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Visit this site http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/ and choose one photograph to work with.  Complete the
"Examining Photographs" sheet with your group.  In the comments section here,  write a letter to your employer.  Pretend you are a kid in the photo, and are unhappy with the working conditions in the photo.  What would you want the
employer to know?

 
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Read "Demand and Supply for Cattle" on page 239 in  your  textbook.
Pretend you are a southern farmer and write a  persuasive letter to  Texas ranchers explaining why they will make a lot of money  if they drive their cattle toward the  Southeast. Remember  to talk about  supply and demand in the letter.   
Post your letter in the comments section.

 
We call this unit Bigger, Better. Faster. Why?  Mention the Oil, cattle, railroad and steel industries in your comments.
 
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The 14th Amendment outlines a very important constitutional right called "Due Process fo Law".  Click on the link below and complete the student web activity.

Click for Student Web Activity.

Use: [email protected] for my email
address.

Finally respond to this in the comment section:
Do you feel that the United States has or has not made progress in its efforts to apply Jefferson's words that "all  men are created equal."   Explain and provide evidence.

 
Historical Background Notes

After the Civil War,
the South went through a period called Reconstruction in which the political
systems, economies, and areas damaged by the war were rebuilt.  Before the war,
landowners had  a ready source of labor for their crops with slaves.  Southern
landowners faced a dilemma in the form of how to keep their plantations
productive after the war ended.  In order to receive a pardon from the President
of the United States, Andrew Jackson, they had to agree that they would not
utilize slave labor for their crops any longer.  Over the next decade, a system
where former slaves provided the labor required for a successful plantation
emerged.

Freed former slaves did not see an end to their suffering when
they were granted emancipation, or even when the war finally ended.  With the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments, slaves were given their
freedom, made citizens of the United States, and, for men, given the right to
vote.  The Reconstruction plans pursued by different groups in power allowed for
constitutional and legal rights of the former slaves, but did nothing to provide
a way for those people to make a living.

The freedmen no longer had to
work on the plantations, but they were not given an alternative way to earn a
living (Tindall and Shi 1996, 755).  In 1865, General Sherman tried to give
emancipated slaves land in  the coastal areas and islands of Georgia and
South Carolina by promising “forty acres and a mule”  (Divine et al. 2002,
517).  “As one black man in Mississippi put it: ‘Gib us our own land and we take
care ourselves; but widout land, de ole massas can hire us  or starve us, as dey
  please’”(Tindall and Shi 1996, 756).  Unfortunately, President Johnson and
Congress did not support any plan that effectively confiscated and redistributed
land of former confederates (Divine et al. 2002,  517)

Congress created
the Freedmen’s Bureau in March of 1865 in order to help alleviate the problems
facing the former slaves (Kennedy et al. 2002, 480).  Local sections provided
provisions, clothing, and fuel to the  freedmen and their families.  The  Bureau took over abandoned and confiscated land to rent out in forty-acre plots  to freemen who might be able to buy it within three years.  Freedmen and women  used the Bureau to  negotiate labor contracts with planters.  Providing
medical care and setting up schools were other services offered by local
bureaus.  Finally, the Bureau had its own court to deal with labor disputes and
land titles, as well as supervise trials that involved former slaves in other
courts.  Congress did not give the Freedmen’s Bureau much power and it expired
in 1872 (Kennedy et al. 2002, 480).

Four clear options emerged for the  freedmen and women after the war: obtain land, move, work for former

masters, or sharecrop.  Some freedmen were able to obtain their own personal
land to work to support themselves and their families. Others opted to move to
the cities and the North to find work that was not agrarian based.  Directly
after the war, plantation owners established a contract labor system that
employed their former slaves (Divine et al. 2002, 518).  The freedmen and women
would commit to work on the plantation for a year in return for fixed wages,
which were often paid with part of the harvest. 
Sharecropping eventually
extinguished the contract system (Divine et al. 2002,  518).  Sharecroppers
worked a piece of land and received a fixed share of the crop, which was usually
one-half.  Landowners did not have to invest much at the beginning of the season
and the tenant shared the risk of the crop.  At first,
freedmen saw
sharecropping as a step up from wage labor because they felt it was on the way
to landowning.  Actually, the system turned into another form of servitude
because the tenants had to live on
credit from the landowner until the
cotton sold.  Often sharecroppers never quite caught up to what they owed
because the landowners would charge high prices and interest, which they took
out of the crop arning at the end of the season leaving little or no profit and
usually a debt they could try to work off the next season.


OK, now
describe (lists are OK) how life both changed and stayed the same for newly  freed African Americans during this crucial period.  Post in the Comment  section.
 
 
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Why is the Emancipation Proclamation still important today?

 

"Harriet Beecher Stowe's most famous introduction took place on or around Thanksgiving Day, 1862, when she was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln, who allegedly greeted her with these memorable words, 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!'"

Not all historians believe that this actually happened, but it’s true that Stowe’s book was very important.  Why do you think Uncle Tom’s Cabin affected people so deeply?

 
 “Bill of Rights Cancelled: So Few Americans Know Their Rights,” or “Congress Decides to Eliminate the First Ten Amendments!”  Write a brief letter to the editor explaining why one particular right must not be taken away. In this letter, explain the meaning of the amendment, why it is important to Americans, and how life in America will change if you no longer have this right.