Back in the day, the United Fruit Company was a very big deal, especially in New Orleans. A man named Zemurray, in particular, greatly impacted New Orleans. Rich Cohen became obsessed with Zemurray and wrote a book, The Fish That Ate The Whale:The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, giving a complete explanation on all the good, and also the very worst Zemurray did. Sam Zemurray and his family made very large contributions to Tulane, started many foundations in his name, and also had a garden named after him. People have forgotten about him and will never learn who Zemurray actually is. Zemurray left a great legacy in New Orleans and in many parts of Louisiana, unfortunately he has been forgotten.
Zemurray lived in New Orleans in the 1940s, and he had a grand mansion in Audubon Place near Tulane University and across from the famous Audubon Park. “When Zemurray died, he left it to Tulane. It’s been the official residence of the university president since the 1970s, a place of fundraising and galas”(Cohen123-124). Even though Zemurray never went to Tulane University, he gave Tulane his beautiful mansion. My friend’s father actually was raised in this Tulane home in the 70s, and I had the privilege to speak to him about his past home. “I grew up in this home, but I never knew the history of Zemurray, or the history behind the house, or how the mansion came into Tulane's possession”(Kelly). The impact Zemurray had is so unsubstantial he is barely even remembered today.
Zemurray was determined to make Tulane one of the grandest and best universities of all the universities. In 1911, he donated $32,000 to the school for the hygiene and tropical medicine department. Zemurray wanted to help cure the yellow fever that had devastated...
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... decisions but in return did some charitable things. But still with all the money that he gave, and all the buildings named after him, Zemurray is all but forgotten in New Orleans. This should tell people that no matter how much money you have or what you do in your lifetime, you will die just like everyone else and will most likely be forgotten.
Works Cited
Cohen, Rich. The Fish That Ate the Whale:The Life and Times of America’s Banana King. New York: Picador, 2012. Print.
Kelly, Paul. Personal Interview.2014.
"Zemurray Gardens Lodge Complex, Loranger, LA." Zemurray Gardens Lodge Complex, Loranger, LA. National Parks Service, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.
"Review of The Fish That Ate The Whale: The Life And Times Of America's Banana King." Publishers Weekly 259.4 (2012): 153. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
In 1906, socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a book he hoped would awaken the American people to the deplorable conditions of workers in the meat packing industry. Instead, the book sent the country reeling with its description of filthy, rat infested plants, suspect meats processed and sold to consumers, and corrupt government inspectors. President Roosevelt became seriously concerned by the charges brought forth by Mr. Sinclair and determined the only way to protect consumers from unscrupulous business and unsafe food was to enforce regulation.
As exports from bananas continued to create wealth, Keith continued to form plantations on his Costa Rican lands while overseeing the completion of the railroad. Finally, in 1890, the task originally taken up by his uncle had been accomplished. However, the railroad was far from first in his mind. Seeking to become a powerful force in the increasingly lucrative banana industry, Keith began to open plantations in the surrounding countries of Nicaragua, Panama, and Colombia (Colby 69).
He hoped his book “The Jungle” would accomplish “significant change” to the day to day lives of immigrants who worked in the slaughterhouses (Foner 544). On the contrary, his book shifted the motif of his muckraking. David Cohen, author of “Sinclair: Muckraker for thinking person,” explains that instead of the American public focusing on the “poor working conditions” they pivoted their attention to “what was in their lunch” ( Cohen pg 4). Society was more intrigued with the details about their food than the safety of the workers. President Theodore Roosevelt read “The Jungle”; He was appalled by what he read. Cohen explains that even the executive leader of the United States had to “dispatch investigators to Chicago and report in detail [the] filthy conditions of the the killing floors” (Cohen, Telegraph Herald). Upon realizing the reality Sinclair was trying to unveil, society perceived the issue alternatively. Christopher Phelps, author of “How Should We Teach ‘The Jungle’ ” states that society viewed the reality differently— from Sinclair— because they associated what they read with what they
New Orleans, Louisiana is soaked in the made picture of the spooky, strange enchantment that Voodoo speaks to all that is forbidden and taboo in our society. The pattern that Voodoo follows through its inception in New Orleans has an extraordinary pattern that leads from to a strange darken veritable practice, mutating into a multi million dollar tourist trade industry. Personality and utilization are emphatically hitched as to Voodoo in New Orleans, and even gives authenticity to the practice, deal, and perceivability of this Afro-Caribbean religion in the twentieth and twenty-first century. According to Saumya Arya Haas, Harvard University, Voodoo embraces and encompasses
In the early 1900’s America begin to transform rapidly. Many immigrants started moving to the United States in the early 1900’s with the hopes of living the “American Dream.” However, that glittering and gleaming American lifestyle is merely a distant ideal for the immigrants living in Packingtown, the meatpacking district of Chicago. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle portrays life through the eyes of a poor workingman struggling to survive in this cruel, tumultuous environment, where the desire for profit among the capitalist meatpacking bosses and the criminals makes the lives of the working class a nearly unendurable struggle for survival. The novel The Jungle is a hybrid of history, literature, and propaganda. Sinclair, a muckraking journalist of the early 1900s exposed to the nation an industry grounded by the principles of deceit and filth, and offered a new resolution to end this problem. The novel and its massive depiction of the grotesque and unsanitary conditions created an impetus for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act (McCage 1) which transformed American lifestyle. The Jungle is notorious for exposing the grotesque and unsanitary conditions that existed in the meat packing industry; however, the novel’s purpose expands beyond this issue and reveals the disillusionment of the American dream, the evils of a capitalistic system, and a feasible plan to end corruption.
