EV Chapter 13

It is amazing to think and read about how many immigrants came to the United States in such a short amount of time. It is strange that the people already settled in the United States were opposed to new immigrants coming over when most of them themselves were immigrants as well. The first settler of the United States created a strong nativism party against new immigrants. The nativist party created a group called the “Know-Nothing” Party, which seems slightly ironic that people would create a party that implies that they “know nothing” it would seem that with a name like that no one would take them serious. The main reason behind nativism was the fear of the new and the unknown people immigrating to the United States, the “natives” were afraid that the new immigrants would disrupt their new government and throw everything that they worked so hard to achieve into chaos. Many of the immigrants who came to the United States were in favor of the Democrat party because the Democrats were more sympathetic to the new immigrants. Another reason for their support of the Democrat party was because Republicans were in favor of abolishing slavery and the new immigrants, the Irish in particular, feared that the freed slaves would be strong competition for them with jobs/the economy; the Whig party also was big in religion and good morals which did not support the German and Irish ways of heavy drinking. As the population of the United States continued to grow so did the continuation of the expansion to the west. It was believed by many that there was a “Manifest Destiny”, meaning that god was telling the people of the United States that it was their destiny to expand westward until we couldn't anymore. Another reason for westward expansion was  due in part to that the settlers in the United States were not wisely using/harvesting the land and therefore would expand westward in search for new land for their crops. 

EV Chapter 7

Chapter 7 focused on the formation of political parties and a new government. Washington was the first President of the United States, after our gain of independence and formation of a government. It wasn't until his reelection that the United States had formed two distinct political parties, the Federalists and the Republicans. The federalists later became the Democratic Party although in the beginning the Federalists were against a democracy ruling whereas Republicans believed in equality and liberty, although their support in this only obtained to Whites.  It seemed interesting to me that it took Washington so long to come out and declare which political party he was affiliated with since now days we know what party the future president is before he is even elected as president. During the 1800’s is when women started to slowly become more recognized and noticed for things other than bearing and raising children, they began to gain some more respect and in very few states were even allowed to vote.  These times were a major turning point for women; with the support from the Republican Party some women were able to gain an educational equality as well as political equality. Although some women were able to obtain a higher education outside the home there wasn't many ways for them to apply it.  It seems strange to me that although women were able to gain an education that they weren't really able to apply any of that knowledge outside of the home; it seems almost pointless to gain an education that you are unable to use and apply in your daily life.

EV Chapter 11

While reading chapter 11 it was really interesting and fascinating to read how much the United States advanced within such a short time period, of twenty years. We went from a country of agriculture to one of both agriculture and great technology in a matter of years.  Inventions such as the steam engine, cotton gin, reaper, sewing machine, and telegraph threw the United States into a time of development and rapid growth.  Interchangeable parts was a large part of this, it allowed us to essentially mass produce.  The railroad was also a very important development as it allowed us to transport both passengers and freight long distances much faster than by the canal system. I thought it was interesting that we were able to create all of this technology and yet we couldn’t explain what caused diseased. It seems that technology being so complicated and intricate that we would also be able to know a little more about the human body than we did back then.  Something as simple as not knowing that clean hands before handling patients, which now seems so obvious, was not even something that was considered back then, the connection that dirty hands led to infected patients was not made. It’s interesting yet not surprising that technological advancements came before medical ones. Phrenology was one of the first big medical “advancements”, it was a belief that a person’s character could be read by examining the bumps on their skull. This practice was both widely accepted and frowned upon saying that it was godless. Something else that I found interesting while reading this chapter was that along with the development of technology came the development of entertainment. Where at one time people were able to entertain themselves for little or no money, the development of theatres and newspapers changed that. People now relied on others to provide them their entertainment and would pay money to watch shows and performances as well as on the newspaper. One form of entertainment that I found somewhat appalling was that they had minstrel shows, which featured whites playing blacks and depicting racial stereotypes and diminishing black Americans. I found it shocking that this was such a huge form of entertainment. During this time period Americans were not known for their works in poetry or fiction, it wasn’t until the American Renaissance that Americans role in literature skyrocketed. Women were a big part of the romanticism of novels and were great at enrapturing their readers.