19th Century American Imperialism

Beginning in the latter half of the 19th century, the concept of Imperialism spread throughout the United States.  While industrialization continued to grow, the US wished for outside markets to disperse and sell their goods in order to achieve a greater net profit.  One of the ways this was seen as plausible was through imperialism, or the expansion of a nation's influence over another.  The "mother nation" grows in size and in power, which set off somewhat of a chain reaction in the late 1800's to the medial 1900's , resulting in other nations expanding in attempt to keep up.

In the late 19th century, America had gained influence in a multitude of countries including Germany, Philippines, Japan, Cuba, Korea, Austria, and others.  Hawaii was added to the United States in 1898, which gave the US full control over the land and the former Hawaiian government.

In conjunction with the rise of this ideology, came the birth of imperialistic opposition.  One of the most notable was the American Anti- Imperialist League, comprised of a plethora of individuals, all against imperialism.  In order to achieve maximum influence over the population, publication of anti- imperialistic propaganda were orchestrated and distributed to the mass public.  

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson was a cold but calculating man who despite all odds, won the presidency thanks to his wife gaining him endorsements and his capitalization on his competitors missteps. A large criticism towards Wilson was that he wasn't as charismatic or lively as Theodore Roosevelt, who was running against him for the presidency. However, despite knowing he was an awkward man, he acknowledged and embraced his flaw, allowing him to be a pleasantly human contrast to the seemingly perfect Teddy Roosevelt.

The Rise and Fall of Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was a man unlike any other at the time. Where other presidents failed to implement progressive ideals into law, Roosevelt succeeded. Roosevelt challenged big businesses, most notably Standard Oil and the railroad industry. During his first term in office, Roosevelt had a lot of support throughout the country and was really only contested by monopolies since Roosevelt aimed to break up the monopolies.

However, after William Taft refused to implement Roosevelt's policies after his time in office, Roosevelt ran for office once again, appearing to be a power-hungry maniac simply looking to stifle democracy.

Exodusters

The Exodusters were the names given to African Americans who migrated to Kansas from the South after the Civil War. After the war, the African Americans were treated very harshly in the Southern states even though equal rights and freedom were promised. The Exodusters were not only fleeing from the hate groups such as the KKK, but also from the white population in general who resented the black emancipation. In addition, even though the African American population greatly outnumber white people in the South, black resistances or political campaigns had not made any successful result yet. The Homestead Act that promoted Western Expansion motivated many African Americans to seek a more equal environment for them to live. Over 300,000 Exodusters moved into Kansas; however, many still struggle to keep up with the fast-growing economy because of their small farmlands. Prominent figures such as Benjamin Singleton supported the movement, while Federick Douglass disapproved the idea of leaving the South.

The Wright Brothers

The remote windy beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, were the scene of one of the most significant events of the early 20th century. On December 17, 1903, the Wright Flyer left its launch rail and flew under its own power for about 10 seconds before coming to a stop on the dunes. 

Never before had someone sustained flight without the help of balloons. The historic flight did not interest reporters, who did not see the future of the technology. They saw the Wright Flyer as a barely working one-off. But Orville and Wilbur kept innovating in the face of adversity. They improved on the original aircraft by building the Wright Flyer II and III, the latter of which flew over 20 miles in 30 minutes. 

The brothers then sought to commercialize their design as an observation platform for the Army. The US Army, however, were uninterested in the design, seeing it as impractical and unsafe. The brothers then took their invention to France, hoping to sell some to the French Army. The demonstration flights were extreme successes, drawing thousands of spectators. During their time in France, the brothers gave rides to journalists, statesmen, and officers. The kings of Great Britain, Italy, and Spain came to see the flights. Upon return to the US, the brothers were approached by the US Army for a contract for an observation plane. During demonstrations at Fort Myer, in the fall of 1908, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge became the first casualty of air travel when a propeller shattered and sent the Flyer into a spin, causing fatal injuries to the Lieutenant and breaking Orville's leg. 

After the crash, Wilbur went on another tour in France, leaving Orville in the US to recover from his injuries. The tour attracted interest from the French and Italian armies, and Wilbur secured a few contracts for pilot training and aircraft. Upon returning to the US, the brothers were invited to meet President Taft, who gave them multiple awards for their commitment to flight. After celebrations, they made a 30-minute flight around New York, flying up and down the Hudson River and around the Statue of Liberty, showing the reliability of their machine and cementing their place in history.

