8 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2021
    1. They endeavored to replace Indians’ tribal social units with small, patriarchal households. Women’s labor became a contentious issue because few tribes divided labor according to the gender norms of middle- and upper-class Americans. Fieldwork, the traditional domain of white males, was primarily performed by Native women, who also usually controlled the products of their labor, if not the land that was worked, giving them status in society as laborers and food providers. For missionaries, the goal was to get Native women to leave the fields and engage in more proper “women’s” work—housework.

      The removal of tribal social units and the brainwash of gender norms twisted indigenous women's identity recognition, and subcontiously made them feel less belonged. There are researches on Native American elders' psychological traumas that result in extremely high suicidal rates among this social group. The tragic facts are in relation of these negative historical reformations.

    2. Many of these ancillary operations profited from the mining boom: as failed prospectors found, the rush itself often generated more wealth than the mines.

      Isn't it the same case with the Olympic Games and every host city? So many cities from the world compete to be the host, then expand their businesses and hope the event would generate profits from the tourists.

    1. philanthropic monopolies

      Philanthropy is private wealth deployed for public purposes. All wealth is ultimately derived from the commonwealth. Using it privately is justified only when the private market enhances freedom, entrepreneurship and pluralism in a way that the public sector cannot.

  2. Aug 2021
    1. The inequality of outcomes was to be not merely tolerated but encouraged and celebrated.

      This is probably the reason why politicians are fond of talking about this challenge, but never seem to solve the problem after all.

    2. The sudden appearance of the extreme wealth of industrial and financial leaders alongside the crippling squalor of the urban and rural poor shocked Americans.

      Another evidence of the rich is getting richer, the poor is getting poorer.

    3. The notion of a glittering world of wealth and technological innovation masking massive social inequities and deep-seated corruption gave the era its most common label, the Gilded Age

      At the beginning of this chapter, labor was not treated with enough of paid, and then comes with the birth of industrialism which was supposedly offering possibilities to higher and broader paid jobs. However, it in fact repeated the same problem and perhaps worsened.

    4. The precision of steel parts, the harnessing of electricity, the innovations of machine tools, and the mass markets wrought by the railroads offered new avenues for efficiency.

      This was necessary probably because machine-based manufacturing requires less human labor. And the level of skillset of performing the machines would come with higher paid.

    5. a rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread.

      This reminds me of the BLM movement at the beginning of 2020, when the former president announced a similar threat of shooting to protestors who looted stores.