History Speech

The DARK SIDE of Consumerism

An image from the popular show that sells macabre antiques called Oddities

Ever since the Biblical times and even before humans have been entertained with what to many may seem taboo. The Romans for example took great pleasure in watching gladiators rip one another apart, Lions devour helpless victims, and burning Christians. During the rise of Consumerism in America the uses of money and leisure spread through a broad spectrum of ways of entertainment and cultural activities. Some of these ways however may have us looking back and asking ourselves “how far is too far?” Welcome to the DARK SIDE of consumerism.

This new era of consumerism began in a time period coming right out of the Victorian era. To fully understand why what may seem to be a dark side of consumerism exist it is necessary to understand the society in which we are speaking occurred. To begin with this era evolved after a series of successful attempts to gain higher wages and more appropriate treatment for maintaining a lifestyle through working therefore people had higher incomes and a growth in leisurely items. Many people often say the Victorians were obsessed with death but when further analyzed it seems that the Victorians and those after were actually more accustomed to accept death into their society than the people of today. This makes a great amount of sense being that medicine was absolutely not in its prime and was still in an experimental/developing stage. I mean were talking about an era where some people thought headaches could be cured with a metal stake through the eye! Yea. I would say they had some work to do. Due to this unfortunate lack of medical

knowledge deaths occurred much frequently especially in infants and children. At one time the death rate of infants was higher than 20%. Because of this normality in child deaths not only was the baby coffin market striving but so was post-mortem photography. Yes, just like medicine photography was also in its developmental stages and although cheaper and easier than having a painting made photography was not as easily accessible as one might think so capturing a memory of a beloved dead one was not as simple as taking photos during the loved one’s life and making a photo album. Because of the often very short life span of an infant and larger demand than supply of photographers couples often didn’t have time to capture memories with their infant before it died and may have only had very few chances to take a photo with it. So instead of losing that memory of a loved one (just like people take photos today to immortalize memories) they took the photo with their beloved deceased while they could (as a last chance kind of memory). The fact that people in America (mostly middle class because photos were cheaper than portraits

A horrifying family photo with a deceased member

although is extremely and eerily obvious which member of the photo is dead) practiced post mortem may not be as disturbing as it is that this style of photography was popular and practiced among completely sane normal families who were desperate to retain a memory of someone they loved. For more tangible memories some people even made jewelry made from dead ancestor's hair to wear.

Even though this society in the earlier 1900s-1920s seems to be more conservative than possible previous centuries as far as cultural practices this erratic behavior may be connected to what Alan Brinkley refers to as “Redefined Leisure” where he states that leisure changes from being viewed as “lazy” and “sloth-like” to a given right often displayed in radical forms.

The term “Conspicuous Consumption” defined as “the act or practice of spending money on expensive things that are not necessary in order to impress other people” by the Merrian Webster dictionary is one that fits the late Victorian-early 19^th century quite well. People used their money to impress others by suspending reality. This is much like people would today using makeup to alter their appearance or wearing expensive designer brands (fake or not) to send a message to others that they are wealthy or classy. It was almost like people could use their money to become self made royalty when in fact they were not (this is obviously directed toward high class wealthy citizens). This love for altering reality explains why the growth in wealth resulted in a growth in Magic shows but the most popular magicians and stunts were always grounded in reality. This new cultures obsession with danger and illusion lead rise to one of the greatest (if not the greatest) magicians of all time, Harry Houdini. As additional support for this society's interest in danger, darkness,

Houdini performing The Chinese Water Torture Cell

and the macabre Harry Houdini's career didn't reach its full peak until he dedicated himself not to illusions but dangerous stunts and escapes including being buried alive and the Chinese water torture cell in which he was restrained and hung upside down in a tank of water to escape from. Additional ways people could suspend their reality was going to see movies. One popular example is the iconic Edison film The Great Train Robbery which includes a scene that terrified people at the time where a cowboy aimed a revolver directly at the camera and fired off shots. In fact indulging in the dark side was even considered cool. A popular example includes family portraits edited (development of editing photos was beginning to take off) to make it appear as if family members were headless or decapitated. The photo below is a famous example:

