Piece Information:  “Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain (1952) [Originally Written for Garland & Rooney’s 1939 film, Babes In Arms] Words by Arthur Freed

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Piece Information: 

“Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain (1952)

[Originally Written for Garland & Rooney’s 1939 film, Babes In Arms]

Words by Arthur Freed

Music by Nacio Herb Brown

Choreography by Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen

Performance by Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor & Debbie Reynolds

Instructions: 

Watch the above video link.

Then write a three paragraph critique using the Mini Video Critique Guidelines.  :

You should write your critique with the idea that your readers have not seen the pieces and have no knowledge of them.  You must paint a clear picture of the pieces without just writing step by step details of the story you envision. Think about the important details and how you can discuss them in an interesting way to grab your readers. You will be given all the program information for the pieces you have to watch, but it is advised to do outside reach to support your thoughts.

Suggestions for things that could be included or places to look for ideas to begin when watching videos:

  1. Can you apply class terminology to the description of the performance?
  2. Analyze what you drew you into the piece and what kept you out (likes and dislikes) and explain why or why not.
  3. Identify production elements: costumes, music/sound, lights, props, stage design
  4. Describe the movements.
  5. Did the choreography hold your attention? How did it convey the theme or atmosphere of the piece? What were the mood, images and ideas conveyed?
  6. Was the program based on a narrative/storyline or more abstract?
  7. What style of dance (s) could you identify (i.e. ballet, modern, jazz, ethnic, etc.)?
  8. What could have been done to enhance the performance?
  9. Do you think seeing this piece on video made it different then if you saw it in a theatre live? 

Make sure you included the information listed above about the piece in the opening paragraph. Also remember that your readers have NOT seen this piece so do your best to describe it to them within your critique. Use the information you have learned in your lectures and readings to help support your thoughts.

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The idea that Western Europe and the nations founded by Europeans (especially the United States) were agents of a superior civilization is increasingly targeted for criticism in the first decades of the twentieth century. In your essay,

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The idea that Western Europe and the nations founded by Europeans (especially the United States) were agents of a superior civilization is increasingly targeted for criticism in the first decades of the twentieth century. In your essay,

 

1) summarize the critiques of Western civilization found in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Reed’s articles on World War I, and Cesaire’s, Discourse on Colonialism, and then2) undertake a comparative analysis of the three arguments. A good summary (#1) will include the main points being made (whether directly or by the way a particular story is told or a particular image is constructed) and cite specific passages that illustrate or support these main points. An effective comparative analysis (#2) will discuss similarities and differences in these author’s representations of “civilization” and then evaluate their effectiveness as arguments. To evaluate these arguments, simply answer the following questions – which, if any, do I find persuasive, and why? As a rule of thumb, you will probably want to devote about a page each to your summaries and use the remaining 1-2 pages for your analysis. 4-5 pages, 12-point font, standard margins use course material only (no Internet sources allowed) for direct quotes, place page number in parentheses immediately following quote

 Note: Summarize the Crritiques instead of  simply sumarrize the story

 

 

 

Must follow the following structure:

Introduction:

Context: Early 20th century; Three authors’ critiques of Western civilization.

Subject: Briefly/Generally explain each author’s critique / argument.

Claim: Answer the questions – WHICH author had the most convincing/compelling/persuasive argument and WHY? (**THESIS STATEMENT**)

 

Part I:

WHICH author’s argument is most convincing? EXAMINE the author’s representations of “civilization” (HOW do they define, justify, and/or question this idea?) and SUMMARIZE the critiques of Western civilization found in this author’s text. WHY is this author’s argument most convincing? Or HOW does the author convincingly prove his argument? Explain by discussing the strengths of this author’s representations of “civilization” and provide some evidentiary proof (evidence from the text: citation or paraphrase) to explain HOW this author’s argument is most convincing.

