The Red Scare of the years 1918-1920 was the quintessential "big scare" of the beginning of the 20th century. In the article the class read written by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer states that, "how the Department of Justice discovered upwards of 60,000 of these organized agitators of the Trotsky doctrine in the United States, is the confidential information upon which the Government is now sweeping the nation clean of such alien filth," (Gordon 21). This statement embodied the times of the first red scare. Meaning the government really had no justification for the actions it committed.
Even today our country seems, daily, to face bombs and gunmen and while this is tragic we do not as a whole, blame certain different countries and although our relation with Russia are at best strained we do not isolate the many Russians living in the United States. When 9/11 happened granted the United States immediately went to war with Afghanistan. A war was started and quickly spread, it seemed, to the many countries making up the Middle East.
Why than in 1919 did not the United States send more troops to Russia than they had already sent to stop the spread of Bolshevism? Though the war would end shortly at this time the country was still at war with Europe.
The answer is obvious the country was tired and financially drained from fighting in a foreign war. Maybe they didn't relish fighting a Russian winter. In any event during the second red scare 2-3 presidents were willing to send and keep troops in Vietnam to stop the spread of Communism, the off-shoot of Bolshevism.
We've already established, in class, that this red scare never would have happened had not the country at this time had a President weakened and crippled by a stroke. Would a red scare of this magnitude happen again? I doubt it. If the President were to get sick nowadays we, the public, would know. We might no know the extent of the illness but in this day and age I've watched the President so much in the media that I've seen every hair on his head turn gray.
Historical narrative, in regards to this red scare event was compounded by the use of the written word. The major Supreme Court cases that went on during this time greatly help the historian and illustrate the feelings of the political side of America.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
January 15, Red Scare Part I
I could not call it paranoia because for many living during this time it was a real fear. The Red Scare of the 1920s is but a footnote in American history often overshadowed by the second Red Scare of the 1950s. The Russian Civil War that encompassed Russia from 1918-1920 had far reaching consequences that traveled from the cold forested areas of rural Russia to the bustling towns of America. I don't understand how Communism ever became a threat to the people and government of America. Than again I'm still starching my head over how Prohibition passed at a federal level.
It just proves that people are scared of change and change was happening in post-war America. The price increase that consumed much of the market was staggering for the many living on the pittance of a paycheck. Though I still chuckle when I read about complaining that milk was 50 cent a gallon instead of the usual 25 cent. I see that happening now though, where food, gas, and general living arrangements have gone up. At my mindless minimum wage job I see people who have worked with the company for 10 years or more and all there paycheck has to show for it is $9.00 and hour. Illinois minimum wage is, by the way, $8.25. I can understand why people would form unions, without them we would surely become enslaved by the corporate greed and the executive's need for a fat paycheck.
How Bolshevism came into play during the 1920s and how it affected people's prejudices was interesting to learn about.
It just proves that people are scared of change and change was happening in post-war America. The price increase that consumed much of the market was staggering for the many living on the pittance of a paycheck. Though I still chuckle when I read about complaining that milk was 50 cent a gallon instead of the usual 25 cent. I see that happening now though, where food, gas, and general living arrangements have gone up. At my mindless minimum wage job I see people who have worked with the company for 10 years or more and all there paycheck has to show for it is $9.00 and hour. Illinois minimum wage is, by the way, $8.25. I can understand why people would form unions, without them we would surely become enslaved by the corporate greed and the executive's need for a fat paycheck.
How Bolshevism came into play during the 1920s and how it affected people's prejudices was interesting to learn about.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Monday, January 13
Discussed on Monday's class was the Treaty of Versailles and the last two years of Woodrow Wilson's presidency. I give Wilson credit for this monumental undertaking. It was not an easy task to be charged with, cleaning up the aftermath that was WWI. I thoroughly enjoyed author Frederick Lewis Allen's description of the the events surrounding before and after the Paris conference. The reader could almost picture being there.
I find it ironic that Wilson would go to Versailles, the home of the long past French kings. Though the town might be nice its long history of debauchery and lechery is legendary. There, crimes were committed, crimes of passion, sin, and sharp wit and gossip. I imagine Wilson visited the palace, if not at least marveled in its opulence. Here was the seat of power that decided so many fates over countless centuries. Here he too would decide the fate of the world. You can only admire a person who wanted to do right for the world and give his health and life fighting for good causes.
That being said his intentions were often misplaced and too grand for many to grasp. But nevertheless he kept going.
