Ghost Ship Warehouse Fires

1. The Ghost Ship warehouse was one of many converted warehouses in Oakland that serve as a work and living haven for a mix of musicians and artists from jewelers to poets to tattoo artists and photographers. Its purpose was to nurture the thriving underground art scene. The warehouse was filled with exoctic decor such as rainbow lanterns gaurded by figures of Asian dieties encompassed by a welcoming vibe. This particular night that the fire happened there was a electronic dance party going on.

2. The fire started in the warehouse because of an overload on the electrical system in the warhouse most likely caused by all of the power used by the performers at the electronic dance party. There were so many victims because there were no fire alarms, no sprinklers and the two stairways from the second floor party did not lead to the buildings only two exits. Also there were many obscurities in the paths to exits so it was very hard for people to actually make it to the exits.

3. In both fires there were very few easily accesible exits as well as the abudance of obscurites such as machines and cloth in the triangle fire and nic nacs and furniture in the Oakland ghost ship fire. The lack of exits combined with the blocked paths to exits are what made both of these fires so dangerous and resulted in a massive loss of life.
              



Sources:
https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/story/introduction.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/urvivor-oakland-ghost-ship-fire-recalls-tragedy-article-1.2906006
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/12/us/oakland-warehouse-ghost-ship-fire.html

Native American Picked Topic Journal Entry

https://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/255747?terms=Carlos+Nakai&sType=quick
Biography of Carlos Nakai
Talks about how he used other genres of music and combined it with the traditional native american style with a flute to expose native american style of music.

http://rcarlosnakai.com/
Official website of Carlos Nakai
Glorifies Carlos Nakai as the most succesful native american musician ever telling us his many acheivments and how he has changed native american music.

Carlos Nakai was perhaps one of the most influential Native American musicians, composers, and artists of all time. Carlos Nakai is recognized as the worlds preeminent Native Amerian flutists. In more than 30 best selling records, he has combined many modern forms of music with traditional idioms to create a unique genre to expose Native American music and artists. Carlos Nakai who first started out playing trumpet in high school, was greatly inspired but one of the greatest native american artists named R. C. Gorman to pursue his dream of becoming a musician. After High School Nakai went to the U.S Marine Corps to play trumpet but was rejected because he only weighed a measly 97 pounds. After coming home and attending college at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Nakai became very interested in traditional flute playing. So much in that he made his decision that he would pursue a career as a flutist. He ended up selling more than 4.3 million albums and reaching platinum on his album called "Canyon Trilogy". Nakai has incorporated many genres of music into his works such as new age, world beat jazz, and classical. Overall, Carlos Nakai has been one of the most influential native american musicians and artists whos story should inspire other people that anything is possible.


http://rcarlosnakai.com/


http://rcarlosnakai.com/

Native American US History Classwork

Link: https://archive.org/stream/conciseschoolhis02camp#page/n25/mode/2up


In this activity that we are doing in class, we are first looking up online the definition of the words "savage" and "savagery". According to dictionary.com, the definition of "savage" is to be fierce, ferocious, cruel, uncivilized, and barbarious. The definition of "savagery" is an uncivilized barbaric state or condition. Then we were to read pages 18-21 of an online history textbook passage from 1887 and look for how the author of the textbook described the native americans and the ways in which they lived there lives.

If I were an American student reading this text as part of schoolwork my view on Native Americans would be greatly affected. In this textbook the author most of the time does not even refer to native americans as native americans, just plainly as savages. If I knew the defintion of savage, which means cruel, uncivilized and barbaric, that is how I would see them. I would most likely not view them as people but as there own animal. When the author is describing the way they fight war, he is describing them as barbaric warriors who take no mercy. " The ones who could show the greatest number of scalps torn from his foes was considered the greatest warrior... Sometimes, when they took a prisoner, they would burn him at the stake by a slow fire, and torture him horribly in every way." The way the author is depecting the native americans, is exactly the definition of savage, cruel, barbaric, and uncivilized. My views about native american would have greatly deviated from before and after I read this text book. Ultimatley, I would think to myself "How are these barbaric things human beings?" based on the description given by the author. I would be terrified to ever see or meet one and I could not imagine living in the close proximity of a native american tribe.

Letters From the West

1. This letter is about a husband writing back to his wife about the new land that he has bought out west in Nebraska describing his surrondings, the features of the land, and how beautiful it was. He also went into great detail of the financial apsect of all of the land. He also made sure to insure that if the wife and baby moved out there then they would be off fine with the money that they have. In the second letter the husband is writing back to the wife and baby delivering the bad news that he is down to 20 dollars and he will not be able to find work for the rest of the winter.

2.  The main thing that stood out to me is that 160 acres cost only 600$. Back then, 600$ translates to around 11,000$ today. Today, however, 1 acre of land would cost around 4,000$.

3. Letter writing was very importat to the people travling west back then. It was there only way of communicating with family back home, its not like they had phones. Also every time that the family back home recieved a letter it would let them know that their family member out west was not dead.

