views on other people's blogs

the blogs were pretty amazing, for example Ashley Willis's one on how Annie Taylor was the first person to fall down Niagra Falls in a barrel just to have fame and money. Another good one was the danger of the Great Influenza killing 1/3 of the U.S population because of the mass deaths it brought the influenza down abit. Ben's was actually amazing due to the many ways they had storage for rich people and how it had rugs and paintings.

Birth of Jazz, Ragtime

Sam Rushing

Ana Lawson

11-6-11

Birth of Jazz, Ragtime

Not many people around my age have heard of the awesome piano based music Ragtime. It was created in the 1890’s to the 1920’s and had a second coming in the 1970’s. Ragtime music was often created by African Americans from

“ragging” tunes turning some songs in to choreographic songs. There were many geniuses that created many Ragtime songs such as Will Marion Cook, George Walker, and the Johnson Brothers. Not only people alone there was a ragtime group called Tin Pan Alley that composed Ragtime music. There was one though that was called the “King of Ragtime” and his name was Scott Joplin. One of his songs, Maple

Leaf Rag, was able to sell a million copies in the 1890’s to 1900’s.

            Scott Joplin made many types that young people would love to hear his songs, one of his songs was based on the terrible historic tragedy known as Crash at Crush. In Crush, Texas 1896, the idea was to stage two trains to look as though they crash into each other. Sadly the boilers from the trains exploded and maimed and killed a few people. Historians have no idea whatsoever, whether Scott was there at the crash or not. Some music though could not be found such as Morning Glory.

            Sadly historians could not find a lot about Scott Joplin’s life, for example where exactly he was born and when he was born. Historians do know that Scott Joplin’s lived in Sedalia, Missouri for a certain amount of years, but would have a huge impact with his life. Which helped contribute his ragtime music, since ragtime music was popular in New Orleans, and St. Louis. Then his family moved to Texarkana. Scott first taught himself to play the piano at a white owned house where his mom worked at. Then a German born man who was a musician named Julius Weiss. He then taught Scott how to truly play the piano. The first reported sign of his start of his musical career was the summertime of 1891, in Texarkana. Scott Joplin had many types of gigs and went to music classes at the George R. Smith College at Sedalia. Due to Julius’s teachings he was able to compose a concerto and called it Treemonisha, dedicating the song to his mother. Sadly the first time Scott played it was known as a failure,(this hyperlink is not his original this one was finished with the chorus this time).

            Just like Jazz, and also the Blues, Ragtime music also had a choreographic style, Scott Joplin made some of his songs for the pastime African American dance, “The Cake Walk”. It was actually created around the times of slavery, and for entertainment was couples would “strut around” and whoever won would win the cake. Examples of one of his cakewalk songs is the Swipsey Cakewalk. Besides this song that was a big influence on Ragtime music. At the beginning of the Jazz age, the Charleston came and took over.

            Around the year 1895, the group that had a huge impact on the music industry was the famous ragtime Tin Pan Alley Group. Among one of the publishers and also editor, was the famous Irving Berlin a Jewish Russian immigrant, who is known as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. What he did for the Tin Pan Alley was he categorized into four different categories, ballads, novelty songs, ragtime, and show songs, that way it would be easier to organize. Irving was not just a publisher, his ragtime song the Alexander’s Ragtime Band was known as a ragtime worldwide phenomenon. (Reason for the name Alexander was used was it was used for black characters).  Scott Joplin was known as the King of Ragtime, but Berlin was known as America’s Chief Ragtime Composer.

   

                                                                 Tin Pan Alley

                                                                 Crash at Crush

                                                                 

report status on ragtime and Scott Joplin

for now the status on my report is going really well i started having a great liking to Ragtime which was made around the 1890's to the 1920's. It taught me that it is a preform of jazz and is mostly played by the piano i never realized that "Hello Ma Baby" was actually a ragtime created by the artists known as Tin Pan Alley. thanks for showing me Scott Joplin, a song that i like is Crash at Crush march song.

Total spending on Thanksgiving

In Thanksgiving it is not as consuming as Christmas is or Halloween this year but last year on Thanksgiving in 2010 the total spending that was done for Thanksgiving was 30.50 billion dollars compared to
Christmas at least 135.16 billion dollars, it not as big as
Christmas but it is a huge economic raiser.



http://www.ibisworld.com/Common/MediaCenter/Holiday%20Spending.pdf

question number 6 on national labor union

The special difficulties that labor face in 1870 was the National Labor Unions that gave workers rights.

Faces of America

Summarize what the films were about, and explain what a person might learn or appreciate from watching them. (2 paragraphs)


Faces of America is about 12 famous Americans and tells about the story of their descendants and their families coming to America. Due to new developments in geneology and genetics, Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr. makes use of this technology to find the ancestry of these people.


This program shows how these families fought with everything they had to make sure they reached America. This is quite interesting. Some of them had to escape, some came here to ensure their family did not leave, and some of them fought for this country during World War II, despite their race and ethnicity. One can learn a lot about the 12 families, such as that despite being from all different places around the world, it was luck, skill, and determination that brought them all here.  

Andrew Carnegie

WHEN, WHY, and HOW did Carnegie give away money? 

Carnegie used his money to help many foundations but disliked charity due to believing in the value of hard work instead of giving money away. This is why he used his money to create the Carnegie Institution which help fund many cultural, educational, and scientific institutions in the 19th century and still today. He used his money to build over 2500 libraries, and he also gave 125 million dollars to a foundation called the Carnegie Corporation which helps colleges and schools. Andrew Carnegie used to live next door to a wealthy man named Colonel James Anderson who would allow working boys to use his library for free due to the United States of America not having a system of public libraries. Andrew Carnegie never forgot the Colonel's generosity and supported education since then. Andrew Carnegie was a firm believer of World Peace. He decided to create the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and and also funded the building of the Hague Palace of Peace. Which is known as the World Court in the Netherlands in 1911.  


I learned about Carnegie here  and here.