Silas: What Every Industrial Worker Should Strive To Be The United States of America was founded by men who had unlimited pride and work ethic. It was built from the ground up, and driven to the status of world power by average citizens, blue-collar railroad workers, construction workers, welders, as well as many more. In Robert Frost’s dramatic monologue, “The Death of the Hired Man” Silas falls into this class of people. Frost illustrates Silas as a man with-working class pride. However, things were not always bright and sunny for him, as he is also painted as depressed and empty, as previous missed opportunities may have denied him status of wealth and high regard. Silas is, without a doubt, a loyal employee, doing his job well
Nineteenth century industrialism presented the United States with a unique and unprecedented set of problems, as illustrated through the works of Rebecca Harding Davis and Horatio Alger Jr. Although both authors felt compelled to address these problems in their writing, Rebecca Harding Davis’s grasp on the realities faced by the working poor and women was clearly stronger than Alger’s. Not only did Alger possess a naïve view on exactly how much control an individual has over their own circumstances, but he failed to address the struggles of women entirely. As a result, Alger conceived a rather romantic world where the old-fashioned American ideals of hard work, determination, and self-sacrifice enable a young boy to lift himself from poverty.
Samuelson uses his essay to explore a thesis that Americans are moving from a ‘work’ ethic to a ‘fun’ ethic. However, he doesn't spend much time explaining or introducing this, preferring to spend his time presenting facts, articles, quotes, polls and stories to prove his point. Unfortunately, as a reader, this choice of evidence, rather than solidifying his point, actually begs the question: what is his point? Samuelson spends very little time in the essay actually concluding or explaining his information. Instead, he buries the reader with facts and statistics, moving on from one factor to another before the reader even has the chance to grasp the importance of the previous one.
Despite being celebrated for its industrial achievements, the very foundation by which society was predicated on in the Gilded Age crumbled as labor unrest grew. This sense of discontent on the part of laborers is demonstrated through the Haymarket Affair of 1866. Among those tried for the crime was August Spies, who in his “Address of August Spies,” compromises his own life by persistently undermining the legitimacy of the State to emphasize the determination of the collective for which he views himself as a “representative.” In his attempt to illuminate the injustices of the State and foreshadow the unremitting turmoil that will emerge with his murder, Spies simultaneously showcases the divisions within society at the time. Consequently, because it is a product of its time period, the “Address of August Spies” can be used not only as a means of understanding the Haymarket Affair but the dynamics of society as a whole.
Chants Democratic, by Sean Wilentz examined the emergence of New York’s labor class during the Jacksonian era and in essence revealed Artisan Republicanism. Wilentz offered a unique perspective in his historical analysis of the social and political labor histories during 1788 through 1850. Wilentz stressed the importance of the republicanism ideology in the creation of a working class that was instrumental in a pre-industrial New York. The author stressed the significance in both the political histories and social histories of the early nineteenth century by incorporating political ideologies and labor union descriptions. He further integrated these insights by means of articulating the social working conditions and lives of small masters, journeymen, and artisans to show their respective importance to the creation of the working class scruples. Chants Democratic iterated not only on the formation of the labor class in America, but also illuminated the changes within this new social class by exploring how antebellum New York’s population began to live and think.
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man 's needs, but not every man 's greed.” As humans, we work countless hours in order to have a greater opportunity to succeed in life to fulfill our wants. F Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, utilizes effective language and punctuation in the text in order to accomplish his purpose: Illustrate what material goods does to a society. From a rhetorical standpoint, examining logos, ethos, and pathos, this novel serves as a social commentary on how pursuing the “The American Dream” causes people in society to transform into greedy and heartless individuals.
In chapter “The Other Civil War” of A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn described the underlying class tensions caused by industrialization during the nineteenth century. He claimed that these tensions would have led to radical labor reforms if the working class’s anger had not been directed towards other issues. Zinn used The Age of Enterprise by Thomas C. Cochran and William Miller to show the upper class’s indifference towards the problems of the lower class and to prove that the rich manipulated the poor to promote their own interests. He also used Class and Community by Alan Dawley to offer examples of working class resistance, government oppression, and the effects of the Civil War. While Zinn’s use of Class and Community accurately represents Dawley’s arguments, he misuses some of his evidence from The Age of Enterprise.
