UNIV 3539 Blog

On the Line

Henry Ford had to find a way to produce a car that the common people could afford and in the process change the way his workers worked. Ford was influenced by the Frederick Winslow Taylor methods theorized in his book, The Principals of Scientific Management. Taylor was brought into evaluate the process of making Ford?s car. ?Taylorism? brought in the assemble line and more efficient way to build cars. The process was broken down into many steps where each man did the same part each day but could still only put out 200 cars a day. Then the assembly line started where the men stayed in one spot and a conveyor belt moved the parts to the men and then the man would assemble the part onto the car. Many men quit after a few weeks, as the work was extremely hard. The turnover rate was over 400 percent. Ford had to find a way to keep his employees working so he decided to raise the pay to $5 a day, which was a lot of money for the times. High pay for hard work was what was expected. The $5 a day pay and the introduction of the moving assembly line was the solutions and the means to establishing a more affordable car and more cars produced.

The Ford Sociological Department was created to follow through with the plan that Ford had designed to find and keep the right employees. For employees to qualify for the $5 a day plan they had to be over 22, find himself sober, a saver, steady worker, family man, and live in a one family home.
The Ford Sociological Department was created to administer the plan by sending field agents into the community to visit workers at home to determine the quality of their home lives. It was believed that influencing the behavior of employees at home would turn them into better workers. All employees over 22 were eligible for the plan, which included a shortened workday from nine to eight hours in addition to the opportunity to earn five dollars per day. In order for a worker to be eligible to receive his share of the company's profits himself to be of the quality of worker designed. Ford stated that his money would not be wasted in ?riotous living?. Workers who did not comply risked being paid half as much for performing the same work as their co-workers, and could eventually lose their jobs.

Other practices that Ford indulged his company into were teaching English to the immigrant employees. 70 % of Fords? workers were immigrants. Ford also had a private security to get rid of anyone thought to be pro union. He established a payback plan for those employees who wanted to save to purchase a car. Ford set the a great standards in helping his employees that in turn, helped his company advance into a great car assembly company. Companies today could take a lesson in the Ford/Taylor theory of good business practices.

Yes, the western allies should have freed eastern Europe from communism in 1945. The American government was convinced that obstacles to free trade, spread after the 1929 slump and risen to its maximum expression in the Nazi and Fascist autarchy, had been largely responsible of the international tensions that led to the Second World War. The implementation of a free trade policy became a basic condition for any country to receive the so desired American economic aid.Moreover, in that time the world witnessed the beginning of Cold War. The United States, applying the denominated Truman Doctrine to curb the expansion of communism and of the Soviet Union, launched the Marshall Plan to alleviate the difficulties of European countries. It was to foster economic development in a destroyed Europe with the political objective of impeding the extension of the communism.

Mohandas Gandhi's political dream was in some sense a failure, so too was his dream of an India cleansed of the age-old inequities of caste and prejudice, and yet uncorrupted by modern technology and industry. He imagined a country where countless Indian peasants wove their own clothes and tilled their own land, without what he considered the ruinous effects of modernity. But after his death, history passed him by: his great disciple, Jawaharlal Nehru, was an ardent socialist, and by the 1950s Nehru's five-year plans were turning India into an industrial state?and eventually, a nuclear state. Meanwhile, the iniquities of class and gender that he had so loathed persisted, even into the 21st century.

A radical transformation has occurred in the United States. There was a time when Saddam Hussein?s torture of Iraqi citizens was justification for regime change. Now torture of civilians is accepted as a legitimate military strategy. There was a time when using chemical weapons on crowds of innocent people would draw international outrage. Now anything is justified. There was a time when training young men for holy wars in religious camps was a hallmark of fanatics. Today, young Americans are being trained as Christian warriors, worshipping images of George Bush and preparing to die for their beliefs.

The Nuclear Age has defiley been a curse to the entire world. The introduction of nuclear weapons into this hotbed of fear, hostility, and paranoia heated things up even more, magnifying both fears and suspicions as it became clear that a nuclear war would mean annihilation for at least one of the powers involved. Powerless to change things abroad, the United States redirected its fear of the Soviet Union inward, toward its own people, during the dark period of McCarthyism. The leaders of this movement believed communism to be an insidious and powerful force that had already infiltrated the country. The communist hunters targeted figures from all areas of American life?Hollywood, the arts, academia, the scientific community, and the government itself. Oppenheimer was only one of many to be targeted as a potential communist and drummed out of public life.