 

Part II:

WHICH author’s argument is less convincing? EXAMINE the author’s representations of “civilization” (HOW do they define, justify, and/or question this idea?) and SUMMARIZE the critiques of Western civilization found in this author’s text. WHY is this author’s argument less convincing? Or HOW does the author fall short of convincingly proving his argument? Explain by discussing the similarities and differences between this and the above author’s representations of “civilization” and and provide some evidentiary proof (evidence from the text: citation or paraphrase) to explain HOW this author’s argument is less convincing than the first author.

 

Part III:

WHICH author’s argument is least convincing? EXAMINE the author’s representations of “civilization” (HOW do they define, justify, and/or question this idea?) and SUMMARIZE the critiques of Western civilization found in this author’s text. WHY is this author’s argument least convincing? Or HOW does the author fall short of convincingly proving his argument? Explain by discussing the similarities and differences between this and the above authors’ representations of “civilization” and and provide some evidentiary proof (evidence from the text: citation or paraphrase) to explain HOW this author’s argument is least convincing compared to the other authors.

 

Conclusion:

 

Reword / Restate your thesis and provide some reason as to why it is important for people to understand/know this information. For instance, what does it teach us about our understanding of “civilization,” or what does it say about critiques of Western civilization during the first half of the 20th century?

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· Pre-contact societies in North America were economically, politically, and culturally diverse.

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Key Takeaways – First Contacts

Key takeaways:

· Pre-contact societies in North America were economically, politically, and culturally diverse.

· A variety of regional political and trading networks and rivalries existed across the continent before the arrival of the Europeans.

· Our understanding of Indian cultures is often distorted by popular representations in books, visual art, and especially movies.

· The arrival of Europeans to the continent caused dramatic changes for both populations. One example highlighted in this video is horses, which did not exist in North America before European contact but became essential to several Indian societies across the continent.

· Environment shaped cultures – the practices of pre-contact societies were generally determined by their surroundings. For example, coastal communities in the northwest focused on fishing while tribes in arid southwestern regions were either nomadic or learned advanced irrigation techniques that allowed them to farm.

Key Terms – First Contacts

 

Matrilineal Some Indian societies traced their ancestry through the mother’s family, a practice that contrasted with European traditions and made the tribes seem uncivilized to explorers from Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands.
The Iroquois League The most powerful military and political alliance in the Northeast region. A formidable opponent or ally for European explorers.
The Five Civilized Tribes A group of southeastern tribes who received this name from Europeans because they adopted many of the traditions of the exploring cultures. Nonetheless, many of them were forced to leave their land during the Trail of Tears and other nineteenth-century removals.
Nomadic Versus Agrarian Tribes The predominant division among Southwestern tribes. This distinction is an indication of the diversity of cultures that existed in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans.

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Key Takeaways – Why Europe Looked West

 

· God, glory, and gold as the primary reasons for European exploration.

· Maritime technologies helped European navigators to venture farther from home than ever before.

· Columbus was seeking a sea route to Asia.

· European competition for natural resources (gold, silver, furs, sugar) and cheap labor spurred exploration of the Americas.

