Author: jperez29

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For this blog, I will be adressing both Scaling the Dust Bowl by Cunfer, as well as Environmental disaster by Koppes. In Koppes work Environmental Disasters, he mentions two books very heavily, one was written by Worster, the other by Bonnifield. He argues that both have a great insight of how the Dust Bowl was created, at first he states what a great, and new insight Worster offers by stating, as Gravity21 explains, “Worster believes the Dust Bowl was the creation of man and their belief in capitalism”. He supports this statement by qouting Worster, and mentioning how the land the farmers moved to was not meant for wheat, however, since wheat was such a big commodity, the land would be made into farm land at all cost. Where as Bonnifield, argues that capitalism wasn’t the thing to blame. It was the soil, and Nature in general that was to blame. In the end Koppes states how Bonnifields book was, poorly written and didn’t have enough evidence to support his theory but, instead chose to side with Worsters book, whom he said was written very well, and provided a clear and concrete theory that he supported very well.

As for Scaling the Dust Bowl, by Cunfer. He argues the opposite, stating how Worster didn’t have very good evidence to support his idea, the reason being was because, he only took primary sources from two locations, and although these places were the heart land of where the Dust Bowl occurred, it would have been even more beneficial to have used GSI to calculate more data on even more locations, which would have allowed his to support his thesis even more. As Gparker77 states from our last reading, “He talks about how historians are given a new way of examining things through and explore. The field offers a large opening to new studies and making new ways of collecting data”. This statement gives a great example of what the article Scaling a Dust Bowl was trying to prove, which is we need to start collecting and using data to help support History.

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In this weeks reading, “Photography, Gender, and 1930’s Farm Relief,” Wendy Kozol tries to examine through photographs that the RA/FSA published, what exactly was their goal, and how they planned to help rural people at that time. Kazoo mentions that in the 1930’s photos were beginning to become a more credible source, so magazines and other sources with photography blossomed.  With the help of photos, they gave people and insight on how bad the situation was, showing that the government needed to provide even more aid to the people. However on the photos, Kozul believed that the Women, needed more help than Men did. She argues that Women are depicted as Madonnas or nurturers.  Kazoo states that, unlike Jessicasbode statement where she talks about Marxism stating “She connects feminism with Marxism because they “believe class structure has a role in gender,” Kozol states that class isn’t the only issue in the photo, but in fact it is the actions that the women in the photos are preforming, which is always either carrying a child. She believes that women should have been depicted in actual roles either in the field working as they often did. However, the RA/FSA wanted to divide gender by the roles they played in society. Another arguement Kozol mentions is the fact that gender is defined by the term Madonna, which as Cluna3 states is a approach that, “Marxist feminists also have a historic approach, that there must be a “material” explanation for gender”. So to sum that statement up, in order to fall into the female category of a gender you must be able to give birth.

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In chapter 3, Kevin Rozario, explians how the middle, as well as the upper class in society, profit off of disasters that can be earthquakes, fires, floods, wars, or even just destroying property with the intent of building something new. He explains how throughout history disasters have destroyed cities, but that the destruction of city has been revolutionized to be  a positive thing. Especially in the Capitalistic world. He goes on to explain how that if a city is destroyed you have the potential to build something more impressive, modern, and profitable. He also states that although lower class people do not benefit because most of the time their home and valuable items are destroyed, wealthier people can but the land for a cheap price and turn it into something more profitable for themselves. He also explains how in New York, they would constantly destroy and rebuild to gain more profit. This was possible because of capitalism, unlike Marxism as, JohnKane, explains their intentions, “Their plan had many steps that needed to be taken in order to achieve this goal; some included seizing private property, nationalizing factories and agricultural production, and regulating production throughout the market”. With the controlling of land, the idea of destroying to rebuild would be irrelevant, because they would’t see it as useful, because not too any people would profit from it, thus making people content with what they had, and not wanting to modernize themselves. Chapter 4 goes more into detail about Disasters but still mentions how class is a issue. The disaster which it talks about, is the Earthquake of San Francisco, which caused many deaths to undocumented Chinese immigrants. The author explains how the upper class tried to blame the damage of the city on fire, rather than the actual earthquake, so that they could still convince people to live in the city. However many people knew that the fire wasn’t to blame, but rather that the upper and middle class wanted to turn this disaster that mostly happened to the immigrants into a way to profit off of their damaged properties. People knew this and still wrote against the upper class and stated the facts, that the city was damaged by earthquakes, and by doing so stand ups against the upper class and supports ZHEDRICK‘s idea that, “Though this work can be seen as a call to arms, it is better used as a framework for a growing working class to understand the inherent powers they hold over the middle and upper classes”. The power they held was to expose the truth that the city was a risk, because of the damage the earthquakes could cause.

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In the beginning of the semester it was difficult for me to understand what exactly we needed to put into the blogs. It was difficult to know exactly what points to bring up. This class definitely helped me to understand what the text is trying to explain.  This class allowed me to analyze what the text was trying to explain with a different view point then i had ever before. As http://courses.shroutdocs.org/hist300a-spring2017/author/zhoeffken/ explains in their blog, the author, Cronon, is trying to explain what is so important about Chicago.

I believe this class not only gave me the skill to analyze material better, but it also allowed me to have a better historical mindset on why things are the way they are. Another example is when, http://courses.shroutdocs.org/hist300a-spring2017/author/rebekahbenninger1/, explains how the city of Galveston was destroyed then how the citizens decided to build a massive wall to protect the city, as well as lifting the whole town above sea level. The reason being, is because the city had so much invested into it, that millions of dollars would be lost if people didn’t move back. We saw this in Cronons book, when several investors, also known as Boosters moved into Chicago and saw massive potential in the city.

In essence, this class has taught me how to analyze material better, as well as use other material to correspond with previous material, which will eventually be beneficial in my future History papers.

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Historiography is the questioning of certain events throughout History.  It’s the idea of questioning what it is you are reading, and how credible the source is. For example, Popkin explains how different books give different insight on certain events throughout History. Stating that History books in Schools often give facts, hoping students just memorize the information so they could be good history students. Popkin then goes on to talk about how in order to because a Historian you need to Implement Historiography, or otherwise question where the author got his source, and if you agree with the statement. For example, ZHOEFFKEN mentions how Cronon states, “The development of the railroad systems helped make traveling into the city easier, at first the railroad did not have a hub in Chicago yet it still helped boost the economy”. If ZHOEFFKEN questions whether or not he believes railroad actually did help Chicago’s economy boost, whether he agrees or disagrees he would have to find evidence to support his idea. This is the idea of Historiography. Popkin also states that, Historiography questions are often the most difficult to answer, and often times go unanswered, causing many issues in the world of Humanities. However we should not let this discourage historians from questioning what we believe.