In 1936 Hitler broke yet another provision of the Treaty of Versailles: he moved token military forces into the Rhineland, the province of Germany west of the Rhine that had been demilitarized after 1918. Once again it seemed pointless to protest, or to take action. No other European country had demilitarized zones within its borders. To require that Germany maintain a demilitarized zone seemed likely to pointlessly inflame German nationalism. And to enforce the provision would presumably require an invasion of Germany, the deposition of Hitler, and the installation of a puppet government--for Hitler seemed genuinely popular: there was a substantial risk that new elections would simply return Hitler to power.

Lost Peace was about Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles drafted at the Paris Peace Conference was the primary treaty that ended World War I. Over thirty nations participated in drafting the treaty, but its major authors were the Big Four nations. The Treaty included the charter for the new League of Nations drafted by President Wilson. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919, required Germany to disarm, admit sole blame for the war, and pay massive reparations to the Allies. Land reorganization ceded one-eighth of Germany?s territory to other nations, and set the stage for French occupation of the west bank of the Rhine (which lasted 15 years). Wilson did succeed in achieving autonomy for Poland, the Baltic states, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, but overall did little to salvage his liberal aims. The harsh terms of the treaty made many Germans resentful, feelings which would resurface and play a part in World War II. The treaty also offended Russia, since portions were clearly designed to weaken Russian influence.

The On The Line series focused on the way that Americans improved their factors after the 1920's. One of the most major improvements was the automobile. The automobile really changed the way people lived in the 1920's. The automobile became the backbone of the American economy. It altered the American landscape and American's society, and it was only one of the several factors in the country's business boom in the 1920's. The automobile changed the way people lived their lives, the way the city was run, and how the economy was dealt with. The automobile changed the way everyday people lived their lives. Rural families now could travel to the city for shopping and entertainment. It also gave families the opportunity to take a vacation in places far away. Automobiles also gave younger people and women additional opportunities to be more independent. It allowed people to live far away from their jobs causing the urban sprawl. The automobile changed the way the city was run in a few ways.

The Breadline Unit focused on how people reacted to the Great Depression. Despite these numerous benefits, however, the New Deal ultimately failed to end the Great Depression. More than ten years after the Crash of 1929, millions of Americans were still hungry, homeless, and unemployed. Some historians argue that Roosevelt could have ended the depression completely if he had put more federal dollars into the economy, but this conclusion is debatable. The depression ended only after the United States entered World War II in 1941, when the increased demand for wartime commodities such as ships, tanks, and munitions gave the U.S. economy the jump start it needed.

The Total War series was a cocept about that had the entire nation: people, industry, government, etc... geared to the sole purpose of fighting an intense, focused war. On the pointy end it meant that anything that you could do to your enemy to weaken them and strengthen your hand was a valid strategy. Some concepts that are a part of total war are strategic bombing of civilian centers, unrestricted submarine warfare, government control of industry.

I agree with Courtney Ayers when she talked about the Jews. I also agree with you Maxwell when you said that the American and German racial views. The Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were denaturalization laws passed by the government of Nazi Germany. They used a pseudoscientific basis for racial discrimination against Jews. People with four German grandparents (white circles on the chart illustration) were of "German blood", while people were classified as Jews if they descended from three or more Jewish grandparents One or more Jewish grandparents made someone "mixed blood." The Nazis used the religious observance of a person's grandparents to determine their raceRace was arguably the major theoretical foundation of anthropology in the first half of the 20th century.However, a closer look shows that both shared several important presuppositions which derived from a similar conceptual matrix. These presuppositions distinguished them from mainstream American and British anthropology. In the wake of social functionalism, race lost much of its significance in British anthropology. Race continued, nevertheless, to occupy a central place in American and German anthropology.

I agree again with Ryan Williams when he said that the world would find it's first global conflict and that it would change the world as we know it. The soldiers did not know that nine million of them would never see their family again. Because, when we said it was the war to end all wars we thought we would make the "league of nations", which was instead made after world war II and name changed to United Nations, if we had made the League of nations back then this war could have most likely been prevented from happening, and there would have been a longer lasting peace and many of lives spared. Plus not only was it because of that, but two races disliked another and thought themselves racially inferior. So it was about two races becoming dominate in the world and eventually those two would go after eachother.

