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Recommended: Slavery in America
By 1790 slavery was on the decline in America. Apart from tobacco, rice, and a special strain of cotton that could be grown only in very few places, the South really had no money crop to export. Tobacco was a land waster, depleting the soil within very few years. Land was so cheap that tobacco planters never bothered to reclaim the soil by crop rotation -- they simply found new land farther west. The other crops -- rice, indigo, corn, and some wheat -- made for no great wealth. Slaves cost something, not only to buy but to maintain, and some Southern planters thought that conditions had reached a point where a slave's labor no longer paid for his care. Eli Whitney came to the south in 1793, conveniently enough, during the time when Southern planters were in their most desperate days. In a little over a week, he started the biggest avalanche of production that any economy had ever experienced. The South would never be the same again.
Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts. The tall, heavy-shouldered boy worked as a blacksmith. He had an almost natural understanding of mechanisms. On a machine made at home, he made nails, and at one time he was the only maker of ladies' hatpins in the country.
In his early twenties, Whitney became determined to attend Yale College. Since Yale was mostly a school for law or theology, his parents objected. How could Yale College help enhance his mechanical talents? Finally, at the age of twenty-three, Whitney became a student at Yale. By this time, he seemed almost middle-aged to his classmates. After he graduated with his degree in 1792, he found that no jobs were available to a man with his talents. He eventually settled for teaching, and accepted a job as a tutor in South Carolina, his salary was promised to be one hundred guineas a year.
He sailed on a small coasting packet with only a few passengers, among whom was the widow of the Revolutionary general, Nathanael Greene. The Greenes had settled in Savannah after the war. When Whitney arrived in South Carolina, he found that the promised salary was going to be halved. He not only refused to take the position, but decided to give up teaching all together. Coming to his aid, Mrs. Greene invited him to her plantation where he could read law, and also help out the plantation manager, Phineas Miller. Miller, a few years older than Whitney, wa...
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...housand dollars in bonds from his friends in New Haven, and he personally borrowed ten thousand dollars from the New Haven bank. The sum involved in this big order, $134,000, was the biggest single transaction in the country at that time. By then end of the first year, Whitney was just getting into production, a big accomplishment for those times, but instead of the four thousand muskets he had promised, there were only five hundred produced. When news of this got to Whitney's financial backers, they became doubtful.
All in all, it took Whitney almost eight years to fill the entire order. There were still many gaps in his system. There were endless bugs to be worked out, however, most of the ten thousand muskets were produced in the last two years. In 1811, Whitney took another order, this time for fifteen thousand. These were all produced in only two years.
Whitney continued on with his development of the factory until his death on January 8, 1825. Unfortunately, Whitney has been all but forgotten. He is mostly remembered as "the cotton man," and nothing else. However, without the ingenuity and dedication of this individual, who knows where the world might be today.
Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester, Ontario Canada on May 2, 1844, the son of former slaves who had fled from Kentucky before the U.S. Civil War. Educated in Scotland as a mechanical engineer, Elijah McCoy returned to the United States and settled in Detroit, Michigan.
In the South, however, the economy was predominantly agricultural. Cotton and tobacco plantations relied heavily on the free labor of slaves for their economic prosperity. They saw the urbanization and industrialization of the North, and the economic connection between the North a...
George M. Pullman is best remembered for his contributions to the railroad industry through the invention of his Pullman Cars. The cars sold well and the railroad industry flourished with this new invention. Although the success attached to his name, not many people know the real truth behind this robber baron. His greed for money took him to extreme measures as his workers were seriously mistreated and put under strict
Haven, Charles T. and Frank A. Belben. A History of the Colt Revolver. New York: Bonanza
William Vanderbilt was an American businessman whose wealth was derived from the thriving railroad industry of the late nineteenth century. He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1821 and died at age 64 on December 8, 1885. During this time, he led the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the Canada Southern Railway, and the Michigan Central Railroad. He took over as president for these organizations for his father. His father, Cornelius Vanderbilt, brought the railroad business to his family. Upon his death, William Vanderbilt was the richest man in the world. His success can be attributed to his ability to capitalize on the transportation revolution that swept America years ago, and only remained to expand and grow with the construction of additional rail lines. Savvy with the educated skills of a businessman, he turned the one hundred million that he inherited from his father onto more than one hundred and ninety million dollars in less than nine years. Besides an expert businessman, he also is well known for dabbling in the philanthropic arena with ventures into the for...
Samuel Colt faced many challenges in his early life, but he was able to overcome them and be the successful businessman that he was. Throughout his life Samuel Colt did many things to advance life in America, such as developing new guns and business techniques. Colt was the first of many to develop a fully functioning revolver know as the Colt single action army. Colt’s manufacturing techniques helped him become the leader in gun manufacturing. Today Colt’s company is still at work and has become the leader in gun advancements.
Also, in the South, it was hard, rough work in the hot sun and very few whites were willing to do the work, therefore, most plantation owners purchased slaves to work the land. The plantation owner gave the slaves shelter and a small food allowance as a salary. Thereby, the plantation owner "saved" his money to invest in more land, which of course required more slaves to continue to yield a larger profit. An economic cycle was created between plantation owner and slave, one that would take generations to end. Slaves were now a necessity on the larger plantations to work the fields.
