) wide. 

What was the strategic importance militarily and economically of the Panama Canal?

How did the Panama Canal fit Roosevelt's 'Big Stick' policy? Dollar Diplomacy?

How did Roosevelt change the image or reputation of the United States?  What is our reputation today?

Create a metaphor for our intervention in Panama.

If we could build the Panama Canal why not an Ohio to Hawaii Highway?

What was Yoda's 'Stick' Policy?

The Devil In the White City

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America...

The Chicago World's Fair produced a number of firsts besides Ferris’ 264-foot-tall wheel. Among the well-loved commercial products that made their debut at the Chicago World’s Fair were Cracker Jack, Cream of Wheat, Juicy Fruit gum, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Technological products that would soon find their way into homes nationwide, such as the dishwasher and fluorescent light bulbs, had early prototype versions on display in Chicago as well. The U.S. government also got in on the act, issuing the country’s first postcards and commemorative stamps and two new commemorative coins: a quarter and half dollar. The half-dollar featured Christopher Columbus, in whose honor the fair had been staged, while the quarter depicted Queen Isabella of Spain, who had funded Columbus’ voyages—making it the first U.S. coin to honor a woman.

Perhaps the most famous first wasn't advertised in the fair literature:  America's First Serial Killer! Unbeknownst to festival goers, there was a mass murderer in their midst. For several years before and during the exposition, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes was busily luring victims (including a number of fairgoers) to a three-story, block-long building called the “Castle,” where they were tortured, mutilated, and killed. Although H. H. Holmes’ heinous crimes weren’t discovered until after the fair ended, it’s believed that he was responsible for dozens of deaths in Chicago.

In his best-selling book The Devil in the White City  Author Erik Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing.

 

Daniel Burnham (Architect)           HH Holmes (Killer)

"Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this story is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow" 

1) In what ways does the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture?

2) How did the 'White City' compare with Chicago, the 'Black City' or any other American City of the time?

3) How did Holmes' hotel contrast with the buildings of the World's Fair? Can architecture reflect goodness or evil, or are buildings neutral until used?

4) How was Holmes able to get away with so many murders without becoming a suspect? Were you surprised by how easy it was for him to commit crimes without being caught?

5) What does the story reveal about the “conflict between good and evil"? What is the essential difference between men like Daniel Burnham and Henry H. Holmes? Are they alike in any way?

6) After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted "What a human downfall after the magnificence and prodigality of the World's Fair which has so recently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month: depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next" [p. 334]. What is the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bring into focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age?

7) At the end of The Devil in the White City, Larson writes "The thing that entranced me about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city's willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world's fair in the first place" [p. 393]. What motives, in addition to "civic honor," drove Chicago to build the Fair? In what ways might the desire to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and to show New York that Chicago was more than a meat-packing backwater be seen as American?  In what ways were they problematic?