Divine, Robert A. America past and Present. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education/Longman, 2013. 245. Print.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a time of great social and political change. With an influx of immigrants rushing to work in factories, the dynamics of culture were swiftly changing. The naïve, new Americans were easily persuaded into making decisions in voting that were greatly influenced by the corrupt individuals guiding them (Sinclair, 1906, pp. 97-98). Unknowingly, these immigrants were working very hard to prevent themselves from achieving the heavily desired “American Dream.” Upton Sinclair’s own political beliefs are reflected in his startling novel, The Jungle, which details a believable account of such an immigrant’s experience. Though it is often thought of as an exposure of the unsanitary meat packing industry,
The fast food franchise as a whole has slowly weaved its way to becoming an integral part of American culture ever since the first fast food restaurant emerged. One, in particular, continues to make an impression on our culture is Burger King. The restaurant chain sells one of America’s most purchased food products, the burger, and has done well enough to spread throughout the United States and beyond through the use of media. One of the best ways Burger King has taken advantage of media was to spread its product through ads designed to be noticed and to eclipse all competitors through the use of major figures, but can sometimes have a secondary meaning to those who delve past the initial surface. The Burger King ad featuring the Mount Rushmore National Monument attempts to persuade it’s audience to purchase it’s food by revealing that even America’s Presidents enjoy the food it provides; however, even though the persuasion of the ad succeeds on the surface by showing a sense of satisfaction on their faces, it could be taken alternatively by stating that the ad illustrates gluttony and obesity in America to the point of the monument adapting to reflect this.
“Upton Sinclair's the Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry.” Constitutional Rights Foundation 24, no. 1 (2008): 1. Accessed May 15, 2014. http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-1-b-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-muckraking-the-meat-packing-industry.html.
Salinger, J.D. “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” Nine Stories. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. 3-18. Print.
America is renown for being a land opportunity; however, there were moments in the country’s history where opportunity was not always available. America’s poor often played the game of survival of the fittest. This game featured immigrants coming to America with hopes to live the American Dream and farmers moving from one agricultural landscape to another during harsh growing seasons. Few mediums have been able to capture the entirety of the weary immigrant and the lowly farmer’s experience like the novels The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. These books contain an undeniable similarity in its tragedies and injustices, which are portrayed through the parallel philosophies of Tom Joad and Jurgis Rudkus;however, these books also contain differences in Jim Casy and Phil Conner that show the mirror image strife and struggle thrown upon the impoverished.
Siegel, Jason. "The Plot Against America: Philip Roth’s Counter-Plot to American History." Oxford University Press (2012): 130-51. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
The history of the Sazerac name is argued; Susan Tucker the author of New Orleans Cuisine argue that in 1850, a bartender named Sewell Taylor became the sole importer
With the escalating demand of bananas from Central America and the greed that fueled the expansion of the banana crop, the United States sought out an opportunity to expand economically. Blinded by the benefits of having such a successful business in foreign land, the U.S. was eager to do whatever was necessary to keep their dream alive. Because of the United States’ involvement in the United Fruit Company’s reign of terror, they are in fact responsible for the tragedy that struck Guatemala, the fall of their democratic government and the massacre of its people, during the 1950s.
Education is destroying Kerala! In Lawrence Gable’s article, “Kerala Turns to a Machine,” the promise of free education is slowly demolishing its coconut industry. For years, India’s caste system has been a dominant force in its society, but it is being broken down in the world’s coconut capital: Kerala. This system controls the lives of Indians, controlling who they are to associate with, the quality of their lives, and whether or not they receive the coveted privilege of education. However, in the past few years, the Indian government has offered education without charge to people of the lower castes, opening doors to opportunities for the minimum wage coconut pickers of Kerala. Instead of laboring in coconut farms, schooling would provide the laborers who climb the sky-high with a better life. This may seem like a positive subject, the sudden departures of coconut pickers does not bode well with the harvests, with each harvest bringing even less of the fruits every time. Although education can help some communities thrive, in some cases it can be determined to culture and economy.