A People’s History of the United States..
Description Use this book to answer the following discussions: Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. NY: Harper-Collins, 2003. Plagarism free and number each discussion. Discussion 1 How did black Americans participate in the Civil War? How did their participation affect the outcome of the war? Discussion 2 According to Zinn, what was “the other civil war?” How and why did it originate? This is a challenging one. Discussion 3 This question is cumulative from the two chapters you were assigned for the week. Why was 1877 such an important year in American history? Be sure to include specific evidence in your response. Respond to this in own opinion (Paige) The year 1877 is an important year in American history, because it was the year America was in the depths of the Depression and it was a time for reconciliation between southern and northern elites (203). In 1877, farmers and workers were starting to rebel after being in an economic depression since 1873 (205). The year was important because of the compromise of 1877 which assured the whites political autonomy and non-intervention in matters of race policy and promised them a share in the blessings of the new economic order (206). This year also saw a number of strikes by railroad workers, who “shook the nation as no labor conflict in its history had done (245). The strikes had started due to wage cuts on many railroads, which already had low wages. . Strikes appeared all over from West Virginia, to Baltimore, to Pittsburg, and came to be known as the great railroad strikes of 1877 (251). More than half the freight on the Nation’s 75,000 miles of track had stopped running at the height of the strikes(251). The railroads made some concessions and the strikes ” may have stimulated the business unionism of the American Federation of Labor, as well as the national unity of labor” (251). At the end of Chapter 10, Zinn writes, “In 1877, the same year blacks learned they did not have enough strength to make real the promise of equality in the Civil War, working people learned they were not united enough, not powerful enough, to defeat the combination of private capital and government power”