Shelton’s Rap: Lyrics

Gather around children here’s a little story about a white boy that was in a big old hurry. Silk Road was too long. And they knew the world was wide. So a new way to Asia was the thing they had to find.  CHORUS THE GOODS THE GOD THE GLORY THE GOLD. A TALE AS OLD AS TIME. ALWAYS GONNA GET TOLD. The goods the God the glory the gold a tale as old as time always going to get told. Father said Prince Henry go send out all my ships. Prince Henry said my king, the sailors aren’t equipped. Now we can start the school were sailors learn to write look up at the sky navigate by night. The astrolabe will be, the sailor’s tool of choice. And Portugal will soon have a world wide voice. sailing all around, the Portuguese are dope. West coast of Africa, the Cape of good hope. Getting all that spices they’re about to make that money. Rolling in the dough, it’s about to get money.! With natural resources needed to sell as goods in markets, European colonies were set up in the Americas and Asia. Sadly, the Portuguese soon became caught up in the slave trade. In part, because of the Advancements in sailing enabled by Prince Henry in the 1500s. So Portugal went out carrying on their business. The rest of Europe said, “Hey! We can’t let them win this. We got to get involved with these expeditions if these tales of gold are true, we must strengthen our convictions.”  Because it’s all about trade gotten from the colonies. References (not right) of power at home and overseas.  And all the way in Italy the pope heard and thus sent out the missionaries, spread the word of Jesus. So now all over Europe going all over the world caravels were floating and the sails were unfurled. REPEAT chorus The Portuguese people all around the planet. Change the course of history, the world, they slammed it! The Spanish people are all around the planet. Changed the course of history, the world, they slammed it! The English people are all around the planet. Changed the course of history, the world, they slammed it! The French people all around the planet. Change the course of history, the world, they slammed it! Culture, language, government, please!  Religion of Christ. Their power gave these. Put them altogether and they look like this all around the world, they were really hard to miss Between 1788 and 1868 approximately 160,000 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies from United Kingdom’s overcrowded prisons. The indigenous peoples that were already living there, the Aborigines, were nearly wiped out by smallpox and influenza “We are the British Empire sailed all around the world to Australia. We made a penal colony because prisons are overcrowded a Navy in that hemisphere cause we need to shout it. Australia helps us sell our stuff expanding trade to Asia we beat our rivals to this place, hey France, we’re going to tame ya.” Repeat chorus European empires, Africa’s the center everyone wants colonies, cultures in a blender. They think it’s so much better: the Western civilization. spreading Europe’s culture from every euro nation. Sending out religion, to make it seem okay. To override the natives in each and every way. Europe’s gonna rule the world how it wishes. The natives, they don’t care about. Europe’s avaricious. Country against country, competition now ensues. Military buildup. The world, is being used. Competition for Raw materials, markets for their products, and the use of cheap labor (even free)… The countries of Europe competed against each other. To protect their interest across the planet, European countries made bigger armies. Intense rivalries developed over which European country would control the most American, African, and Asian colonies. Imperialistic pride combined with nationalism… European empires headed toward a schism. Alliances were formed, two world gangs were made. With no way out for war, the earth’s a powder keg. Now the stage is set, first world war is now at hand. Entente against alliance, the death of Ferdinand.

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The Columbian Exchange – Essay by Alfred Crosby

The Columbian Exchange

by Alfred Crosby 

Detail from a 1682 map of North America, Novi Belgi Novaeque Angliae, by Nicholas Visscher. (Gilder Lehrman Collection) 

Millions of years ago, continental drift carried the Old World and New Worlds apart, splitting North and South America from Eurasia and Africa. That separation lasted so long that it fostered divergent evolution; for instance, the development of rattlesnakes on one side of the Atlantic and vipers on the other. After 1492, human voyagers in part reversed this tendency. Their artificial re-establishment of connections through the commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria, commonly known as the Columbian Exchange, is one of the more spectacular and significant ecological events of the past millennium.

When Europeans first touched the shores of the Americas, Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips had not traveled west across the Atlantic, and New World crops such as maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc had not traveled east to Europe. In the Americas, there were no horses, cattle, sheep, or goats, all animals of Old World origin. Except for the llama, alpaca, dog, a few fowl, and guinea pig, the New World had no equivalents to the domesticated animals associated with the Old World, nor did it have the pathogens associated with the Old World’s dense populations of humans and such associated creatures as chickens, cattle, black rats, and Aedes egypti mosquitoes. Among these germs were those that carried smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever.

The Columbian exchange of crops affected both the Old World and the New. Amerindian crops that have crossed oceans—for example, maize to China and the white potato to Ireland—have been stimulants to population growth in the Old World. The latter’s crops and livestock have had much the same effect in the Americas—for example, wheat in Kansas and the Pampa, and beef cattle in Texas and Brazil. The full story of the exchange is many volumes long, so for the sake of brevity and clarity let us focus on a specific region, the eastern third of the United States of America.

