Thanks to the miracle of the internet, young people today can watch the awful television commercials of the 50's, 60's, and 70's--including the campaign commercials. Lucky you! Please take a look at a one or two of the 1968 presidential campaign commercials I link here:
The advent of television had a major affect on the way Americans viewed their nation and the political issues confronting America. Please watch this video clip of the 1965 Watts riots. What would your own reaction have been after seeing clips like this on the evening news? Remember that the riots broke out just days after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a supplement to the earlier Civil Rights Act of 1964. Do you think this is just a coincidence, or do you see a possible connection?
If you want to improve a country, perhaps one way would be to improve the people who live in that country. Some among the "progressives" hit on a novel way to bring about such improvement: breed better people. The attempt to improve the genetic heritage of America (and to hasten the evolution of the species) led to what's called the eugenics movement. Please read through the Wikipedia summary of the eugenics movement. What do you see here that suggests that there is a dark side to the progressive movement?
People who make themselves wealthy sometimes make others better off as well, and it's possible to view the Mellon, Rockefeller, and Stanford types much more positively than I suggested in lecture. With Andrew Carnegie especially, it's easy to view him more positively than I do. Please read through Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth. How does reading this affect your general impression of Carnegie? Does it make you more sympathetic or not?
One of the quickest and best ways to get a feel for the overall course of American political history is to read through the inaugural addresses of the presidents on the Bartleby "Great Books Online" site. Please select *one* of the inaugural addresses from the period we have been studying. Read through the address and cite here a line that seems to you particularly important. Try to find a line that might help you and others reading the blog prepare for one of the exam study questions, e.g., the question on the quality of the men elected to the presidency during this period. Garfield's address might be particularly useful since his time as president was so brief and there is little else to evaluate him on.
