Lower Class Historiography Essay

Some people look at history as a boring subject, but that’s because they haven’t thought of it like a marvelous tale of action, drama, tragedy, and whole lot of chaos. By thinking of it that way, it will make the subject much more interesting.

Why is history important? It is both necessary and helpful to the study the context of prior history because it reveals who we are in relation to other people, cultures, and countries. History influences the way people can process information viewed from other races, and cultures, and even speak, “The old saying is, if we don’t know where we came from then we don’t know where we are going.” By studying history we can take what others’ have done and build on it.

Historians produce knowledge for us to learn from in the form of written documentation showing what people have done in the

Historians believe they need to find the truth. They make arguments, write papers, and give lecture on what they are saying is the truth. Historians want to learn what happened. This is important, because history teaches many lessons. Students of history agree or disagree with historian's arguments and what they say happened or what is the cause of some event.

History class in itself has a specific purpose which seems to be frequently forgotten. We learn about violent and horrible events in our past, as well as life- changing and positively impacting ones. From the negative events, we learn what went wrong and how to prevent similar tragedies from happening. From the positive, we gather knowledge and comprehension of the basis of our modern society. We are a self- repairing race, analyzing every flaw and figuring out what caused it. It's an ancient practice, trial and error is human nature.

“I don’t understand why I have to take this class. All that old history stuff has no relevance to my life, and it is a waste of time to fool with it. My life today is more important than the lives of all those dead and boring people.” This remark is said more frequently than we realize. History is a combination of events that created our present and future today. The past it what simply gives our present it’s value. Another way to look at history is it can be compared to our ancestry line. Without our ancestors we wouldn’t have the make-up of genes that we do today. For example, the Columbian exchange is one of the events in history that has really impacted our world. Not only did one change come from the event but a variety including food, plants, animals, goods and knowledge. History also exposes knowledge to us. It is the resource that allows us to better our lives and expand our knowledge. Believe it or not, our life we peruse everyday consist of history. Including languages, we inherited, religions that weren’t just created on the spot, technologies that have been upgraded in the past years, and the clothing we decided to put on our backs everyday that has evolved from different materials to different fittings. The world has evolved in many ways in the past and it continues to evolve.

We live in a world where every day we wake up trying to make a living and get onto the next day repeating the same thing over and over. Waking up each day and realizing that you are not able to survive in this world without any money can have a huge impact towards any goal you are trying to reach. In some cases we tend to set the bar high but there is only one problem, how are we going to get enough money to pay for our future goals? Growing up in the working class has been a ride to remember. Experiencing poverty can also have a great affect in your life. After reading three amazing articles one by Richard Rodriguez the second by Barbara Ehrenreich and the last one by Bell Hook, I have learned that there is so much more than to be classified into a class (working class, middle class, and poverty).

Furthermore, local history in general needs to be cared about more. Like said before, “the top level of prestige” among historians “is occupied by those who teach African or Asian history” (Hicken 1). This “prestige” is also portrayed very well by Herb Block’s political cartoon "Except for Those of Us Who Are above It.” Which, displays bureaucrats sitting on top of Washington above everyone else, with a caption “Equal Justice Under Law.” Which, shows that those of more important roles consider themselves better than the lower rules. All together, this shows that after people spend countless years in school and in the work force being a historian, they are studying the histories abroad and of more accomplishment, rather than their own with facts that have no meaning. Although, even major historians have hypocritically “given themselves over to the study of some phase of history which, in the long run, amounted to only a minor aspect of a larger problem” (Hicken 1). Yet, they ridicule local history and those who research it. These issues amongst historians are the major underlying issues when proposing the concept of a local history class.

History is the study of people and events from the past. However, history in high school is not being taught correctly. For example, Black history is not being taught the way it should be. My experience in high school with learning about black history was that it was not required to be taught. Teachers never really mentioned the important things that happened in black history. They only gave us quotes about black history and some of the people that were apart of black history. I never knew the true meaning of black history and what it was all about. Still today I am not sure what really happened during that period. But the truth behind history is beginning to come out with the removal of the confederate monument. We are now seeing that high

The history that is discussed in classrooms today is not what it once was. History is no longer held with the same value as it was once before. History repeats itself. We can learn the story of history and unpack it to understand. Through history we can learn the effects of change. Through history we learn so much.

In the lower class, classism leads to this class not getting their basic material needs met which may lead to being hurt or death. Being a part of this class, can cause a person to have poor self-esteem, have issues with others, and live a poor life. This factor will likely lead to homelessness, hunger, and other forms

To think like a historian, I think, is based on past, event in history so many questions what happen in the past that cause event who was affected was there turning point decision made in history that affected our past or present. Dating back the pass brings many questions is like puzzle no idea where the event happened, who was involved, what was affected, when did it occur.

A historian’s role is to inform the human race of the occurrences of the past, for if we forget the past we will repeat the same mistakes in the future. The lessons of the past become the innovations of the now, and it is this very concept that denotes the power of historians. History is all subjects, it is the math, science, and art of the past this makes history the single most vital subject in all of the world, which makes the irony of the fact that history is not a highly regarded area of study quite sad.

Also since I learned about social class from Marx and neo-Marx theories, I understand some social reasons why there are inequalities, and the relationship between class inequalities and other aspects such as social institution. I would say this class is one of the reasons why I got interested in social class and eventually I wrote about class differences for my senior thesis. Especially we had many opportunities to study social class it gives me he idea, “each person doesn’t have own thoughts or idea to be rich or improve their social status because of pressures from people around or society”, “even thought people don’t feel they have personal right by the pressures, I don’t think these people try to aim to get bourgeoisies’ powers.” To make these clear, I could get the strong idea that people who are lower class people can’t or even don’t try to improve their life. At the time, I gave “pressure from people and society” as a reason of this problem but I argue that it is because it is almost impossible to do once they get in lower class, such as poverty cycle, because of strong social structure.

It can shows allies, enemies, betrayals and friendships. Had it not been for history we wouldn't have the freedom we do as a country today. History defines our cultures. It allows to see and understand were people from our cultures did and what they been through. It teaches us tradition. I am a Italian, and if not for history I might not have know where the pizza came from. History influences our daily lives. If it wasn't for history we wouldn't understand the need for improvement. It teaches us our beliefs, what we believe in, and why we believe in it. If it wasn't for history we would have no understanding of religion or