As might be expected, the Europeans who settled on the east coast of the United States cultivated crops like wheat and apples, which they had brought with them. European weeds, which the colonists did not cultivate and, in fact, preferred to uproot, also fared well in the New World. John Josselyn, an Englishman and amateur naturalist who visited New England twice in the seventeenth century, left us a list, “Of Such Plants as Have Sprung Up since the English Planted and Kept Cattle in New England,” which included couch grass, dandelion, shepherd’s purse, groundsel, sow thistle, and chickweeds. One of these, a plantain (Plantago major), was named “Englishman’s Foot” by the Amerindians of New England and Virginia who believed that it would grow only where the English “have trodden, and was never known before the English came into this country.” Thus, as they intentionally sowed Old World crop seeds, the European settlers were unintentionally contaminating American fields with weed seed. More importantly, they were stripping and burning forests, exposing the native minor flora to direct sunlight and to the hooves and teeth of Old World livestock. The native flora could not tolerate the stress. The imported weeds could, because they had lived with large numbers of grazing animals for thousands of years.

Cattle and horses were brought ashore in the early 1600s and found hospitable climate and terrain in North America. Horses arrived in Virginia as early as 1620 and in Massachusetts in 1629. Many wandered free with little more evidence of their connection to humanity than collars with a hook at the bottom to catch on fences as they tried to leap over them to get at crops. Fences were not for keeping livestock in, but for keeping livestock out.

Native American resistance to the Europeans was ineffective. Indigenous peoples suffered from white brutality, alcoholism, the killing and driving off of game, and the expropriation of farmland, but all these together are insufficient to explain the degree of their defeat. The crucial factor was not people, plants, or animals, but germs. The history of the United States begins with Virginia and Massachusetts, and their histories begin with epidemics of unidentified diseases. At the time of the abortive Virginia colony at Roanoke in the 1580s the nearby Amerindians “began to die quickly. The disease was so strange that they neither knew what it was, nor how to cure it.”[1] When the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, they did so in a village and on a coast nearly cleared of Amerindians by a recent epidemic. Thousands had “died in a great plague not long since; and pity it was and is to see so many goodly fields, and so well seated, without man to dress and manure the same.”[2]

Smallpox was the worst and the most spectacular of the infectious diseases mowing down the Native Americans. The first recorded pandemic of that disease in British North America detonated among the Algonquin of Massachusetts in the early 1630s: William Bradford of Plymouth Plantation wrote that the victims “fell down so generally of this disease as they were in the end not able to help one another, no not to make a fire nor fetch a little water to drink, nor any to bury the dead.”[3]

The missionaries and the traders who ventured into the American interior told the same appalling story about smallpox and the indigenes. In 1738 alone the epidemic destroyed half the Cherokee; in 1759 nearly half the Catawbas; in the first years of the next century two-thirds of the Omahas and perhaps half the entire population between the Missouri River and New Mexico; in 1837–1838 nearly every last one of the Mandans and perhaps half the people of the high plains.

European explorers encountered distinctively American illnesses such as Chagas Disease, but these did not have much effect on Old World populations. Venereal syphilis has also been called American, but that accusation is far from proven. Even if we add all the Old World deaths blamed on American diseases together, including those ascribed to syphilis, the total is insignificant compared to Native American losses to smallpox alone.

The export of America’s native animals has not revolutionized Old World agriculture or ecosystems as the introduction of European animals to the New World did. America’s grey squirrels and muskrats and a few others have established themselves east of the Atlantic and west of the Pacific, but that has not made much of a difference. Some of America’s domesticated animals are raised in the Old World, but turkeys have not displaced chickens and geese, and guinea pigs have proved useful in laboratories, but have not usurped rabbits in the butcher shops.

