The Great Blight tells the story of the terrible intolerance that turned the failure of a single crop into the national catastrophe known as the Irish Potato Famine. In the Potato Famine, over a million people died of starvation and disease. It was blamed on a fungus which blighted and destroyed the Irish potato crop between 1845 and 1851. But that was the lesser cause. During those years Ireland continued to export food to England. The theory called “political economy,” which held sway at that time, actually taught that the disaster was good for the national well-being. Moreover, the English… [Continue reading]
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Gunpowder Man
Gunpowder Man tells the story of Chinese people who fled the catastrophic end of the Taiping Rebellion, helped build the transcontinental railroad, settled in the US, and endured the racist reactions of the 1880’s. Though the contribution of the Chinese to the Central Pacific Railroad is fairly well known, the story is a dramatic one that bears retelling. Moreover the conditions in China that did much to push the people from their homeland is less widely known here. In addition, an understanding of the anti-Asian feeling in the nineteenth century is important for students who must still grapple with the… [Continue reading]
Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit: The Horse that Became America’s Hero tells the story of the legendary Thoroughbred that lifted America’s spirits during the worst years of the Great Depression. The colt came out of nowhere to captivate America’s imagination during the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis of the Twentieth Century. Seabiscuit was born to an illustrious stable. But he was treated with neither consideration nor understanding and was forced to race an unconscionable 35 times as a two-year-old. He developed a “bad attitude” and his owners tried to sell him for whatever price they could get. Two men from California, owner Charles… [Continue reading]
The Betsy Ross Of the Bears
The Betsy Ross of the Bears tells the story of California pioneer Nancy Kelsey. She was the first U.S. woman to cross the Sierra Nevada, which she did with the Bidwell-Bartleson Party in 1841. With her husband Ben she played an active role in the final years of Mexican California and provided the material from which the famous Bear Flag was made. The standard picture of the pioneer wife is of a heroic woman overcoming the hostilities of nature, and perhaps Native Americans, to make her family’s life on the frontier. She helps to build America and fulfill Manifest Destiny…. [Continue reading]
Dust Storm
Art and Survival in a Time of Paranoia Dust Storm tells a story of the internment of Japanese Americans during the second world war, using the art of Chiura Obata. The Japanese American artist, Chiura Obata (1885-1975) was an internationally known Professor of Art at the University of California when the US was drawn into World War II. He was interned with his family and sent to Topaz relocation camp in Utah. Throughout his internment he was ceaselessly active both in documenting the experience in a series of paintings and drawings, and in striving to humanize the internment for others… [Continue reading]
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