William Monroe Trotter

Born in 1872, William Monroe Trotter was an African-American civil rights activist. He was born to Virginia and James Trotter. James was a rare black Democrat who supported Grover Cleveland and eventually was promoted to be the highest-ranking black man in a legal office. Because of James' success, William was exposed to a high level of education at a young age and was growing up in a time when an educated African-American was somewhat of a threat to the white population surrounding him. As he reached adulthood, he was highly educated through white schools and resulted in graduating from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in international banking. Post-college, he tirelessly worked towards equality and abolishing segregation through founding organizations such as the National Negro Suffrage League and the Negro American Political League. Trotter also founded the newspaper The Boston Guardian. Through these organizations, Trotter actively argued against segregation and even countered Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute. He argued that there should be a heavier emphasis on liberal arts and not just the teachings of manual labor. Trotter strongly believed that the black population was just as capable, if not more, than the white population that continued to stifle their abilities, and yet it was still a member of the black community who was holding them back. Trotter began working with W.E.B. Dubois, an infamous opponent of Booker T. Washington, to form the Niagra Movement. The movement was made up of all African-Americans and fought against Washington's values as well as pushing for social equality. This was arguably the first major civil rights movement in African-American history. However, Trotter was not a proprietor for all equality. He ended up leaving the Niagra Movement in opposition of integrating women into the movement. Nevertheless, his determination and contributions to the civil rights movement brought African-Americans one step closer to equality.

Trotter, William Monroe (1872-1934) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed.” Redlining (1937- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed, www.blackpast.org/aah/trotter-william-monroe-1872-1934.

Woodrow Wilson

Often referred to as the last progressive president,  Woodrow Wilson began a national reform program called New Freedom. Unlike Roosevelt and Taft, Wilson's predecessors, Wilson didn't want to just take down some trusts and monopolies, he wanted to take them all down. He believed that all trusts hurt the development of small businesses and ordinary citizens.  He ultimately failed; however, he did further the progressive ideal of limiting big corporation's power Wilson was also responsible for abolition act, which banned the consumption of alcoholic beverages, and the modern Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, which prohibited companies from hiring workers under 14 years old.

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was the 27th President of the United States (1909–1913)  and the tenth Chief Justice of the United States, the only person to have held both offices. he was the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt. He was elected with the help of Roosevelt. His administration was filled with problems between the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which Taft often sympathized, and the progressive wing, toward which Roosevelt moved to. After leaving the office he became a professor at Yale. He continued to be politically active.  

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt became president after the assassination of William McKinely. He was the first progressive in the White House. He was a strong president who believed in using his position to influence the nation. During his two terms in office, he expanded presidential power. 

Angel Island: The Ellis Island of the West

The Angel Island Immigration Station was opened in 1910, as a facility to better enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882. This act was created because many Californians felt a need to blame a minority group for the failing economy, which was actually due to a depression and drought in California in 1870. However, before this act was passed, there was a fairly extensive period of racism-driven violence and murder towards Chinese immigrants across the United States.



Once this movement became the law, Chinese immigrants successfully came to the United States, both legally and illegally. To prevent illegal immigration, the immigrant-processing center was moved from San Francisco to a new center on Angel Island. This way, Chinese immigrants that were caught with falsified documentation, or immigrants who did not pass either the physical exam or interview, could not escape their detainment. Although this method proved to be effective, there were quickly issues with capacity and sanitation. This forced many immigrants to be deported back to China on various ships.

Madam C.J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker, whose given name was Sarah Breedlove, was one of the very first African American women living in the United States to become a millionaire. Her source of wealth stemmed from her line of hair care products, which she created after contracting an ailment of the scalp herself that damaged her hair. Desperate, the healthy hair-less Sarah Breedlove tried mixing her own concoctions of remedial herbs and pre-existing hair products. She was then hired by a haircare company and moved to Colorado, where she soon after started up her own hair product brand. With this brand of hers, Sarah Breedlove, under the public name of Madam C.J. Walker, became one of the first woman millionaires, but she could not flaunt it like J.P. Morgan or Rockefeller or Carnegie. Because of her skin colour, she had to keep her immense wealth quiet, because of the possibility of being lynched or mobbed.

