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Why is social change important essay
Why is social change important essay
Why is social change important essay
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Set in the Texas Panhandle in 1883 about the events of a strike that took place at old Tascosa, The Day the Cowboys Quit is a historical fictional phenomenon written by the award-winning western novelist, Elmer Kelton. Born in a place called Horse Camp of the Five Well Ranch and being a native Texas, Kelton was an American journalist and writer is widely regarded as the Greatest Western Writer of all time by the Western Writers of America, Inc. He has written over 50 western novels and this being one of them. The Day the Cowboys Quit is based on the true events of cowboy strikes in 1883. Set against the Great Canadian River Cowboy Strike of 1883, the novel shows us the evil side of wealthy cattle owner who exploited and stigmatized cowboys. Kelton plops us down in the middle of a great social reshaping, where the rough and ready cattlemen are being forced into a …show more content…
An employee strike might seem like a modern technique but it’s moderately, if not fully, based on an actual event in Texas in 1883. This book illustrates the importance of the changing political, social, and economic factors that shaped this country. It shows the devastation that comes with it; people defying and protesting the change that contradicts from their way of living. It also brings out the importance of economic laws and barriers that prevent large businesses from yielding too much power and exploiting the public. The novel not only has some of the elements of western fiction, rich and big against the poor and small, justice serving at the end, and the main protagonist wearing the heroic sheriff’s badge but also brings a great deal of recreation, intuition, and exhilaration. It also provides moments of bonding and congregation as the degradation by big ranchers made the cowboys join together and do the inconceivable – go on a strike. It has an unexpected turn of events from a quarrel over cow brand to a gripping courtroom
America’s Team Will the real “America’s Team” please stand up? This term is widely used throughout the media when referring to the Dallas Cowboys. “America’s Team” was first coined some 40 years ago while introducing them for a feature film by the legendary sport writer Bob Ryan. In the following years, because of their success and mass media exposure they were a team that America as a nation could identify with ,so the name stuck. The Cowboys since those days has regressed into a very mediocre team who only looks for moral instead of actual Super Bowl victories.
When managers seek to improve their sport organization often times they refer to SWOT. SWOT is an acronym which stands for strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat. These four areas are tools used to address and fix any issue that an organization may have internally or externally. The Dallas Cowboys are an NFL team that uses these four categories to address any issues they may have in order to improve any imperfections for the betterment of their Franchise.
In 1938, the Chavez family lost their farm due to the Great Depression. They were forced to relocate to California and become migrant workers. Chavez was distressed by the poor treatment that migrant farmworkers endured on a daily basis. His powerful religious convictions, dedication to change, and a skill at non violent organizing cultivated the establishment of the United Farmworkers (UFW). It was also referred to as “La Causa” by supporters and eventually became a vital movement for self-determination in the lives of California's farmworkers. The astounding nationwide lettuce and grape boycotts along with public support revealed the atrocities of California agribusiness and resulted in the first union hiring halls and collective bargaining for migrant workers. The details of the childhood of Cesar Chavez and how they would later shape his actions are a vital aspect of this book and the establishment of the farm workers movement.
James B. Weaver illustrates the true damage of monopolies on the public in “A Call to Action” (Document 4). Weaver, a two-time candidate for president of the United States, addresses the meticulous tactics which trusts and monopolies use to increase their profit at the expense of the public and asserts that their main weapons are, ”threats, intimidation, bribery, fraud, wreck, and pillage.” Arguments such as Weaver’s, suggest and end to the end of the laissez-faire capitalism that monopolies are sustained upon. Laissez-faire capitalism is essentially a system where the government takes no position in the affairs of businesses and does not interfere, no matter what harm is being done. This ideology dominated the business world of the century and allowed for vast unemployment, low wages, and impoverishment. Soon, laborers also begin to express their dismay with the way that such businesses are run and the treatment of workers in the railroad industry. An instance of this being the Pullman Strike of 1894. In 1894, laborers went on a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company; they issued a statement regarding their strike in June (Document 6). Workers are repulsed by Pullman’s exertion of power over several institutions and how his greed affects his competitors, who must reduce their wages to keep up with his businesses. This incident inspires many to take
... were left unprotected and abandoned by the unions. How is it that the unions can demand labors lose months of wages, be subject to labor blacklisting and ultimately sacrifice their lives without any protections for the strikers and still claim success? They can’t. If anything, the Pinkertons who dispersed the crowd did more to help the worker, by reopening the Homestead, than the union had done. Thus, the unions were an utter failure in furthering the position of the laborer, as the laborer was better off before hand. Before unions the laborer had their life, as many died in failed strikes, and their dignity, as society at least held an intrinsic value in their lives. However, unions succeeded in decimating any chance of advancement by tarnishing the reputations of all laborers, leading to a direct decline in the socio-economic position of the blue-collar worker.
Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after this fire, and the work industry would never remain the same again.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.
When looking at the vast lands of Texas after the Civil War, many different people came to the lands in search for new opportunities and new wealth. Many were lured by the large area that Texas occupied for they wanted to become ranchers and cattle herders, of which there was great need for due to the large population of cows and horses. In this essay there are three different people with three different goals in the adventures on the frontier lands of Texas in its earliest days. Here we have a woman's story as she travels from Austin to Fort Davis as we see the first impressions of West Texas. Secondly, there is a very young African American who is trying his hand at being a horse rancher, which he learned from his father. Lastly we have a Mexican cowboy who tries to fight his way at being a ranch hand of a large ranching outfit.