I recently watched a French movie called Renoir directed by Gilles Bourdos. Its content described the last few remaining years of the famous impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In it we see an artist crippled by arthritis and aged a great deal. He still paints though his hands are noticeably deformed from the arthritis and large knobs are seen growing on his knuckles and knees. He cannot walk and has trouble holding up a paintbrush. The doctor visits him at one point during the movie and tells Renoir that he cannot go on his health is deteriorating. Renoir scoffs at this. The doctor asks him what will you do when you cannot paint anymore with your hands? Renoir replies, "I will paint with my dick." Here the doctor laughs at this but Renoir turns to him and seriously says, "I will paint until I collapse."
Wilson, too, knew that he could never give up and likewise kept working until he collapsed. Though one of his ultimate masterpieces the Treaty of Versailles never say its true potential during Wilson's lifetime his stubborn manners and unflinching morals showed the world that there could be peace without harsh punishment. I'm not sure about Wilson's politics during the last two years of his presidency. After reading Allen's description of Wilson's life during those last few years of his presidency in the book Only Yesterday all I can remember is the bitterness and erratic behavior that overtook our once great president.
I find it ironic that Wilson would go to Versailles, the home of the long past French kings. Though the town might be nice its long history of debauchery and lechery is legendary. There, crimes were committed, crimes of passion, sin, and sharp wit and gossip. I imagine Wilson visited the palace, if not at least marveled in its opulence. Here was the seat of power that decided so many fates over countless centuries. Here he too would decide the fate of the world. You can only admire a person who wanted to do right for the world and give his health and life fighting for good causes.
That being said his intentions were often misplaced and too grand for many to grasp. But nevertheless he kept going.
I recently watched a French movie called Renoir directed by Gilles Bourdos. Its content described the last few remaining years of the famous impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In it we see an artist crippled by arthritis and aged a great deal. He still paints though his hands are noticeably deformed from the arthritis and large knobs are seen growing on his knuckles and knees. He cannot walk and has trouble holding up a paintbrush. The doctor visits him at one point during the movie and tells Renoir that he cannot go on his health is deteriorating. Renoir scoffs at this. The doctor asks him what will you do when you cannot paint anymore with your hands? Renoir replies, "I will paint with my dick." Here the doctor laughs at this but Renoir turns to him and seriously says, "I will paint until I collapse."
Wilson, too, knew that he could never give up and likewise kept working until he collapsed. Though one of his ultimate masterpieces the Treaty of Versailles never say its true potential during Wilson's lifetime his stubborn manners and unflinching morals showed the world that there could be peace without harsh punishment. I'm not sure about Wilson's politics during the last two years of his presidency. After reading Allen's description of Wilson's life during those last few years of his presidency in the book Only Yesterday all I can remember is the bitterness and erratic behavior that overtook our once great president.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Historical Fact
Historical fact, as discussed in class on the 8th are facts based on sources. Its actions are based on the location, date, and time of the event. Written and described by individuals who were involved in the matters. Interpretation or subsequent theories are rightly based on facts.
As a history major I need to rightly choose a period of time in history that I like and then study it. I have a hard time with that because I'm not so much of a "one period in time" kind of gal. I like to study the people in the era, because they are so much more interesting than the events that took place. It's interesting to study individuals interpretation of historical fact.
I recently read a historical fiction novel called Mrs. Poe, by Lynn Cullen. The title is misleading, the book focuses around Frances Osgood, a prominent poetess and children's stories author, set in the year 1845, the plot line follows Mrs. Osgood's fall from polite, good society as her husband leaves her for other women and she in turn falls in love, with tragic consequences with the infamous Edgar Allen Poe. Whether in real life the two actually became lovers in somewhat debatable. The author herself writes that she was interested to know how Frances Osgood might have come to be the lover of Edgar Poe and to bear his love child, a notion that some Poe scholars still deny to this day.
The book seemed to be based off of pure speculation. So was this love affair historical fact or pure speculation? I found myself asking that question.
Both were tortured souls to begin with, but the background of Edgar Allen Poe was particularly bleak having been orphaned and abandoned at so young an age and living in continual poverty despite his success as a poet and author. Frances Osgood likewise struggled emotionally and financially after her husband left.
And Poe never sustained much of a good reputation while he was living and especially garnered extreme criticism after his death. Mostly the later was contrived by the Reverend Rufus Griswold who venomously slandered Poe's name spreading countless fabrications about Poe's drug addiction and madness until generations after Poe's death came to imagine him as a madman.
