Above, Below, Up Down Left Right

Continuing our unit on the Civil War, our class examined the progression of African American freedom during the time period. The essential questions for this lesson were: Who "gave" freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent were Abraham Lincoln's actions influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans? Freedom from above indicates that people in positions of power are the ones who brought about change, while freedom from below indicates that the actual group of affected people got up and did something about their situation, bringing about their own change. We looked at 6 different sources and decided if they showed freedom from above or below. On our new whiteboard surfaces, we put the sources in order of what we thought they showed.

The 6 documents, with a brief analysis, are put in order here. The top 4 documents, from Lincoln, can be found here,
while the bottom 2, on African Americans in the Civil War, are found here.

Overall, freedom came from below in this case. Though Lincoln was the one that did the actual freeing part, his documents show a slight reluctance to follow through with this; he takes multiple baby steps before going all out with freeing the slaves. Instead, African Americans forced the issue here, making themselves a visible problem to the Union, who needed to deal with them somehow.

I feel that a similar "freedom from below" situation can easily be seen LGBTQ community. After such a prolonged period of stigma and oppression, it's nice to see them getting some visibility today, like the Bruce Jenner interview in recent news. I'd say this is freedom from below, considering how hard the LGBTQ community has worked the get their message out, especially with some federal governments' reluctance on the subject of gay marriage. The dichotomy of freedom coming from above or below, while not necessarily black or white, is an interesting way to look at any major change in the rights of a group of people.

Sidenote: Chattanooga is a Great Name

The QR code leading to the battle
information on the Chattanooga
Campaign.

To learn about the Civil War battles throughout the course of history, our class did a scavenger hunt. This lesson had two essential questions: Who was the ultimate victor in each the theaters of war: East West, and Naval, and what are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles? Each student (with a few pairs) received a battle to research and create a short summary of, including the theater, who won, and the reasons why. My battle, the Chattanooga Campaign, can be found here. Each battle then created a bit.ly link and corresponding QR code. Each battle was posted in different spots around the school with the QR code ready for scanning, including the battle information and directions to the next sign. Everyone, equipped with devices, went around taking notes on each battle. Afterwards, we examined this map here which gives many examples of Civil War battles. We then used a Padlet to post our thoughts on who ultimately won in each theater of war. The Padlet is down below.

The North definitively won both the west and naval theaters, but the east theater was a little more back and forth. In the West, the confederacy lacked the supplies to win much, giving the Union the advantage. On the sea, the Union had better equipment and stronger troops, while the confederacy had mishaps like blowing up their own ship. At the beginning, poor leadership in the North gave the South an edge in the East. But after the North took the Mississippi River, splitting the South, and changed leadership from weaker generals like McClellan to strong leaders like Grant and Sherman, the North began to win.

Spoiler: Lincoln Wins

Our class was learning about the Election of 1860, one of the big events that helped spark the Civil War. The essential question was: How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery? This presidential race was unusual, in that 4 major candidates ran instead of 2. But what importance does this event hold in U.S. history? To start, we got into small groups and read through this webpage here to learn about the Election of 1860. We took the images that the site used and saved them, taking notes on how each picture fit into the story of the election and its aftermath. We also used Educreations, placing the site's images (and a few that we found on our own) and narrating with our understanding of the Election of 1860.



(technical issues with the title slide and end slide citations. This project was done by myself, Brian Biggio, and Sean Margossian. Sources are below.)

http://www.civilwarinart.org/exhibits/show/causes/introduction/the-election-of-1860-and-seces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bell_(Tennessee_politician)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

(Alternative Title: The Stats and Strats of the Civil War)

The most recent lesson for the class was learning about the sides of the Civil War, their positions and their strategies. The essential question was: How did the differences between the North and South affect each region's strategy and success in the Civil War? The information we got was analyzed and placed into an infographic, using sites and apps like Infogram, Piktochart, and Canva.

I didn't have much of a hard time choosing information to put in the graphic; I put in anything that I thought was interesting, useful, and relevant to the topic, and also was easily represented in the form of a chart or something similar. My two harder choices were on what application I wanted to use. I tested all three choices. Canva is nice, but not really suitable for a vertical infographic like what we needed. Piktochart and Infogram are roughly level, but I ended up choosing Piktochart mostly because I liked its map feature better (which I used in the infographic a lot). My second difficulty was presenting the information in an aesthetically pleasing way. I had a lot of problems with silly things like color palettes- I used blue for the Union and gray for the Confederacy, but it mostly made a dull color palette, and I had problems making it look more exciting. Overall, though, I found the project really cool, and if I need to do a digital project with anything of this sort, I will probably resort to one of these three applications (Canva looks incredibly versatile).

The information presented gives clear insight as to the situations that each side faced at the start of the war. It's fairly obvious that the North has most of the advantages, having more people and resources to work with, but the South also has a few contextual advantages, like being the defensive side of the war and supplying a lot of the world's cotton.

An Elephant in Time

Our class's latest lesson was on the events leading up to the Civil War. The essential question was this: how do we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century? We spent time learning about 8 events and putting them in a timeline, with events in favor of the north and anti-slavery advocates on top, and events in favor of slavery and the south down below. Some events had multiple parts, so there are multiple branching lines from a single dot.

The timeline itself. Events on the top half favor anti-slavery
advocates, the bottom half favors pro-slavery advocates.