In the nonfiction book My Losing Season by Pat Conroy, he mainly expresses all the trials and tribulations he goes through as a child and in his current livelihood as senior at Citadel college. Conroy never had a good relationship with his father, no matter what he did the constant banter and hurtful play from his father always lingered. Conroy had a military family which meant that they were constantly moving every year to two years, this never gave him the chance to really settle in with the community and create steady friendships. This also made it hard for him to adjust to the way that certain area played basketball and how well he fit in with the teams. Basketball made him happy and having such an all-star basketball player as a father
In conclusion, the period from 1875 to 1890 brought many attempts at bettering the working conditions, but many of the working class’s attempts at being recognized went unnoticed. This resulted in violence, frustration, and unnecessary deaths. The series of failed strikes and attempts to receive government intervention resulted in heightened anger among the employees. Without an increase in wages, decrease in working hours, and improvement of working facilities, many workers left their jobs leaving the employer angry and in need of workers. None were available, however, because they were either protesting for better working conditions, signing a contract with a better company, or blocking rail and roadways in order to get their points across to the government.
The social and economic developments of the last quarter of the nineteenth century drastically changed the United States. The business world changed once industrialization was introduced to the world. Opportunities grew as people heard about the boundless American opportunities. Immigrants from all races flooded the cities which doubled in population from 1860-1900 (Barnes and Bowles, 2014, p. 34). However, as industries grew, owners prospered off the hard work of others. People started to feel they were not being treated fairly. People had to work harder and longer for their money. Barnes and Bowles (2014) noted “In the era of industrialization, millions of workers fought to simply have the right to work in safe conditions, and earn a fair wage” (p. 45). Many Americans feared that giant corporations would one day seek to restrict the ability of common people to get ahead and curtail individual freedoms. These fears were particularly strong among farmers, laborers, an...
The early 1900s was a time of many movements, from the cities to the rural farms; people were uniting for various causes. One of the most widespread was the labor movement, which affected people far and wide. Conditions in the nation’s workplaces were notoriously poor, but New York City fostered the worst. Factories had started out in the city’s tenements, which were extremely cramped, poorly ventilated, and thoroughly unsanitary. With the advent of skyscrapers, factories were moved out of the tenements and into slightly larger buildings, which still had terrible conditions. Workers were forced to work long hours (around 12 hours long) six hours a day, often for extremely low pay. The pay was also extremely lower for women, who made up a large portion of the shirtwaist industry. If a worker were to openly contest an employer’s rule, they would be promptly fired and replaced immediately. Also, strength in numbers did not always work. Managers often hired brutal strikebreakers to shut movements down. The local police and justice were often of no help to the workers, even when women were being beaten. At the time, the workers needs were not taken seriously and profit was placed ahead of human life. This was not just a struggle for workers’ rights; it was also a movement for the working class’ freedom.
Beginning in the late 1700’s and growing rapidly even today, labor unions form the backbone for the American workforce and continue to fight for the common interests of workers around the country. As we look at the history of these unions, we see powerful individuals such as Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers, and Eugene Debs rise up as leaders in a newfound movement that protected the rights of the common worker and ensured better wages, more reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for those people (History). The rise of these labor unions also warranted new legislation that would protect against child labor in factories and give health benefits to workers who were either retired or injured, but everyone was not on board with the idea of foundations working to protect the interests of the common worker. Conflict with their industries lead to many strikes across the country in the coal, steel, and railroad industries, and several of these would ultimately end up leading to bloodshed. However, the existence of labor unions in the United States and their influence on their respective industries still resonates today, and many of our modern ideals that we have today carry over from what these labor unions fought for during through the Industrial Revolution.
Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Cowboys, Indians, gunfights, cattle, stealing, prostitutes, alcohol, deserts, plains, and horses: Where can all these be found? Only in the Wild West. The days when the West was once the newest frontier have been preserved forever due to the many novels and movies written about them. The stories from the west are full of action, packed with battles between cowboys and Indians, and adventures of tracking down pistoleros (bandits, gunman). They are also full of drama, cowboys who have fallen in love with prostitutes, finding long-lost loved ones, and the pains of growing up in hopes of being a cowboy. All of this action can be found in one Western novel, Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. One theme, however, stands out from the rest of them. The theme of growing up and maturing is a predominant theme in the book Lonesome Dove. Newt, the young stable hand, is finally maturing and is looking to his leaders, Augustus 'Gus' McCrae, Captain Woodrow F. Call, and other assorted cow hands such as Dish Bogget, Joshua Deets, and Jake Spoon for advice and tips in life. After being born to a prostitute mother, who died, Newt was raised by the Hat Creek Outfit. This outfit is like the Bad News Bears. It is a ragtag group serving no real purpose other than to steal horses from Mexican bandits and then sell them to travelers who happen to stop by the desolate town of Lonesome Dove. This is a very harsh environment for Newt to grow up in. Newt is constantly looking for a companion and friend, and at the very least someone to talk to. He talks to Deets, the only one in the company who seems to enjoy his company. Call is too shy, abrupt, and ashamed to get into long discussions with Newt. Gus certainly do...