Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126
Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127
In Biel’s writing, Unknown and Unsung, he used the 1912 Titanic disaster and the reactions to it in the United States to explain and highlight the lesser known elements of the American culture in the Progressive era: the reactions of women, black people, and the poor. He explains how two major factions of feminists disagreed on the actions of the upper class women, how most black people were not phased by the disaster and only reacted about it through song, and how the rising socialist movement used the poor conditions on the titanic as an example of the dire straights of workers rights. The goals of the feminist and progressive movements remind me of a quote by Winston Churchill, “Never let a good tragedy go to waste.” Whether they meant it maliciously or were rather using it as an honest way to spread their message the results are the same. The third part of Biel’s writing focused on the progressive movement and that reminded me of the communist manifesto. Biel explains that the leaders of the movement denounced the lack of trained professional, for cutting costs (a common complaint against capitalists), and the disregard for human life for the purpose of cutting costs. He went on to explain how the radicals used this disaster to prove how little regard the bourgeoisie had about their lives (the amount of rich that lived compared to the poor) and the power that they had if they realized they literally made the ship run. As Marx explain in the manifesto, summed up by ZHEDRICK, ” 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.”

Leave a Reply