A Daughter and son pose in an edited photo holding their mom's "decapitated" head (yes this was a normal practice among families who could afford family photos

Money was and is associated with power and people believed that because they had money they could do things they couldn't do before. They also felt a close connection to death being that it surrounded them and was integrated into their culture. Families had close bonds after experiencing previous years of hardship (partly due to factory conditions, depression, etc.) and often wanted to not only revive family members through photos but through spiritualism using their new leisurely money. If there was money floating around America people would find a way to scam it out of others and that's exactly what

A medium coughing up what is referred to as ectoplasm
(basically its like puking up spirits)

spiritualist did. Spiritualist conned millions of middle and high class citizens into thinking that threw a seance a medium could connect to the dead members of those dishing out the money to retrieve messages. These mediums used elaborate hoaxes in  dark rooms to make families think their money gave them the ability to pay to get back in touch with the dead which all goes back to the theme of appearance vs. reality. It just turns out that these con artist picked the perfect era and society to fool people into spending money to connect with the dead.

A poster advertising Ota Benga

This era was one of discovery and curiosity being that there were many unsolved mysteries in the world. Money from middle class funded technology, research, and exploration. People were paying to learn, but not about normal stuff, that's boring! In the same way horror movies are popular today people payed to see oddities at freak shows, deformities, and ethnic people. There was an educational flare to this entertainment be it medicinal or worldly people were curious to see things they had never seen before using their money (may be hard to imagine in today's time when we have access to computers therefore we've seen it all).  People including Africans, Native Americans, and Asians were actually put on display at zoos and brought in great amounts of money. The Bronx Zoo stated at one time that their most popular attraction was Ota Benga, an African man with sharped filed teeth.
In conclusion the investment in the dark side during the late 1800s and early 1900s can be summarized and explained as money being used for the following: keeping memories of deceased, desire to be immortal, suspending reality in a disturbingly lavish way, gross out factor (like today's popular horror genre), education, and entertainment along with straight up curiosity and desperation to maintain past memories. 

A very disturbing photo that freaked me out of kids posing with a deceased member

A Locket with Human Hair a common accessory during this era

sites used

Bronx Zoo Ota Benga Ny Times- This is the official Ny Times website displaying an article about Ota Benga and his controversial display which although I briefly mention gave a great insight in the interest in ethnicity

Houdini Magigc history- I already came into this topic having a great knowledge of magicians so this site just provided some history on his stunts and the photo I used

Conspicuous consumption Merriam Webster Dictionary- The only purpose of this online dictionary was to define Conspicuous Consumption 

Human Oddities News Barnem and Bailey- This website provided photos of  some of the most popular images of human oddities and insight into their public appeal

Headless photos- this website displayed photos of photos edited to make people look headless and talked about the style's popularity

History Book Alan Brinkley- I used this book to provide the foundation of my knowledge on consumerism and to define the author's view of redefined leisure

Spiritualism Jstor article- This article gave some fascinating information on the uses of spiritualism and its societal significance along with its popularity

Victorians obsessed with death- I definitely used this post to exemplify this era of America's interest and investment in the macabre therefore it served a great significance to my post 

Hair jewelry photo- This is an archive displaying photos of the expensive hair made jewelry pieces that have now become rare collectibles for people obsessed with the Victorian era and ,merely served as brief mentioning and a photo in my article

Carnegie's Philanthropy

After researching some websites of museums, libraries, and institutions funded by the great wealth of Carnegie I have come to a conclusion regarding the following questions

What does Carnegie seem to have believed would be the best way to improve the lives of other people, and how can you tell?  

