Walking into this class at the beginning of the year, I had the mindset of every typical teenager, “This class is gonna be boring” or “Why do we need to learn this? They’re all dead anyway.” As the first week went on I was shocked to find out that one of our first project was to watch the movies, “12 Years a Slave” and “Glory” unlike every other class we had where it was review.
My favorite and the most pleasantly surprised part was how horses were such a big part of the Native American culture. If horses wouldn’t have played such a part of the Natives lives then they wouldn’t be a part of the American Culture. As a quote from my paper, “ Indians bred the most well known horses known to date in America.” If they wouldn’t have bred those horses, there would be no entertainment containing horses such as rodeos or Kentucky Derbies. The one thing I was unpleasantly surprised with the United States was how they treated the Industrial Workers. The higher ups could have gone about cutting wages and laying off workers differently but they didn’t. Instead they cut some workers pay and raised the rent up to 25%, that’s bound to put anyone out on the streets if they weren’t financially stable before that.
In 10 years from now, I will probably still remember the horrid and vivid images from “12 Years a Slave”. I won’t forget house Solomon was treated as property and I won’t ever understand why someone would treat him badly and others treat him okay, or how Soloman had respect for the man who held him captive. In his journal he praises William Ford, “There never was a more kind, noble, candid Christian man than William Ford.” Along with slavery came Racism. Racism is something that Americans still continue to struggle with. The Huffington's Post has an article titled, “More White Americans Believe in Racism than Ghosts”. So many people believe in ghosts but more people believe that racism is real. Racism has been one of the many problems America has struggled with and they will continue to struggle with it for many years to come.
If I were to name the time era for 1865-1920 I would name it “The Migration”. During that time period more than 25 million people immigrated to the United States. This helped the time period out a lot because they were able to recruit workers in the industry. And even though they were sent out in hard work areas, they were able to say that they worked and lived in America.
Having history in our schedule at school may seem pointless and boring at first glance but then you come to find out the good aspects of your country and the bad aspects and you learn how the people before us built the country to what we are to this day. It makes it more interesting to learn about when you think about how we could’ve been a totally different country if it weren’t for certain people.