In the United States there have been three waves of women’s rights movements. The first movement was called the women’s right movement. This movement was mainly focused on white women and their right to vote as well as hold office. (Wood, p.62) The second movement was the women’s liberation movement, also known as radical feminism. This movement mainly impacted college students because college campuses were a great place for radical feminism to emerge. The radical feminists protested the Vietnam War and fought for civil rights. The women in this movement risked their lives and physical abuse just like the males did. (Wood, p.64) The third wave of feminism in the United States was known as third- wave feminism. In this movement woman with different ethnicities, abilities, disabilities, classes, appearances, sexual orientation and gender identities came together to fight for their rights as women. (Wood, p.74)
They have been found to have detrimental psychological effects, as they leave refugees in a state of limbo, fearing their imminent forced return, where they are unable to integrate into society. This emotional distress is often compounded by the fact that refugees on TPVs in Australia are not able to apply for family reunification nor are they able to leave the country. Family reunification is a well-established right in Sweden, as well as most western countries. Moreover, it is a human right protected under the ICCPR whereby refugees have the right to family (Article 23) and the right to freedom from arbitrary interference with family life (Article 17). As a result of living in a state of uncertainty and heartache caused by family separation, refugees on TPVs face a “700 percent increased risk of developing depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in comparison with PPV (permanent protection visa) refugees (Mansouri et al. 2009, pp. 145). Denial of family reunification under TPVs is likely to cause more asylum seekers to engage in illegal means to arrive in
...ithout discrimination. Often using the media as a way to quickly generate and spread new theories and ideas, Third Wave feminism is morphing into what is known as ‘Pop feminism.’(Page 82) Increasingly more people are getting involved with the feminist movement, and realizing that people of all ethnicities, social backgrounds, and sexualities should be treated with respect.
...over the centuries, gender inequalities have changed, from being focused on public inequality such as getting women into both in education and the workplace, as well as giving females voting rights to being focused on the diversity and variety in women’s lives in today’s society as described by third wave feminists from the 1980s onwards, focussing on the women who were previously overlooked by other feminist schools. Earlier feminist schools have been criticised for ignoring the ‘other’ which subsequently led to the development of other schools of feminism such as black feminists, (Smith, 2013). Subsequently, in order to achieve equality for all ‘types’ of females; white, black, working-class, middle-class, heterosexual and homosexual; there will need to be a development of new schools of feminism in order to explain the experiences that each of these groups live.
The African-American people get a whole month to celebrate their rich history, but what about the other ethnic groups that live in America, including the Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and European-Americans. Why don’t these ethnic groups deserve there own month, have they not played an important role in American history, what makes the African-Americans extra special to deserve their own month. One may say that the African-Americans was taken from their homeland, lived in slavery and segregation, which is all true, but that was a long time ago and this country has moved forward and passed laws to end slavery and segregation of the African-Americans. Even though, they left their homeland of Africa unwillingly by means of purchase or trade by their own people, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because America is doing far better off than Africa, due to the poverty and disease. On the other hand, the Native-Americans are the most deserving ethnic group to have their own history month. If the African-Americans think they had a terrible past, they need to look at the Native-Americans horrific past. The Native-Americans were the first people to populate the American domain, until the European-Americans started settling the lands and nearly wiped out the entire Native-American race, along with taken all of their homeland away from them. Providing that, the Native-Americans only make up a little over one percent of today’s population. For instance, if one went inside a restaurant and looks around, the chances of seeing a full-blooded Native-American family having dinner together are slim to none. Anyhow, all five of the American ethnic groups have contributed to the American society throughout the years and having only one ethnic group get their own month is preposterousness and
The phrase “Third-Wave Feminism” was coined by a 23-year-old, African-American woman named, Rebecca Walker during an essay in 1992.This wave has been the most controversial amongst the Feminist community. In association with the advancement of technology, the Third wave feminism has been able to reach a much younger audience. Many older generation feminist feels as if the newer generation is misrepresenting the movement and what it stand for. Historically, Feminist have been more conservative on issues such as expressing their sexuality, but in The Third Wave, many of its new followers feel they deserve the right to express themselves as their male counterpart do. Many claim they are practicing the teachings of women
Women embedded with the Sisterhood wave revolted against their once confined roles to embrace themselves as intelligent, sexual, and powerful creatures of God. These were the warriors of femininity: the ones willing to lay it all on the line to feel a sense of liberation as a female community. Theses women become so frustrating with the conditioning of their bodies to be docile they ended up dooming themselves to their own inwardness. Third wave feminism is rooted in the variety of women as equals to all genders. I identify this as the Coequal wave. Woman are not placing themselves on a higher elevated scale than men but to simply be accepted as equals no matter what race, nationality, or gender differences (149-150). These three waves are still alive and thriving in our world today, however, they are far from working in a cohesive manner in a patriarchal society. Theorist Simone De Beauvoir writes in her manifesto “The Second Sex”, “Men need not bother themselves with alleviating the pains and the burdens that physiologically are women’s lot, since these are “intended by Nature”
The first wave was in the year of 1789 which was organised to promote women’s rights by the first group of which included a wide range of women directly after the French revolution. The revolution had been fought in the 1970s on the basis of equality and freedom for women; as a result of this many women had then formed clubs mainly in Paris and also in major cities. The main principal for these clubs was to form a meeting place for women; as a result of these meetings it caused the development of political programmes regarding many issues such as rights in education. (Quidlen, 2001) First Wave Feminist activism grew out of abolitionism, thus leading to the rise of a suffragist movement in which was to ensure that slavery was put to an end if they received the right to vote. (Giddens,