Carnegie seemed to have believed that the best way to improve the lives of other people is through widespread education along with integration of arts. His method of dealing with poverty is more along the lines of educating people to become independently stable economically rather than handing out free money with no education on how to handle the money. His goals also clearly include enriching creativity in cultures by integrating art into well populated areas. These goals are obviously seen through the education programs offered by his installments that reach out to their perspective communities along with job opportunities for those in need of employment.

What is your opinion of this approach?  What is a counter argument? 

I believe this is an extremely practical  approach with a great probability of success due to the fact that it promotes individual achievement and  educates populations on how to be economically stable which will have better long term effects than immediate fixes to poverty. A counter argument is that this method is not an immediate solution to those in near-death situations and that it does not provide tangible necessities to the impoverished such as good, water, or shelter.

 If you had hundreds of millions of dollars to give away, what would you do?

If I had millions to give away I would do exactly what Carnegie did with the exception of some contribution to immediate causes but most emphasis on long term solutions to benefit humanity as a whole.  I would also provide others with the same opportunities I was given

Native American Portrayal in Film

Ever since movies were first premiered in the late 1800s people around the world have loved indulging in the entertaining form of media. Film makers have since the beginning tackled topics of race, gender, sexuality, religion, adversity and so much more. The film industry is one that dominates the world. As Americans our pop culture and our society in many way revolves around the film industry. Everyday objects are promoted on film commercials, politics are streamed by film productions on tv, and students are often educated through the use of educational and historic films. For many movies are a fun pastime, a hobby, entertainment, educational, a lifestyle but at the same time for some people movies have been a struggle to hold on to traditional values, retain historic value, and overcome stereotypes. The Native Americans are one of many groups of people who feel they have been betrayed by the movie industry.

Ever since movies were invented Native Americans have been depicted on screen. After extensive research I have come to the conclusion that the depiction of Native Americans on film has changed because of both politics and the development of acting methods since the birth of film. The Colorado college argues that there has been 3 waves of ways that Native American Indians have been portrayed on film. The first (1900-1979) being that Native Americans  were originally portrayed as savage, mysterious, and war-like, the second (1980-1999) being that they were more accurately depicted as peaceful and wise beings but still stereotypical, and the third (2000-present) being that in the past decade Native Americans are depicted realistically and as real people with real struggles. In most ways I agree with this three part argument. However, I still believe that today Native Americans will still run into stereotypes in their portrayal in film considering white modernized actors are still being cast in indian roles. The performances by white actors as Native Americans is more accurate today than performances from the past because of the popularity of a new modern method of acting: method acting.

At first, whether or not race was significant to the film, characters in movies were played by white actors altered to look Native American with stereotypical attire and broken speech patterns. This was largely due to the industry supplying movies with actors from the theater, something in which very few natives took part in within the American society. Another reason these stereotypes existed is because white actors used a technique called "personality acting" in which they made it obvious the audience that they were playing natives and also they didn't do much research to prepare them for realistic roles (realistic roles weren't even called for anyway). As film strove to become more realistic a few directors chose to cast real natives in small stereotypical parts. An actress by the name of Red Wing is considered by many to be the first Native American movie actress. She appeared in over 35 silent films between 1908-1921. For a long period of time Natives were outraged by the way they were depicted in film as uneducated, malicious, and mysterious. It would be very similar to the reaction of Americans if they saw a movie made by a foreign country in which all the ethnic actors were painted white to look like Americans and said "would you like fries with that?" every other line. These stereotypical depictions often appeared in early westerns such as Davy Crockett.
A major change occurred during  the late 50s when Hollywood was booming and Native Americans had the ability to become actors due to the decreased racism and increasing liberalism of the film industry. The major progress at this point was rather than having white actors play stereotypical indians, Native American actors were used to portray stereotypical indians. At this time actors such as Eddie Little Sky and Chief Dan George were making their way into television series as stereotypical Native American Indians.  They were in a society where film began to be taken so seriously and racism toward Native Americans was quickly fading that many opportunities opened up for native actors.

