Blog #8

Textbook: Chapter 5

1. After the civil war, the late nineteenth century brought upon a lot of economic change mostly do to the rise of industrialism. Many of the American women were involved in helping the economy because of their involvement in the labor force. Women worked in textile and garment industries, which had dramatically grown after the invention of the sewing machine. Many of these women believed that they were not earning enough for their hard labor. They were given difficult jobs and, in return, would produce a large amount of goods. Women were usually treated unfairly because they were not seen as “skilled workers” as the men were. Sometimes, women would take the place of men when the men were on strike, but the women were let go as soon as the men returned to their positions. Eventually, women were given more opportunities in office work mostly do to the invention of the typewriter. Single Working-class girls were affected in that they felt as if they were now given more freedoms, since they were able to make money and only support themselves. Many women had left their homes and entered the cities where they would receive the feeling of dependence, a feeling that they had always pursued. Other working-class women would have to work in order to support their families and usually used more than one income in the household. The middle-class women and elite women lived in more comfort than the working-class. Middle-class women would usually chose to shop around in department stores rather than work. They would even hire a couple domestic servants to do the domestic work around the home. The elite women would have a lot more of these servants than the middle-class women did, therefore making their lives a lot easier than any of the other classes. They, too, would shop around for their luxurious with the money that their husbands had brought home. Another way their lives were affected was that the poorer women had more children than the wealthier women. Since the middle-class and elite women were the consumers and the working-class women produced the goods, it would keep the economy balanced.

Textbook: Chapter 6

2. The image that is shown identifies the U.S. government’s strength in assimilating the Native Americans into the White American culture. The U.S. government practically forced these young children to attend these boarding schools that stripped them from their Native American culture and way of life. They did this in hopes to get rid of the Native Americans. The Native Americans had lived a hard life during these troubled times because of the White man’s priority of destroying the Native Americans. The children in the image are completely changed after a few years. These changes are seen in the way these girls are sitting, the way they are dressed, and they way they have their hair done. The girls in the image had only kept their sad faces because of the fact that many of these children were taken from their families and loved ones.

Source Interpretation
Textbook document

1. There are all sorts of women in the factory with their own story to tell. One girl is in the factory in order to buy herself clothes because she is already supported by her father and brother. She does not mind the work in the factory and usually looks happy. Another woman is an old widow who talks about how hard the factory work is. Some of these girls work for pleasure but some work in order to help the family. One girl that Bessie Van Vorst meets is in the factory to help her other two sisters support their mother and pay for food and rent. There are the differences between the bread-winners and the semi-bread-winners. The responses usually vary between the women who have to support others and the girls that have nobody to support that are able to spend their earnings on themselves. This is because the girls that are not supporting themselves know that they get extra luxurious out of their work while the women who are supporting others know that all their hard labor is going to others, in which they will need have the opportunity to enjoy.

2. Van Vorst concludes that the women do not stand up for themselves because they do not have enough spirit and strength to do so. Van Vorst is correct in her analysis because these women were indeed treated unfairly and did not do anything about it. Many of these women knew that it was easy for the employers to replace the workers and therefore did not want to risk losing their jobs because some of the women needed the jobs in order to support their families at home. If one work day was to be missed, it could have caused negative consequences such as missing the rent payments.