Reg Flag was a series about the Russian Revolution. Russia faced famine in the years leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Hungry peasants were unhappy peasants, and even Lenin recognized that this would encourage mass support for overthrow of the monarchy. An unpopular war reversed the economic boom that had entered at the beginning of the century, and starving peasants resorted to crime and revolt. Promises from political parties to enact change encouraged many to jump on the revolutionary bandwagon. Both urban and rural workers began to expect more freedoms and observations of human rights by employers and the government. Bolshevik and other political party members stirred up social unrest and gave it political spin. The Duma, or Russian government, was established and dissolved without any real consideration from the tsar. This made apparent to the people that Tsar Nicholas did not take the Duma seriously and would not give in to peasant demands

The Age of Hope gave hope for the people of Europe because of all of the changes that occured in the century. A major socially change occured also in Eupore. For example, in the first decades of the 20th century, and especially in the 20s, the age of those marrying for the first time increased. Thus before World War I bridegrooms were 27 year old on the average and brides 23. These ages reached the highest point during the war with 29.7 years for men and 25.3 years for women. The proportion of those never married also increased in these decades. Before the war, men and women remained celibate their whole lives. Consequently, the average age at marriage did not markedly differ from the Western European level. The convergence was also promoted by stagnating average ages at first marriage in Western Europe. Regarding celibacy ratios, the differences remained greater, even though the Hungarian figures began to approach the Western European ones, especially for women.

I agree with my classmate Ryan Williams when he said that Lost Peace focuses on the hopes and dreams of World War One. I also believe that the President of the United States of America had a lot of stress on his head. World War I would present the Presidency with two new problems. Woodrow Wilson slogan would see change. America would enter World War I that year. However, President Wilson knew that he would have to first fight to win the hearts and minds of the American people. Wilson was aware that without the support of the American people, he could not enter the war. He knew the American people would have to be convinced that it was necessary for the United States enter a war so far away. He would have to stir their emotions to gain their support. Wilson was in addition faced the problem of how to finance the war effort. The Secretary of the Treasury, William McAdoo was given the task of finding a way to offset the cost of the war. McAdoo decided the best way would be to sell War Bonds that would mature in thirty years, but the bonds would channel money into the hands of the government immediately.

The western allies should have freed eastern Europe communism in 1945. The Cold War was not a better choice; it was not cost effective or less deadly. Despite its rapid and relatively bloodless end, the Cold War was fought at a tremendous cost globally over the course of more than four decades. It cost the U.S. up to $8 trillion in military expenditures, and the lives of nearly 100,000 Americans in Korea and Vietnam.

The Cold War affected the struggles for independence by colonials around the world by basically leaving them to fend for themselves. Countries got their much anticipated independence and freedom to govern themselves as they saw fit but consequently, that was all they were able to do. Many people were left still struggling not by means of oppression but depression. Food was scarce and the economy was fluctuating due to the new government.

These simple postwar ambitions of ordinary people brought about a radical transformation of the American landscape both physically and culturally because of all their past disposition during the Great Depression. They had no food, jobs, and sometimes no shelter. Life was vey hard for people all over the world, not just in the United States, the Great Depression affected everyone. As a result, when the Great Depression ended, people began to want to indulge themselves in the comforts of being able to attain and maintain stability. In turn, they purchased nice cars and homes as well as setting the standard of what we know today as middle class. Culturally, they began to evolve into what was then, a utopian society, people were able to pursue and attain goods for themselves and their families and life was good, it was a time of peace and prosperity after a time of turmoil.

As stated in the article, I do believe that because of our possession of such weapons, we have been able to avoid World War III, so yes, I personally believe that the nuclear age has been a blessing. However, I would still say that it is still a verdict to be determined because no one know exactly what the future holds. For the most part, I do feel safe, but, as stated previously, no one knows what the future holds, so anything could happen, we just must stay prayerful.

I feel that the simple postwar ambitions after WWII, such as a house in the suburbs, a new car or two, and a "nuclear" family brought about the radical transformation of the American landscape by making people want more things than they ever had wanted before. America turned into more of the land of opportunity for people to live in a great home, not only have one nice car but mayeb even to nice ones, and also have it all together enough to have a great family. Physically it changed by obviously people having nicer things in their lives, and culturally it changed by people wanting more for themselves and growing to be a great country...a much different change from the past in being in war and Great Depression. People went from having nothing, being poor, and worried about what they be able to eat of if they will be able to eat to having as much as they want to eat and even more...such as nice houses and cars...pleasureable items.