Responses to Sources

Hey all,

Like Jenni, these comments will be formatted person by person:

Brendan:
A few points stuck out to me from those 4 chronicles. The war is commonly believed to be a uniting force among different races and backgrounds, though these interviews seem to refute that idea. Not to say the war encourage discrimination, but instead that perhaps it did less to alleviate discrimination than popularly believed. Especially telling was Mr. Gonzalez's decision to transfer to a segregated battalion. Relating to my next point: since these are not only interviews, but interviews taken 50 years after the war, you must proceed cautiously with the emotion and commentary. These men offer some telling observations regarding how they felt and the effect the war had upon them, but how much can we trust our memories when we are so far removed? The facts of the narratives, like Mr. Gonzalez transferring battalions, speak louder than their words and provide the strongest base for an argument.

Chris:
The comments of Helen Gage are fascinating insofar as they at the very least reveal common stereotypes of Chinese immigrants. The context of these memoirs is crucial here because her words can be construed in many different ways. Do you know if she was intending these memoirs to be published? Is there any way of looking at other parts of her memoirs to formulate some sort of judgment regarding her impartiality? Perhaps I may be speaking from my own personal reservations, but I always am hesitant when people begin making generalizations about a racial group in general, whether positive or negative. Did she really think all of this or is she just regurgitating popular conceptions? Just a thought.

Andrea:
I obviously can't really know without reading the whole autobiography, but why do you think Mary Church Terrell wrote her autobiography? I don't know if you want to go into an in-depth conversation regarding the Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois philosophies but this passage reads just a little too idealistic for me. Perhaps it is stylized for readability, but if Mary Church Terrell is a Booker T. Washington philosophy type, as she seems to be, then it brings into question her impartiality. At least when looking at the passages, it seems like she may be trying to idealize the good and leave out the bad for the sake of representing African Americans as capable of assimilating.

Sylvie:
This source ties in so well with your argument that the abortion issue brought Catholics into the conservative camp. Furthermore, it demonstrates Buckley's justification for his strong political stances. This piece seems to suggest that Buckley sees himself as a type of moral crusader standing up for Catholic ideals in an age when the Catholic Church has gone weak. The question then becomes, why did Buckley not frame his argument as a call back to Catholicism? Buckley sees his political beliefs as defending true Catholicism, but then why did he never end up becoming a religious figure? The other question is: Is Buckley merely using his Catholicism as a tool to rally a stronger conservative base or is he truly distraught by the liberaliztion of Vatican II?

Alice:
The intriguing part of these sources is the conclusion: the Pinkerton's presence was legal and not necessarily the cause of the Homestead violence but their presence is still not acceptable in American society. Because I am discussing this in another class of mine, I think you should take a look at wider social changes during the turn of the century. The peroid from particularly 1890-1910 brought on dramatic changes in attitude towards the role of government in society. In the post-Civil War industrial period corporations were treated as individuals and in fact granted their freedom based on the 14th amendment (which originally granted slaves their freedom). In an isolated sense, the growing violence due to the Pinkerton's had a powerful role in their eventual regulation, your argument would be made much more powerful by looking at the sweeping societal changes. Americans for the first time looked to the government and society as a form of collective protection from the regulation of Pinkertons to the creation of Worker's Comp and arguably culminating in the New Deal. This idea may be too large to discuss at length in your paper, but you would be able to find numerous secondary sources for support.

Jenni:
I'm not sure if you noticed this as well, but additionally, none of the advertisements depict men. While even today no sanitary ads involve men, there exists an implication that you will be able to keep this secret from men. All of the references to embarrassment seem to be references to men, as well as the references to wearing "filmy gowns" being sexual. These aspects also seem to be skirting the line of sexuality versus modesty. My point being that the ads play with the tension in what they present, but also in what they omit. To discuss interactions with men would be too immodest and perhaps weaken the advertising.