But was he a madman?
The author writes, "madness is like a drop of ink in a pool of water it tendrils slowly spread to others," (310).
Another topic discussed in class was Phrenology. This topic also popped up in the book Mrs. Poe. The Bartlett's, the couple that housed Frances Osgood after her separation from her husband commented on the Phrenology of Poe's head. "It's all written upon his skull. Those swellings at the sides of his frontal bone, just above his temples, combine the severe moral confusion indicated by those bumps with the superior intelligence implied by the extreme breadth and height of his forehead, and you have a very dangerous individual indeed," (111-112). How popular was Phrenology and could it explain Poe's violent poetry? Probably not, after all his mother died when Poe was around 2 years old, his father abandoned the family long before that, his only 2 siblings a younger sister and older brother died within his lifetime, his young wife died when she was 24 years old in 1847. It seems that what he most greatly sought in his lifetime (love) was continually out of his reach.
Frances Osgood, likewise suffered a terrible fate, 7 months after Poe's death in 1849 Osgood died in 1850 of tuberculosis, her love child with Edgar Allen Poe died at 16 months of age in 1847, and Osgood's other 2 children died, respectively, in June and August of 1851 being just 11 and 15 years of age.
Historical fact cannot always account for the psychological reasoning behind the facts. The world might never know the exact nature of the relationship between Edgar Allen Poe and Frances Osgood but historical fact allows us to use journals, newspapers, place, and dates, coupled with our own interpretation of events to as accurately as possible tell the story that is history.
As a history major I need to rightly choose a period of time in history that I like and then study it. I have a hard time with that because I'm not so much of a "one period in time" kind of gal. I like to study the people in the era, because they are so much more interesting than the events that took place. It's interesting to study individuals interpretation of historical fact.
I recently read a historical fiction novel called Mrs. Poe, by Lynn Cullen. The title is misleading, the book focuses around Frances Osgood, a prominent poetess and children's stories author, set in the year 1845, the plot line follows Mrs. Osgood's fall from polite, good society as her husband leaves her for other women and she in turn falls in love, with tragic consequences with the infamous Edgar Allen Poe. Whether in real life the two actually became lovers in somewhat debatable. The author herself writes that she was interested to know how Frances Osgood might have come to be the lover of Edgar Poe and to bear his love child, a notion that some Poe scholars still deny to this day.
The book seemed to be based off of pure speculation. So was this love affair historical fact or pure speculation? I found myself asking that question.
Both were tortured souls to begin with, but the background of Edgar Allen Poe was particularly bleak having been orphaned and abandoned at so young an age and living in continual poverty despite his success as a poet and author. Frances Osgood likewise struggled emotionally and financially after her husband left.
And Poe never sustained much of a good reputation while he was living and especially garnered extreme criticism after his death. Mostly the later was contrived by the Reverend Rufus Griswold who venomously slandered Poe's name spreading countless fabrications about Poe's drug addiction and madness until generations after Poe's death came to imagine him as a madman.
But was he a madman?
The author writes, "madness is like a drop of ink in a pool of water it tendrils slowly spread to others," (310).
Another topic discussed in class was Phrenology. This topic also popped up in the book Mrs. Poe. The Bartlett's, the couple that housed Frances Osgood after her separation from her husband commented on the Phrenology of Poe's head. "It's all written upon his skull. Those swellings at the sides of his frontal bone, just above his temples, combine the severe moral confusion indicated by those bumps with the superior intelligence implied by the extreme breadth and height of his forehead, and you have a very dangerous individual indeed," (111-112). How popular was Phrenology and could it explain Poe's violent poetry? Probably not, after all his mother died when Poe was around 2 years old, his father abandoned the family long before that, his only 2 siblings a younger sister and older brother died within his lifetime, his young wife died when she was 24 years old in 1847. It seems that what he most greatly sought in his lifetime (love) was continually out of his reach.
Frances Osgood, likewise suffered a terrible fate, 7 months after Poe's death in 1849 Osgood died in 1850 of tuberculosis, her love child with Edgar Allen Poe died at 16 months of age in 1847, and Osgood's other 2 children died, respectively, in June and August of 1851 being just 11 and 15 years of age.
Historical fact cannot always account for the psychological reasoning behind the facts. The world might never know the exact nature of the relationship between Edgar Allen Poe and Frances Osgood but historical fact allows us to use journals, newspapers, place, and dates, coupled with our own interpretation of events to as accurately as possible tell the story that is history.
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