Meat Packing Industry (The Jungle)

As the United States quickly developed in the early 1900s, the government and laws were unable to keep up with the rapid changes occurring socially and in the economy. This is the case with the meat packing industry. Today, working in the meatpacking industry is often looked down upon as a terrible job, but back then, without any sanitation and regulation laws, the conditions were horrifying. In 1905, a socialist writer called Upton Sinclair was called to write about the conditions in the factories. Sinclair described the conditions in gruesome detail. He said how the meat that fell on the floor would mix with sawdust, dirt, and millions of germ before being packed up and shipped anyway. There would be rats scurrying about in every room, including on the meat that was about to be packed. He described how the meat would be contaminated with rat urine, and even the poison used to kill the rats. Workers had no place to wash their hands, so they had to wash them in water that would be later used to make sausage. Men, including children, could be forced to work 12-15 hours a day with little pay. Sinclair's novel was an immediate success and eventually lead to the creation of the FDA. Thank's to his graphic description of what was occurring in the factories, progress was made in an effort to sanitize working conditions with new acts such as the "Meat Inspection Act". Conditions would slowly but surely improve in the later decades. 

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York, spanning the 1920s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke.

The Jim Crow Museum

The Jim Crow Museum, or the "Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia" is an official museum at Ferris State University in Michigan that contains a collection of old, everyday items from the times of segregation (primarily created between the 1870s and 1960s) that have been preserved and put on display. Many of these artifacts were created by racists whites and were usually in the form of drawings, caricatures, and posters/signs. 


The main mission of the museum is to teach values such as tolerance and respect through the examples of intolerance and disrespect present in the 10,000+ items in the museum. Through its collection, the museum illustrates how abundant racist ideas and stereotypes were in the Jim Crow era. Items from the Civil Rights Movement are also present in the museum.

This huge museum started out with one person, though. In the 1970s, a man named Dr. David Pilgrim, a former sociology professor who was involved in Ferris State University, began collecting racist items and memorabilia in places such as flea markets across the country. Dr. Pilgrim's collection had increased to more than 2,000 items by 1996, and he decided to donate them to FSU. The collection was used for about 15 years in college classes until 2012, when a new facility was opened as the official "Jim Crow Museum" in one of the FSU buildings. 





In today's day and age, the knowledge that people have about racism and segregation during the Jim Crow Era seems to get smaller and smaller, and this museum is there to be a reminder of a piece of history so essential to understanding how society progressed during that time in the past.

Speakeasies

During the 19th century, alcoholism and family violence ran rampant.  As a result, in January 1920, there was a nationwide ban on producing and transporting alcoholic beverages, in a movement known as the Prohibition.  Although the Prohibition did reduce consumption of alcohol, it also generated an increase in illegal drinking spots known as speakeasies.  Although police would shut down speakeasies they could find, the popularity and profitability of speakeasies made them a worthwhile investment for many.

The 18th Amendment and Volstead Act were
responsible for establishing the Prohibition.

Speakeasies were a significant part of American culture during the early 20th century and, as such, fostered new social patterns in America, one of the most significant being integration.  Speakeasies offered something that anybody wanted during Prohibition - alcohol.  They created an environment where people of different classes races could gather together.  With fewer restrictions on the types of patrons, speakeasies were also one of the first spots where blacks and whites could be in the same place with little issue.

Speakeasies were popular establishments in the 20th century.
They illegally procured alcohol through bootlegging
operations that sprung up during Prohibition.

Speakeasies were a hub for popular American culture during the early 20th century.  During the Prohibition, a movement known as the Harlem Renaissance was taking place in New York.  The Harlem Renaissance was an important era in black history, as it marked a rebirth of African-American arts, and one of the first times that others recognized the intellectual and artistic contributions of African-Americans.  Popular culture at this time was significantly impacted by the Harlem Renaissance.
Jazz, a popular music genre to this day, originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Many of its roots can be found in musicians from the Harlem Renaissance.  Speakeasies played an important role in the evolution of jazz, as they provided employment opportunities and made jazz a part of popular culture.  Popular musicians like Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, and Louis Armstrong performed at these clubs, attracting crowds who wanted to hear jazz for themselves or to dance along, with classic moves such as the 'Charleston.'

Louis Armstrong, nicknamed 'Satchmo,' was one of the most
influential figures in jazz.  He notably worked at Connie's
Inn, a nightclub in Harlem, New York.

The 1920s, nicknamed the 'Roaring Twenties,' was a period of economic prosperity and rich cultural development.   During this era, there were a number of significant changes to daily life, a number of which were a break from tradition.  More conservative groups, like those that pushed for the Prohibition, looked for a scapegoat to blame these changes on.  Jazz, for example, was blamed for the scandalous behavior of flappers, who redefined women's appearance in the 1920s.  Although jazz and speakeasies had their share of critics, their widespread popularity made them cultural phenomenons.  Although speakeasies largely disappeared when the Prohibition was ended, their cultural influence remains to this day.