Following the Civil War, life in the south was dramatically changed. America faced an arduous task of rebuilding the devastated economy and social infrastructure in former Confederate states. This new movement was known as the Reconstruction era, and it was responsible for the emergence of a multifaceted industrialization of manufactured goods and transportation networks. In the book, Steel Drivin’ Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson conveys the intensity of political debate during the Reconstruction era. The conflict revolved around the role of the federal government in domestic affairs as well as the status of recently freed African-American slaves. This period marked the emergence of John Henry, a former African-American slave that became a classic figure of American folklore myths. He was known as the man who defeated the steam-powered drill in a race, but died shortly after from inhaling the rock dust generated by the steam drills. The story of John Henry emerged out of and reflected the histories of southern reconstruction by outlining the political, social, and economic changes that undermined black equality.
People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people live, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lack all the important factors to make life worthwhile.
The poem “America” by Tony Hoagland reflects on how peoples’ minds are clouded by small-scale items, money, and the unimportance of those items. Metaphors and imagery are utilized to emphasize the unimportance of materialistic items in America. How America is being flooded with unnecessary goods. The poem uses examples of people to create an example and connection to the overall meaning.
After reading the poem entitled “Youth”, I felt that James Wright was not only describing the life of his father but also the lives of the many other factory workers in the Ohio Valley. Many of these workers had either dropped out of school or went straight to the factories after high school, never really getting a chance to enjoy their lives as young `````adults. I think that has something to do with the title of this poem. It’s clear that Wright knew his father and the other men were not satisfied with their jobs and just chose not to speak about it. These factory workers slaved away and then came home “quiet as the evening” probably because they were content to just be relaxing at home with their families. They knew that this was their way of life and they had to do it, even if they had big dreams to someday get away. I think that Wright was also trying to make a point that these men who worked so hard every day were not valued as much as they should have been. These men did not have the education to get a higher paying job but they did have the proper skills and knowledge to work in the factories. I like that James Wright mentioned Sherwood Anderson in this poem as I enjoy his work. Anderson left his Ohio hometown for Chicago to pursuit bigger and better things because he knew if he stayed in the area, he would be unhappy. However, it is a little ironic that Anderson one day just got up and left in the middle of writing and was said to have a mental breakdown.
Rebecca Harding Davis wrote “Life in the Iron Mills” in the mid-nineteenth century in part to raise awareness about working conditions in industrial mills. With the goal of presenting the reality of the mills’ environment and the lives of the mill workers, Davis employs vivid and concrete descriptions of the mills, the workers’ homes, and the workers themselves. Yet her story’s realism is not objective; Davis has a reformer’s agenda, and her word-pictures are colored accordingly. One theme that receives a particularly negative shading in the story is big business and the money associated with it. Davis uses this negative portrayal of money to emphasize the damage that the single-minded pursuit of wealth works upon the humanity of those who desire it.
When reading The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck, several of the themes, motives, and characters spark an interest in the story’s background. The novel, concerned with the struggle between man and morals, constantly refers to the corruptness of American society, which is precisely indicative of the author’s actual experiences. In fact, Steinbeck’s epigraph states, “Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places here described would do better to inspect their own communities and search their own hearts, for this book is about a large part of America today.” This statement suggests a degree of disapproval, which is also pointed out by the title, itself a reference to a line in William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Richard III: “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York” (264). This feeling is especially reflected through the central character of the book, Ethan Allen Hawley, who is discontent with the shame brought upon his family by his lowly job in the town grocery store. No longer appreciating the integrity he tries his best to uphold, society pushes Ethan into psychological turmoil. Similarly, the consciousness of Steinbeck himself was also fraught with discontent. In his lifetime, desolation was brought about by the Cold War, several failed friendships, and the general dishonesty of society. These elements can be seen throughout the novel as a stark reminder of the author’s hardships and a denouncement of immorality as a method for attaining success.
Whitman hears the songs of all the workers and normal people who contribute to the culture of America: the mechanic, the carpenter, the mason, the boatman, the shoemaker, the woodcutter, and the women. The people illustrated in the poem are neither making a lot of money nor doing anything that is world changing; instead, they are just doing their own business of contributing to society. This explicates upon the American value of hard
In the poems “The Wood-Pile” , “Two Tramps in Mud Time”, and “Mowing” Robert Frost explores the theme of the nature and value of work, and that manual labor functions as a tool for self-analysis, self-realization, or self-discovery.
How would you feel if your boss cut down your work paycheck just because he wanted a better life for them self? The men, women and children that worked in factories during the 18th and 19th centuries were brutally mistreated causing poverty, injuries and pallid body types (Thompson). At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, working was incredibly unsafe because there were absolutely no labor or safety laws. Working conditions back then were extremely different from those that are in place today. The unbearable working conditions caused a vast amount of labor laws and rights.