The New World’s great contribution to the Old is in crop plants. Maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, various squashes, chiles, and manioc have become essentials in the diets of hundreds of millions of Europeans, Africans, and Asians. Their influence on Old World peoples, like that of wheat and rice on New World peoples, goes far to explain the global population explosion of the past three centuries. The Columbian Exchange has been an indispensable factor in that demographic explosion.

All this had nothing to do with superiority or inferiority of biosystems in any absolute sense. It has to do with environmental contrasts. Amerindians were accustomed to living in one particular kind of environment, Europeans and Africans in another. When the Old World peoples came to America, they brought with them all their plants, animals, and germs, creating a kind of environment to which they were already adapted, and so they increased in number. Amerindians had not adapted to European germs, and so initially their numbers plunged. That decline has reversed in our time as Amerindian populations have adapted to the Old World’s environmental influence, but the demographic triumph of the invaders, which was the most spectacular feature of the Old World’s invasion of the New, still stands.

[1] David B. Quinn, ed. The Roanoke Voyages, 1584–1590: Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America (London: Hakluyt Society, 1955), 378.

[2] Edward Winslow, Nathaniel Morton, William Bradford, and Thomas Prince, New England’s Memorial (Cambridge: Allan and Farnham, 1855), 362.

[3] William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, ed. Samuel E. Morison (New York: Knopf, 1952), 271.

Alfred W. Crosby is professor emeritus of history, geography, and American studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to his seminal work on this topic, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (1972), he has also written America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 (1989) and Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (1986).

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WEEK 11 – American Settlement and Frontier – Thoughts – Parr

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WEEK 11 – American Settlement and Frontier – Thoughts – Parr

The United States began a full industrial revolution after 1865, accompanied by an agricultural revolution whereby more food was produced by fewer people. An application of machinery: such as steam-powered harvesters, combines, twine binders, threshers, tractors, roller mills (producing flour), grain elevators; railroads in an increasingly settled West were instrumental in this dual economic growth.

Railroad growth was particularly impressive. By 1900 the United States had over 200,000 miles of track, more than all of the nations of Europe combined. Railroads as an industry required a huge initial capital outlay and a high cost of maintenance, along with the expenses associated with competition among a large number of railroad companies. Growth in this area of the economy was strongly aided by both state and federal subsidies in public lands, freely donated to the tune of 155, 504, 994 acres by the federal government, along with 49,000,000 acres by western states prior to 1900. This land provided right-of-ways, about a mile wide, for railroad tracks, with the excess land being sold by the railroad companies to private purchasers. In addition, the federal government supplied surveys by government engineers. Cheap labor was supplied by large numbers of European and Chinese immigrant labor, who earned very low wages while doing very dangerous work. A target amount of productivity was the laying of about ten miles of track per day. A pivotal accomplishment was the connection of a railroad line across the West in 1869, when the Union Pacific, moving westward from Omaha, met a line being built to the east from Sacramento, by the Central Pacific, in Ogden, Utah. This signified the connection of the country from East to West by railroad.

However, railroads had their elements of danger for passengers and surrounding communities. Shoddy workmanship from too rapid a pace of building in the form of wooden trestles, rails laid, etc., posed hazards. For example, something called “smoke heads,” iron straps on the rails could break loose and penetrate passenger coaches causing injury and death. Fires on wooden passenger coaches could be caused by stoves or by the sparks from steam engine emissions, igniting the cars, clothing or surrounding vegetation. Some byways were of one track requiring sidings where trains could pull over allowing another to pass in the opposite direction. Faulty signals, human error or complicated time tables, magnified the danger. Head-on collisions were anything but rare occurrences.

