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.