Flappers are an iconic image of the 20th century.  Flappers
and their boyfriends were largely considered scandalous.
This didn't stop them from going to speakeasies and dancing
the night away.

Ida B. Wells

       After hearing the famous story of Tom Moss being lynched for defending his grocery store, Ida B. Wells felt it was her obligation to speak up on the unjust lynching incidents. During the 1890's, Ida B Wells led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States. During this time Ida spent traveling to various places in the South to gather information on other lynchings. Wells, who was born a slave, felt strongly against the discrimination and decided to risk her life to publish articles highlighting the injustices done by the whites.  Consequently, Wells faced a lot of threatening responses from the whites and eventually her work lead to the destruction of her newspaper and all her equipment.

   








       While she was working as a journalist, Wells also had a position as a teacher in a segregated public school in Memphis. In 1891, however, she was fired from the school for speaking against the existence of black only schools in Memphis. 7 years later she brought all her demands to the white house and lead many protests to try and get President William McKinley to make reforms. While this was not as successful as she had hoped she was still able to accomplish many things. For example, she established many civil rights organizations including the formation of the National Association of Colored Women.

       Ida B. Wells fought injustice until her death on March 25, 1931, from kidney disease. Wells felt like she left behind a striking legacy, and once famously said "I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap."

Jane Addams

Jane Addams was a cofounder of Chicagos hull house a settlement house that provided support for poor urban residents, including any new immigrants. Hull house was one of a number of settlement houses founded in American cities around the turn f the country. Addams also worked to keep Chicagos streets free garbage.

Figures of the Harlem Renaissance (Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes)

Duke Ellington also known as Edward Kennedy Ellington was an American pianist who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. He grew up in a secure middle-class family in Washington D.C. His family encouraged his interests in the fine arts and he began studying piano at age seven. He became engrossed in studying art during his highschool years and was awarded a scholarship to the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. However he did not accept this scholarship. He was inspired by ragtime performers and began to perform professionally at age 17. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century. He composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in all of Western music.  

Duke Ellington

Langston Hughes also known as James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. He was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and made the African experience the subject of his writings, which ranged from poetry and plays to novels and newspaper columns. He received a scholarship to, and began attending, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in early 1926. He wrote poetry until his death; his work The Panther and the Lash, published posthumously in 1967, reflected and engaged with the Black Power movement and, specifically, the Black Panther Party, which was founded the previous year.

Langston Hughes

Oscar Micheaux

Oscar Micheaux was a film director, author, and independent producer. He made more than 40 movies. He was born on January 2, 1884. He had his own movie company and was the first African - American to make a film. One of his greatest film was the “Birth of Nation” (1915). The film is about 3 hours long. It was about how Ku Klux Klan was the “heros” and it justified the violent oppression of African - Americans to avoid miscegenation.

Oscar Micheaux made movies that challenged racial segregation. He produced movies that were both silent and talking. There were many other African - American producer but he was the most successful one at that time.

JIm Crow Laws

After the end of slavery, Anglo Americans needed a new way to ensure their superiority over the other races. They would do this through segregating the colored under a double standard. Through this double standard, African American, Mexicans, Chinese, etc would always be regarded as a second-class citizen.  Jim Crow Laws are extra-legal rules that demonize African Americans.

Tuskegee Institute: Black Opportunity

On Independence Day, 1881, Booker T. Washington and Lewis Adams established Tuskegee Institute. Initially, it was a school for "colored teachers," as this was still in the period of the Jim Crow Laws and segregation that divided almost every single aspect of life. In this time, there were public congregations to watch the lynchings of black people who had the audacity to outperform a white person, so the establishment of a purely black center of education and knowledge was not highly supported. Of course, they were often denied their legal obligation to the same, but separate rights and were not protected from extralegal activity, but that did not stop them from trying to attain the same opportunities. So, in 1881, Alabama was gifted its first historically black institute, which would go on to educate George Washington Carver and the famous Tuskegee Airmen from World War II. Agricultural and trade skills were taught at Tuskegee in order to prepare the students for advanced jobs that could potentially take them higher at work than their white bosses and coworkers. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller contributed to the establishment of the school as a silent contribution towards the advancement of African-Americans. By the early 20th century, Tuskegee was a leading contributor to the efforts of the United States Government to identify and cure the symptoms of syphilis. After years of oppression, Washington and Lewis were able to find a safe place for African-Americans to allow themselves to shine through the hatred surrounding them and prove that they were just as capable and deserving, if not more.
“Tuskegee University.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Sept. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_University.

