homework for American history

October24.2018

American History

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1039-1046

Question 1

The most significant about the living conditions depicted is that people in the picture are living in poor conditions characterized by poor environment and overcrowding in the tenements. The occupations range from the unemployed to the low income earners who live from hand to mouth and cannot afford good housing. Their ethnicities are Asian origin due to their looks and hair and are importantly the minority in the New York.

Question 2

The most revealing details of the urban life in the second picture are that there is unemployment in the urban centers. Those taken in by Riis are just standing with no job to do as others peep from their rooms showing that they have no jobs to do. The picture reveals the dirty alleys of urban centers. The bins on the left side of the picture are full of litter and shows that they have not been collected for long time. The bright side is that there seems to be modesty dressing in urban centers as the gentlemen in the picture is clothed in good coats and hats meaning they access decent clothing. The attitude of the photographed is that they are curious about the picture taker, they are staring from windows and all of them seem to have stopped doing their things to look at the picture taker.

Ignatius Donnelly, Populist Party Platform, 1047-1052

Question 3

The platform that would appeal to the industrial workers is the reduction of the tax levied up them to reduce the burden of taxation by the use of revenue. The populists adopt the strategy that appeals to both the urban and rural voters so that they could gain popularity as a party in all parts of the country and that they would have their sentiments addressed during elections.

Ida Wells, From Southern Horrors, 1053-1064

Question 3

Africans would boycott working in white farms and work places to avoid accusations of rape and even being impersonated by whites who blacken their faces to carry out crimes thus limit lynching. Emigration would see afro Americans move away from areas occupied by the whites to avoid lynching by the whites. Afro American race would enable them air their grievance of misguided lynching and even help in investigating lynching. Press would also help leaders such as Wells to rally afro Americans to fight against lynching and even counter the whites’ press which depicts afro Americans as rapists and perpetrators of crime.

Question 4

Wells statement that “a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home” means the Afro Americans should have forms of protection against assaults such as lynching. Literary, she tells all the blacks to acquire weapons for the only times an Afro American has gotten away from and assault was when he had a gun and used it for self-defense. The reason why the afro Americans did not react violently during the 1890s was that most of them lacked the tactics of armed self-defense and more so the “Winchester riffles” as Ida calls them i.e. the weapons. They also lacked leaders such as Ida to lead them in the violent resistance. Also, most of the times the whites reacted violently towards their resistance such as lynching and even jailing hence they developed fear. Violence would have propelled cause of black civil rights because the seriousness of the struggle would have made the whites come to negotiation on the matter.

References

Ignatius Donnelly, Populist Party Platform, 1047-1052

Riis, J. A. (2010). How the other half lives. Macmillan.

Wells, I. B. (1996). Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900 (p. 82). Bedford Books.