Since the 80s movies have seen an increase in Native Americans in film. The 90s was also home to one of the most controversial Native American movies ever made, Pocahontas.  Many tribes were upset when the film came out because the historical story of Pocahontas was heavily altered in order to make it appealing to younger audiences. In fact, during the process of making the movie the Rankokus Indian Reservation made efforts to collaborate with Disney to prevent stereotypes and historical errors but were denied any attempts to help. The 80's is also when acting teachers began popularizing an acting technique created by Stanislavski which is now referred to as Method Acting. With this new technique spreading throughout Hollywood white actors continued to play Native Americans. And though at this point racism was practically non existent toward the Native Americans, stereotypes still remained due to the demands of the industry itself revolving around making profit through entertainment. Among the list of white actors who have played Native Americans in movies includes Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks, , and Johnny Depp. Both Daniel Day-Lewis and Johnny Depp have gone through great lengths of preparation  avoid stereotyping Indians. Daniel Day-Lewis spent months living in the woods in the same way a native would to prepare for his role in The Last of the Mohicans. Johnny Depp visited tribes and learned their customs in preparation for The Lone Ranger and while many considered it to be accurate in the portrayal many tribes feared that the character Tonto would be an offensive parody of Native cultures. .
The general consensus can be made that although movies have largely improved over time as far as accurately attempting to portray Native American Indians, many stereotypes still exist. Honestly Native Americans aren't even a hot topic for film today and when they are used in film their culture is either a plot moving device or general inspiration so it makes sense that there may be many errors in depicting culture accurately because at the end of the day movie makers are going to do what makes money, not what pleases a very small percentage of a large demographic. If Native Americans want to see their culture depicted accurately in film the best thing they can do is watch a documentary based on their culture and lives.

 White actors as Native Americans (Audrey Hepburn as Rachel and Johnny Depp as Tonto)

 Hollywood's Best Known Native American Actors Wes Studi and Russell Means 

The Most Stereo-typically Controversial Image from Pocahontas   

Sites used

1.  http://sites.coloradocollege.edu/indigenoustraditions/6-%E2%80%A2-independent-projects/native-americans-in-cinema/ -provided thesis of 3 waves of ways American Indians portrayed in film in which inspired the main structure for my essay therefore being an essential and significant source

2.  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57479572-10391698/native-americans-worried-about-stereotypes-in-new-lone-ranger-film/-  This article about Natives concerned about portrayal in The Lone Ranger gave me a controversial topic to use to highlight the general opposition by Native Americans toward their portarayal in film. 

3.  http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=18092 –  I used this just for a small snippet of my post where I mention college researches to prove lone ranger as accurate.

4.  http://www.methodactingstrasberg.com/history - I used this to provide additional knowledge to a topic I already knew a much about to my statements about acting techniques and how they influenced the film industry.

5.  http://www.powhatan.org/pocc.html - This was a very important source that provided direct opinions of a Native American reservation regarding the popular Disney film, Pocahontas. It also helped me prove that Natives still feel stereotyped in movies modern day.

6. http://www.imdb.com/?ref_=nv_home- This source was very helpful to me and gave insight to how certain  white actors prepared for Native roles which I briefly mention and also gave a dated list of films in which Native actors appeared,

7.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Wing_(actress)- I only used Wikipedia to link to a photo of the actress. 

Pop Culture's Cowboy vs. The Real Cowboy

Pop Culture's Cowboy vs. The Real Cowboy

When we think of cowboys nowadays we often associate them with qualities of great strength and bravery, Indiana Jones-like adventure, attractiveness, and carefree enjoyment. Movies depicting cowboys trace as far back as Thomas Edison’s film The Great Train Robbery in which brave and extremely overly exaggerated strong cowboys rob a train. Good or bad, cowboys are perceived with great skill and strength an attractive set of characteristics for both modern and historic Americans. However in actuality cowboys in the West were quite the opposite of the common popular culture’s heroic perception of these low paid workers.  One of the biggest misconceptions is that cowboys often fought Indians. In truth the most common people to have fought Indians would have been white miners, settlers, and soldiers. Not cowboys. A cowboy’s job required a skill set of handling livestock which would not have been very useful in defense against Indians in comparison to settlers with hunting skills or miners with strength and weapon like tools. Perhaps the only skill a cowboy would use is fleeing in which he obtained from chasing after cows.