Sarah Breedlove - A self made millionaire

Sarah Breedlove also known as Madam C.J. Walker, was an African-American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a political and social activist. She was born on December 23, 1867 in Louisiana and died on May 25, 1919 in New York. She was the first American woman to become a self-made millionaire. After suffering from a scalp ailment which resulted in her own hair loss, she invented a line of African-American hair care products in 1905. She promoted her products by traveling around the country giving lecture-demonstrations and eventually established Madame C.J. Walker Laboratories to manufacture cosmetics and train sales beauticians. This made her the first American women self-made millionaire. In 1913, she donated the largest amount of money by an African American toward the construction of an Indianapolis YMCA. Also, Breedlove was a civil rights activist who was part of a delegation what traveled to the White House to petition President Woodrow Wilson to make lynching a federal crime.

Political Machine (aka the Bosses)

The political machine is an organization that is headed by a single boss who has control over an enormous number of votes. The political machine first started because of the rapid growth of internal and external immigration in the United States. These immigrants had little money coming into the big cities, so political machines approached them and gave them housing and jobs. Even though their primary goal is to sell votes to politicians and make a fortune doing that, they sometimes benefit the society by centralizing the government’s power, construct facilities and encourage the growth of industries. 

Mary Elizabeth Lease

Mary Elizabeth Lease, or commonly Mary E. Lease, is a famous rights activist born in 1850 and dying in 1933. She fought hard as a suffragette her whole life but is best known for her work in the rising Populism movement in the late 1800's. As political power was being contained more and more to the middle and upper class living in the cities, farmers had less and less of a voice. They were often charged ridiculous prices that they had no way of disputing which upset Lease, who had gone through terrible personal and economic challenges and who lived on a farm for a while, before losing it in the Panic of 1874. She gave several speeches as a Populist activist in many different parts of the country, even in the big city of New York. One of her most famous quotes was "Raise less corn and more hell," as her audience was other Populists, who were primarily constituted of farmers or other agrarian workers. However, around the election of Populist governor Lorenzo D. Lewelling, she actually broke from the Populist party, and in later life split from her husband, as well.

Italian Immigration & Little Italy

As immigration in the U.S. reached its peak in the late 1800s/early 1900s, one of the notable groups who immigrated to the U.S. were Italians. Even though Italy had just been unified by one flag, the living conditions there were characterized by violence, chaos, and extreme poverty. Many Italians took immigration to the U.S. as a last resort to find a better life and fulfill the American Dream. By the end of the 1920s, approximately 4 million Italians had immigrated to the United States, which represented more than 10% of the foreign population living in the U.S.
The main destination for Italians who made it to the U.S. was Ellis Island, where they would receive their passports and be examined for any disease or anomalies. Due to the fact that most of the Italian population was concentrated around New York City, many Italian neighborhoods which would be known as "Little Italy's" would emerge as a result. One of the largest Little Italy's was directly in New York City, with a population of 10,000 Italians in just two square miles. Little Italy's where characterized by having a completely different culture and created diversity by bringing in new food and customs to the U.S. Just like many other immigrant populations though, Italians had to face the hardships of difficult, poorly paid labor along with leaving their culture & possibly families behind.

Populists Vs. Railroads

The Populist Party was comprised of oppressed workers and functioned as a national union fighting for workers’ rights. The organization mainly focused on issues affecting farmers, the victims of many unfair arrangements between their bankers, politicians, manufacturers, and, especially, the railroad monopolies. These monopolies prided themselves on cutting costs to eliminate competition, sometimes at the expense of the farmers. Farming families were forced into poverty, making collaboration with others in similar situations their last resort and, later, forming the Populist Party.

During the late 1800’s, the party demanded that the government should be the sole owner of the railroads. This reform could have cut many of the high transport fares that the railroads charged exclusively in states with high farming populations. The differences in shipping costs between areas with known farming communities and other areas are displayed in the table below.

Railroad companies countered the Populists’ criticism by arguing that they needed compensation for the large costs associated with building railroads in less developed, western states, where farmers were a major source of income. This constant struggle for profit was difficult to solve, as each group supplied what the other demanded.

Over time, the Populist Party lost its power, resulting in a loss of traction in the railroad dispute. This led to little, if any, change in freight costs in the farming communities and a moderate decrease in business exchanges between the farmers and the railroad companies.

