US and WW2

The US did not enter the war right away because they were neutral and they had no desire to be at war. That changed when Pearl Harbor got bombed and the US had to fight back. I think that if the US would have entered the war sooner that maybe less lives would have been lost but they also had no reason to enter the war sooner and they were not prepared for another war either.

Spanish Civil War

I found the documentary about the Spanish Civil War very interesting. I never heard about this war so I didn’t know what it was about. I was surprised to find out that even though the U.S. was not involved, 3000 Americans volunteered to fight and they called themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Out of the 3000, 80 of them were women who chose to fight also against fascism. I just found it very interesting that Americans wanted to fight for other people’s rights even though they weren’t involved in the war. It was also interesting to hear the recollections of some people who fought in the war.

Irish in America

I thought that the documentary the Irish in America was very interesting. It focused on Alfred Smith (who I never heard about) and it talked about his entire life. It was interesting to see how he came from the bottom and worked his self upward and made a name for himself. He started working at a young age because his father passed away and he had to take care of his family. It was a nice story about how hard work and dedication pay off. It was also interesting to learn about the Irish since they’re not talked about too much and a lot of interesting facts were talked about.

Blog 4: Colonialism and Imperialism

As cities grew bigger and became more popular, more people immigrated from all over the world looking for jobs. People from other countries were willing to work for lower wages which increased the demand for immigrants. And with more people coming, more jobs were being created for everybody.

For the Native Americans, their land was being taken away that they were promised in treaties and belonged to them and they were split up and given away. They ended up with less land then they had before and the rest of it was sold.

Blog 3: Conquest of the West

The conquest of the west shaped American society in many ways. It first started with the California gold rush and the findings of silver ore. This led to people flocking to the west from all over the world in search of silver and gold. As more people immigrated to the west, more land was being settled on which led to farming and ranching. Not all the land was desirable so people kept moving west in search of better land for farming. The laying down of railroads came next, which in turn made it faster to travel. The Homestead Act promised land to citizens who lived there for 5 years which made more farmers settle down. As the farming industry boomed, new technology was created to make farming easier and faster.

 

Geronimo

The movie Geronimo was a very interesting movie. I heard of Geronimo before but I never knew that much about him. The movie went into detail about Geronimo before he became famous, what happened to him that made him the way he was and what happened to him after he surrendered. Even though he killed many people throughout his lifetime, I think that he was just making his family’s safety a priority.

The movie talked about how Geronimo’s family got murdered, and that is what set him off on a killing spree. Mexican soldiers came and killed his family and he wanted revenge on non natives. This led him to years of being on the run and killing people who got in the way of his people. To him, killing people was the only way to protect his people because they kept coming to kill them and make them move away from their homes and land.

I think that Geronimo became a hero after he surrendered because of what he stood up for. He stood up for the rights of his people and protected them and his family. Even though what he did was wrong by killing other people, he thought it was his only option to keep his people safe. While Geronimo was on the run, everybody was scared of him and felt threatened. But after he was captured, they sort of praised him for his actions. He put his people’s safety above everything else; and no matter how many people came after him they could never catch him. He was looked at as an underdog who stood up for what he believed in and was up against the world and won. After he surrendered, he also began to embrace the american culture and people liked that about him.

Blog 2: American Indians disappear

I think that the American Indians disappeared from the textbooks because they were forced to move to reservations, sent to schools and were assimilated. They were sent to live with white families to learn their ways and forget about their own. They wanted them to forget their Indian ways and they were hoping that they would eventually just not exist anymore.

Reconstruction Post

1. The first phase of Reconstruction was called Presidential Reconstruction and that was pretty much the same as pre-Civil War. They just replaced slavery with sharecropping. The second phase of Reconstruction was called Radical Reconstruction and during this time they tried to give African Americans more rights.
2. Some successes during Reconstruction were the Civil Rights Bill, 14th and 15th Amendment and failures were the KKK and Black codes.
3. I think the US should have treated the Confederacy more harshly because they went back to treating African Americans the same way as pre-Civil War. If they were treated more harshly then maybe they wouldn’t have done that and they would have gained their rights sooner.