This secondary part of the timeline includes descriptions of
the events pictured above.

The answer to the essential question is that politicians, rather than directly facing the dividing issue of slavery, made concessions and compromises on the minor issues that came up, thus skirting around the big issue at hand. The Compromise of 1850 consisted of five parts, some in favor of the north and some in favor of the south, so as to not upset the balance of free vs. slave states in the Senate. But by leaving some territories open to either side in the compromise, legislators set up a race to populate these territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act shows the result; the north wanted railroad access to western territories to populate those areas with anti-slavery settlers, and so they gave slavery a chance to grow north through those territories in exchange. This directly led to what became known as Bleeding Kansas. The Kansas settlers, torn between free-soil and pro-slavery ideals, became immersed in a near-civil war. Even two capitals were formed; Topeka for free-soil, Lecompton for pro-slavery. And yet, nothing came to stop it because nobody wanted to address the issue. The John Brown raid also shows politicians only taking an issue at face value and not addressing the underlying problem: John Brown, having raided a federal arsenal with the intent of starting a revolt of slaves, gets hanged for treason and nothing else happens, only a rising of tensions between the north and south.

This elephant in the room topic is interesting to see how politicians react to the issues, big and small, and how to recognize an elephant in the room situation and deal with the elephant first and foremost. The RWT Timeline app was fun to use, but fairly limited with a history of crashing. I like these types of activities, but perhaps on a different platform next time.

Slavery: The Numbers and the People

One of the greatest historical stains of the USA is the existence of slavery until the Civil War. From colonization until abolition, slavery was an integral part of America's foundation. As such an integral part of American history, it deserves a little in-depth examination.

This interactive map showed a side-by-side comparison of the growth of
the cotton industry and the growth of slavery. The correlation here is
strong, especially seeing the section in Louisiana appear on both maps
at the same time in the same area. Source: Mapping History

Slavery had long-been established in America, but during the late 18th century, it seemed to be in decline. Masters were increasingly freeing their own slaves as ideals of liberty and equality grew. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin revitalized the industry. The cotton gin was a machine that separated the seeds out of cotton plants, making cotton production much easier. With this boost in cotton brought a boost in slavery: the first decade of the 19th century saw a 33% increase in the slave population. And by 1860, cotton made up 57% of US exports, up from practically nothing in 1790. With cotton such an important part of the US economy, slavery by extension became entrenched in American society.

To get past numbers and really look at the human aspect of slavery, it might be helpful to look at the story of Abdul Rahman, a prince from the African region of Futa Jallon who was captured from his home, shipped and sold to slavery in Natchez, Mississippi (our class notes during the documentary of his life can be found here). The slave ship Rahman was on had all slaves chained below deck, with little water and so crowded that some died and the crew didn't even notice. When he was being sold in Natchez, Rahman was physically examined like everyday goods: he was felt, looked up and down and asked to open his mouth before he was sold to Thomas Foster, a small plantation owner. Refusing to work, Rahman, or "Prince" as he became known, was beaten by Foster. The conditions that slaves were put in during the time period were exceedingly harsh, and they were treated as far less than human, crushing their human dignity.

The institution of slavery ignored the humanity of those who were enslaved as well. When Rahman tried to tell Foster his story and get freed, Foster instead mocked him, which is what gave Rahman his nickname for the rest of his time in America, "Prince." The way in which slaves were captured ignores the fact that these were people who had lives, completely uprooted and forced into a rough lifestyle. A similar situation occurred when Rahman left America, having been freed from enslavement. He had found a wife and had had kids during his time on Foster's plantation, but he had to pay to free his wife, and he couldn't raise the money to free his children; they were left enslaved while he and his wife left back to Africa. Rahman's story shows a lack of human empathy for those who were seen as "below" people, which was really the root of the problem with slavery: placing some people below others in organized society for trivial matters.

Women's Rights (and also Pantene)

19th century was a time for change in the United States. As more and more activists spoke out to provide equal rights in the land of opportunity, America began to be shaped into what we see today. But all change is controversial. One of the most controversial movements was the reform of women's rights. A woman lacked a lot of rights in those days: her right to own property, divorce her husband, vote, and even custody of her children if her husband appointed another guardian in his will.

The Recorder's article gives criticism of the Women's
Rights Convention and then gives an excerpt of the
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.
Larger image here. From Library of Congress,
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc006198.jpg

In July of 1848, many gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, creating the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions as a cry for women's rights. Reactions from all around the USA were widespread, and varied from supporting the movement to outright condemning it. One newspaper, The Recorder, published a piece on August 3rd concerning their opinion of the convention stating, "We need not say that we think the movement excessively silly..." However, others spoke up in support. In response to articles like The Recorder's, The National Reformer
published this statement on August 31: "But to be serious– we would like to be informed why– we would ask but for one valid reason why woman should be deprived of her equal rights as an intelligent being."

Even from the 19th century, I think we still have a similar problem today. Although not to the extremes of some back in 1848, gender can have an effect on how society views someone in the 21st century. This advertisement from Pantene gives some examples, like someone dressing nice can be seen as smooth or a showoff depending on their gender. However, I think this ad also serves as proof that these differences are getting recognized and we are slowly making steps to improve the situation and bridge the gender gap.

This ad, from Pantene, displays traits that society labels men and women differently for. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gz-jxjCmg