The invention of the Westinghouse airbrake in the 1870’s was helpful, as was the adoption of a standard gauge of rails in 1882. On November 18, 1883, the United States adopted nationally accepted four regional time zones (standard time) facilitating the use of timetables and schedules

The reputation of railroads, especially among the inhabitants of the West was anything but altruistic. It was suspected, with justification, that railroads charged larger shippers cheaper rates for long-distance freight than those for modest farmers and consumers. In addition, collusion by the heads of railroad giants, to fix rates in order to avoid costly “railroad wars” (the lowering of rates to outbid competitors for customers) was strongly suspected, with justification. One of the targets of mid-western and western populist movements was to have the state and/or federal government reign in, and regulate these corporate giants, often signified by “the octopus.” A popular novel by that name, by a Frank Norris, was a best seller, targeting the railroads as heartless monsters of greed and danger to the public. Farmers’ organizations such as the Grange worked for the relief of farmers by rousing public opinion and by lawsuits in the courts.

However, it must be said that the United States enjoyed a period of tremendous inventive energy during the 19th century. Some examples include Fulton’s steamboat (1807), Morses’s telegraph (1832), McCormick’s harvesters and reapers (1834),Colt’s revolver ( 1836), Deere’s steel plow ( 1837), Goodyear’s vulcanized rubber (1844), Howe’s sewing machine (1846), Otis and the elevator (1853), Drake and the first oil well (1859 –in Pennsylvania), Pullman and the sleeping car for long-distance railroad travel (1859), barbed wire (1874), Bell’s telephone (1876), and Edison’s light bulb ( 1879). In addition, the adoption from Britain of the Bessemer process of steel production in the 1850’s enabled the manufacture of steel which was 10 to 15 times stronger than iron and lasted 20 times longer.

Industrialization was also foster by the development of the concept of the corporation whereby stockholders faced limited liability for debts incurred, only to the extent of the stocks they held. The notion of trusts became evident later in the century, when industries attempted to control sources of raw materials, production and transportation under one super corporation. At the very least, heavy industries stimulated other such industries. Railroads greatly increased the need for timber, copper, iron ore, coal, etc., along with agricultural products, which in turn led to greater western settlement and immigration to the United States in general. The population of the United States doubled between 1870 and 1900, from 38,500,000 to 76,000,000, 12,000,000 of which was made up by immigration. This, of course, provided labor, investors, consumers, etc., for the expanding economy. It is estimated that between 1869 and 1898, 13% of national income went into further industrial expansion.

Railroads were instrumental in attracting settlement in the West. They created land bureaus, sent agents to the East coast and even to Europe to recruit settlers with promises of loans, free transportation and cheap land. Between 1870 and 1900, railroads brought 2.2 million foreigners to the trans-Mississippi West. Such newcomers were often misled about the quality of land and the ease of its development. Parts of the West experienced less rainfall than advertised and a lack of timber for construction and fuel. Thus, it was soon realized there was a need for deep wells and irrigation procedures. Farmers could very easily fall into debt with mortgages and the unexpected cost of farming beyond tools, plows, wire, seed, horses, etc. Railroads also encouraged immigrants to specialize in cash crops: wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco; which were vulnerable to fluctuating world-wide market forces. To make matters worse, natural disasters could plague the farmers of the mid-West and West; storms, soil erosion, grasshoppers, etc. The federal government also encouraged western settlement with a series of Homestead Acts beginning in 1862, with the allurement of 160 acres for anyone willing to live on the land for ten years and cultivate and improve it. Unfortunately, most of such land ended up in the hands of greedy land speculators.

Currency reform accompanied the industrialization and westward movement of the nation. The Civil War provided a need for paper money to finance the war effort. Greenbacks (a paper currency supposedly hard to counterfeit due to its green color and use of cotton and linen fibers) established a federal currency helping to tie the nation together. The need to back paper currency in terms of face values worth of gold or silver required the establishments of new mints beyond the one in Philadelphia. The San Francisco mint, in the wake of the 1849 gold rush, and a Denver mint following gold and silver discoveries facilitated creation of the needed currency to abet the economic growth of the nation.

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