Other misconceptions of the cowboy include comfortable living and romance. These factors were distorted through fictional novels, paintings, and other forms of art. Sure a cowboy could have a romantic lifestyle but it’s also likely that chasing women was not above the priority of chasing cows considering the job in which they partook in required a great deal of labor with very low pay. It would be hard to imagine that in truth cowboys lived comfortably. Somehow cowboys became the icon of the West when the majority of the West consisted of migrating families with more money than that of a cowboy, or people who were poor looking to become wealthy. It’s very possible that the false image of the heroic cowboy became the symbol of the West because he represented what the West wanted to: Strength, Bravery, Independence, Romance, Power, and Success.

The factor the contributed most to the ideal of the cowboy are strength and pride. Strength, which much was required to settle to the West, was viewed very positively through the idealistic cowboy who enticed people to settle to the Great Frontier when the idea of the abundant amount of strength required to succeed could have easily discouraged people from moving West. Seeing the results that mental and physical strength had on the cowboy made people look up to him in a desire to achieve the same quality of strength within them. With great strength comes great pride. Americans already being a prideful group of people could easily relate to the cowboy. This was the important quality that convinced people they could be like the idealistic figurehead considering he was an American just like the rest of them. It is through these qualities people look up to the cowboy because in some way whether it be strength, bravery, romance, or pride people look up to the pop culture’s hero, The Cowboy. 

 society often views the cowboy as much more super than he really was

Chapter 15 Reflection

I hardly knew anything about the Post-Civil War South before our class room studied the unit on it. I knew so little it was even embarrassing. I couldn't even tell you what happened after the Civil War and what was accomplished. All I could tell you is that The North fought the South. That is about it. But now I have a great understanding of the events that occurred. What stood out to me most was the extremely opposite mentalities regarding African Americans in the South. The fact that the South even after losing the war still tried efforts of maintaining slavery through the black codes and revolting with the Ku Klux Klan. It amazes me that the North had to go to such great lengths as deploying troops, creating amendments, and passing laws to establish Blacks as equal to any other man because of the strong Intolerance the South would not let go of. Its an awful thing to say but studying about the South and Andrew Johnson really did remind me of the racism and intolerance of Hitler and the "Aryans" in Germany.  I was familiar with confederates but now I have a strong knowledge of the attempts they made to maintain white Supremacy.
  I believe it is important for people to know the past because as cliche as it sounds you can learn from it. Yea that's horribly cliche but true. By studying the past and seeing the result of what certain mindsets caused both negative and positive, I believe we can form our own modern mindsets and morals in a way that can yield the best results in life. For instance knowing that racism caused a divide in the country and accepting freedom for black slaves progressed our country (inventions by Washington Carver etc.) we can apply an open mindset today and work with people of all mindsets to achieve great things as seen in history. Plus the past did shape our society as it stands today. On a smaller note knowing what had to occur in the past to allow the society we live in today we can be a little more thankful, especially that we won't get killed for be an abolitionist.

Blake Animoto

http://animoto.com/play/J0vvABCtRiGvxKbfl4DXnw#

Here is  a link to my video of my view of America. I made sure to include both posotives and negatives because clearly I dont view America as perfect. Some of the posotives include opportunities and friendliness which I depicted through a photo of a sign and cute kids. I highlighted some negatives with a photo of a gym with an escalator and a photo of a news headline about Justin Bieber fans being injured at his concert.

Heres Stuff you didnt know