The Pullman Strike

Background Information:
The Pullman Factory was a town in southern Chicago, Illinois, used as a living environment for the Pullman Company workers.  Due to the complete containment of his workers, Pullman could control both their wages and the prices of consumable goods.  This eventually led to decreased wages and increased consumable prices.


The Strike:
On May 11 1894, approximately 4000 laborers at the Pullman factory in Chicago, Illinois, organized a strike demanding fairer wages, reduction in prices of consumables, the ability to purchase land, and secured jobs.  This riot caught the attention of ARU, the American Railway Union, which was a national collection of railway laborers.  ARU demanded a boycott among all railway trains that possessed a Pullman Company car.  The majority of railroads west of Detroit were impacted.  At the pinnacle of the boycott, approximately 250,000 laborers were actively involved, resulting in $80 million in rail line property damage.


Results:
The physical result of the Pullman Strike was quite minimal.  President of the ARU, Eugene Debs, was sentenced to half a year in prison due to his obstruction of transit.  Perhaps the most notable event that came forth was the creation of Labor Day from President Grover Cleveland.  Created six days after the end of the strike, the federal holiday was fabricated to ease tension among active labor workers.  However, nobody had pulled off a strike to this magnitude previously, which helped inspire and influence laborers nationwide.

Mary Elizabeth Lease

Mary Elizabeth Lease was an American lecture, writer, and political activist. She was born on September 11, 1850, Ridgway, Pennsylvania and died on October 29, 1933, Callicoon, New York. She went to Kansas to teach in a mission school. After some years she married to a local pharmacist.

 

During 1890s at Kansas populist swept into the state power. Around 1890, she was involved with the political parties with the Kansas farmers against the  high mortgage interest and railroad rates. She traveled around a lot to observe and see what was going on. After that she became one of the most prominent woman. One of her famous quote is “ raise less corn and more hell” she told this to the farmers in the Kansas.

For the work she has done, she was criticized so much by the people because of her “unworthy behavior” but she never gave up on being who she was. Back then girls/women didn’t have rights like they do now and because of that people criticized women who ever did right things and/or went against something. They were there just to be a good wife and a mother. But going back to the topic, she gave speeches and she continued being a political activist.

Ellis Island

Introduction: 
         From 1892 to 1954, hopeful immigrants came to the United States seeking jobs, land, and opportunity. However, one of the most nerve-wracking experiences they went through upon trying to move in was the conditions in Ellis Island.

Before it was for immigrants:
          Located just off of the coast of New Jersey and right next to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island was known as the "Kioshk" by the Indian tribes because it was rich and abundant with oysters. From 1794 to 1890, the US military used the land for war. In 1808, the federal government bought Ellis Island to use as a fort and store their weapons.

How Ellis Island came to be:
          At first, Castle Garden also known as Castle Clinton served as the New York State immigration station up to 1890 which held up to 8 million immigrants trying to get through to live in America. However, the numbers grew and Castle Garden could no longer hold that many people so they looked to the Ellis Islands. Later in the years, Ellis Island held up to 1.2 million people (in just that tiny island!).

Castle Clinton (present date)

Immigration Process:
        Immigrants usually came by steamboats, and first and second class passengers were not required to go through Ellis Island's inspection process. It was believed that the richer the person, the less likely they were to carry a disease and the more likely they would fit into the upper class. For the rest (the main population of immigrants), had to undergo medical and legal inspections. Medical exams took place in the Great Hall (From my own experience being there, it was pretty small so I'm surprised they could fit that many people in) where doctors would briefly check the immigrants for signs and symptoms of illnesses. If the immigrant seemed to be in good health, the process would take about 3 to 5 hours. If not, they were at risk for deportation and would have to spend nights at Ellis Island (in the tiny bunk beds where they crammed six people in a three-story bunkbed!). The next was the legal inspections consisting of 29 questions mainly asking about why they wanted to move to the US, what their backgrounds were, etc.

                         Great Hall (Then)                                                      Great Hall (Now)

                                   Bunks
        Though referred to the "Island of Tears" (by the 2% of the people who could not make it through and were separated from their families), the majority of the people thought that Ellis Island believed it to be a great experience. The service was good, the food was good, the people all around were positive and inviting. (When I visited, I remember there was a funny journal of some sort containing a short story of a man trying a banana for the first time and he was so happy.)
        Ellis Island is now a national monument (which I definitely recommend going see, especially if you are going to see the Statue of Liberty) and the museum receives more than 2 million tourists annually.

       Ellis Island (Then)                                                                         Ellis Island (Now)

Citations:
The New Colosus - The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ellis-island-history.