Dramatically changed. It destroyed everything people believed about america and the american government. Once the wars over and this is an important day to talk about it, the anniversary of firing at fort sumter everybody has different ideas of what the nation is supposed to become. There were ideas about what africanamerican people should be. The northerners had ideas of what america should be. The indians and chinese out west had ideas about what america should be. And certainly the northern man who had won the war had thoughts on what america should be. But the critical question on was what it would be was who was going to have a say in it. He will go through that as well. Who was going to have a say on what that nation would be would have a dramatic effect on what that nation became. Today, i want to talk about lives in theens 19th century, and their role in what was the reconstruction and the rebuilding of the north, south, and west. The story of women is way more crucial to that
Between america and the american government. So once the war is over and this is a good day to talk about this, today is the anniversary of the firing on fort sumter. Everybody has different ideas about what the nation is supposed to become. Weve really gone through a lot of that with ideas that African American men who fought for the union had ideas what america should be and certainly white southerners had ideas about what america should be. The northerners had ideas. The indians and chinese who were out west had ideas about what america should be. And certainly the northern men who had fought and won the war had ideas. About what the country should be. But the critical question as to what it was going to be was who was going to have a say in it. Weve gone through that as well. Who had a say in what that new nation was going to be was going to have a dramatic effect on what it eventually became. So today i want to talk about women and womens lives in the late 19th century and their r
Say something about robert la follette jr. And how he what his career in the u. S. Senate was like. I presume he was one of the socalled isolationist senators. Correct me if im wrong. Junior like what was la follette junior like as a senator. La follette junior did not want to be a senator. This was his obligation as a member of his family. His younger brother wanted desperately to be senator, but he was too young. So he is a dutiful senator. Yes, he opposes u. S. Entry into world war i. Hes a solid senator. He does good work. All of these years, but he hates campaigning. At one point hes campaigning, someone brays out from the audience, youre not as good as your paw and you never will be. And he said, no one knows that better than i, my friend, no one knows that better than i. But he does his duty and he stays in the senate for 21 years. And then hes supposed to go back to wisconsin and do some campaigning. So he doesnt and is defeated by joe mccarthy. Which as you can imagine is pret
Hard enough and tries hard enough and makes good decisions hes guaranteed to succeed. So hes always chastising himself for being too rash and making bad decisions. Here he is almost a new years eve kind of resolution determined to cultivate habits of determination, energy and industry, feel that i am in a bad situation and must use my utmost effort to keep ahead. So to him people are failing because there are Larger Forces at work. He ends this entry with saw land lady and told her i was not able to pay the rent. Something that i think if anybodys ever been in that position, particularly with two young children, you know thats not a very good situation to be in. Henry george is shaped a little bit by his own personal background but hes also shaped by the troubling duality of the gilded age. Gilded age is a great metaphor, right . A great term. Mark twain coins the term. It suggests that on one hand, things look golden. It is a golden age. And it is an amazing age of technology, of Weal
Implications for our society. So lets begin. Lets talk about who this guy, henry george was. He was born in 1839 to a middle class, lower middleclass family. What lot of people think because he wrote this book on poverty that he must have grown up in poverty. He actually experienced poverty in his middle years, fairly extreme. So henry george was not a very good student, and he left school about the seventh grade. His father steered him into a trade, where he would learn the craft of typesetting, which was a very important trade and a great opportunity. So george flourished, but he was very ambitious, he headed out to california. He hopes to make it big, but he has this idea that hes destined for something great. Really experiencing povrt full on, and often. He would succeed at something, and then fail, but the good things is the printing of trade always guaranteed him something, so he went from the typesetting room to doing a bit of spot write and editing, and eventually became a very