William Porters Letter Home:  http://www.oregonpioneers.com/porter2.htm

Glory and 12 Years a Slave Movie Essay

     Movies can provide a great deal of insight into specific events in history that a book or even our imagination could not even picture. There are limits to how words on a page can paint a picture inside of our heads. Whether it be because there is not enough description through the text or the reader can simply not fatham the events transpiring whitin the book. However, in movies, there are endless possibilities of detail that can be shown to draw the watcher closer the real life events and make it so they can almost picture themselves in the actors shoes. Movies are a very important tool when understanding and analyzing history and can completley change the way that people view historical events. It is possible to develop great analytical skills and explore real events, circumstances, and attitudes just by wathcing movies in a critical way, and doing some research.

     Within historical movies, there is much more underneath the surface that cannot be seen right in front of your eyes. The characters emotions, body language and possibly their thoughts must be analyzed in order to get a full understanding of the event that the character is living in. An example of this analytical thinking being required is during the movie Glory is when the soldiers of the 54th regiment were all huddled around the fire singing spiritual songs just days before battle. To someone who doesnt try to analyze this scene will only see just that. However, there is much more that you can learn from this scene, such as that the this is the moment that some of the soldiers such as Thomas, finally realize that they must depend on each other and not one of them is any better or worse than anybody else in that regiment. This is depected by passionate clapping and singing by Thomas who is also staring into a fire, thinking  about not just himself, but the people that he must depend on all around him. Scenes such as these throughout any historical movie can provide a great deal of insight to the way that the men of that time period could and mostl likely would have felt. If seen in the right ways, these types of scenes can greatly increase analytical skills. Not only can analytical skills be increased by historical movies but your knowledge of historical events can also be increased as well.

   
                                         
                                   

Black Soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts regiment from Glory

http://thescruffynerfherder.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Glory.jpg

Throughout historical movies there are many important historical events that happen that also happened in the real life. Many of the events depicted in movies are highly accurate but need to be shortened and usually only include the interesting parts to keep the audience engaged. For the filmmaker this is always a struggle and can be very impressive if pulled of correctly. An example of this being pulled of very well is in the movie I 12 Years a Slave where Ford is going throughout a slave market looking at all of the slaves for sale. The seller goes through them very quickly and only really takes a look at the interesting ones like the very big men or the kids. The seller also does not give Ford very much time to choose and its almost like Ford knows exactly who he wants right away. However, in real life as depicted by a Pennslyvania man in a slave market,much more thought would go into buying a slave by the buyer, they would take each slave off to the side and would have them stripped and would inspect them, having them do many physical tests such as running in place or walking smartly up and down and down from stands or stairs. The buyer would also be notified of their height, weight, and experience.In the the depiction from 12 Years a Slave, the process of buying a slave is much faster because of the filmakers need to keep the audience engaged and to only fit in the important moments from real life events that would have taken much longer whick maybe could have been fit into a book. The watcher, rather than the reader, will be able to get much more out of the shorter depiction than the much longer one because of the amount of details that would be packed into a short amount of time. Especially if further research is done to clear up any questions the watcher has after watching the movie.

   

Solomon and fellow slaves on the sugar cane plantation

http://grist.org/living/blood-on-the-leaves-the-hidden-environmental-story-in-12-years-a-slave/

    It is possible to develop great analytical skills and explore real events, circumstances, and attitudes just by wathcing movies in a critical way, and doing some research. Movies are very powerful learning tool by their ability to cleary depict events that may be hard for some people to imagine. Analystical skills are greatly developed by watching historical movies because of the need to analyze certain scenes the clearly understand what they actually mean on the inside. Real events can also be explored very deeply because of the ways that movies fit so much important actions, details, and emotions into such a short time frame so that more information can be retained and interpreted. Not only are movies a good way that students can learn about historical events if they are watched in a critical and analytical way, they are one of  the best ways to learn about events throughout history.

Work Cited

. "A Northerner Visits a Slave Market." Inside American History, 2007., .

Bruchko, Erica Ann. "Solomon Northup." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2016, americanhistory.abc-       

     clio.com/Search/Display/1839436. Accessed 27 Sept. 2016.

Canby, Vincent. "Review/Film Black Combat Bravery in the Civil War." New York Times. New York 

     Times, n.d. Web.

Dargis, Manohla. "The Blood and Tears, Not the Magnolias." The New York Times. The New York 
     Times, 17 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2016.

Newman, Jason. "Slavery." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2016, americanhistory.abc-

     clio.com/Search/Display/263268. Accessed 27 Sept. 2016.

Williams, Charles H. "54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment." American        

     History, ABC-CLIO, 2016, americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1825050. Accessed 27 

     Sept. 2016.

   

12 Years a Slave Paraphrasing Activity

"Of course the language and violence in 12 Years a Slave makes you wince, but the brutality here is as sleek as a knitting needle, and slips between your ribs to get at you somewhere deep, beyond simple expressions of disgust or disbelief. McQueen has no intention of turning his film into a Western liberal guilt-trip — he doesn’t have to. What we see speaks for itself. The entire nation, south and north alike, is in the grip of communal insanity."

According to Robbie Collin's review on 12 Years a Slave, the harsh language and the brutal violence in 12 Years a Slave causes the toughest of people to cringe, but these harsh acts are meant to be a punch in the stomach, to express an answer the "why?"s. The purpose of the film is not to make us feel bad that slavery carried out the way it did, it doesn't have to be. It all plays out before our eyes. The Confederacy and the Union alike, all living in the midst of universal madness.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/06/03/12-years-a-slave-review-this-at-last-really-is-history-written-w/